Zephen12
Member
Note 1: Professor, I apologize for the length, but I dutifully answered your question without skimping. Feel free to skip to "Answering the Professor" or the “take-away” section I provided at the end for quick reference.
Note 2: Before reading the results at the bottom of this post (covered by the spoiler white-out), try to take a guess as to which (1) character and (2) place are most commonly described as “fair.” Make a shortlist. You may be surprised who comes out on top. I was.
Note 2: Before reading the results at the bottom of this post (covered by the spoiler white-out), try to take a guess as to which (1) character and (2) place are most commonly described as “fair.” Make a shortlist. You may be surprised who comes out on top. I was.
~ ~ ~
IntroOh Professor, Professor, what have you done? If only you knew the scope of your question when you had asked it! I have learned much about Tolkien’s use of the word “fair” in my perusal of the text, and I am happy to share some results and insights below. Because it sounded like others were also at work on this subject, feel free to add to what I have and compile all our information.
Differing Usages of “Fair”
First of all, Tolkien uses the word “fair” A LOT. And “fair” has more usages than I had expected as well. To account for this, I attempted to categorize the varying usages as I came across them, relying on the OED definitions. However, there was much overlap, as it would seem Tolkien does have a habit of implying multiple usages of the word “fair” in a single instance (something we speculated during class). A particularly tricky distinction was the use of “fair” to describe something beautiful to the physical senses (a “fair face” or “fair voice”) and the use of “fair” to describe something beautiful in a non-material sense (a “fair presence” or “it seemed/felt fair” or “fair” as opposed to “evil”). To me, it seems improper to lump the two together, hence the separation which is absent in the OED. Additionally, there was a tendency to use "fair" to imply “considerable though not outstanding in size or amount” (OED adjective definition #3), but this usage was only articulated by hobbits, Treebeard, and the narrator. It strikes me as rather English - a colloquialism, perhaps. I think the equivalent in America would be “good," as in “You’ve got a good/fair number of apples there.” (I cannot help but add the "inaccurate grammar" to emphasize the accent in my head).
Total Appearances by Category
Total Appearances (all three books combined): 290 *
- Fair (attractive or beautiful to physical senses) = 171
- Fair (attractive or beautiful to nonphysical senses; good, moral, kind, delightful) = 42
- Fair/Fairly (considerable but not outstanding in size or amount) = 29
- Fair (weather) = 17
- Fair/unfair (justice) = 7
- Fair (complexion) = 3
- Fair (blond) = 2
- Fair (festival) = 2
- Fair (part of a name) = 1 **
The Professor’s original question from our class discussion was more-or-less: “How often does Tolkien use the word ‘fair’ to imply blond or pale complexion, and how often does he use it to imply beauty?”
It is emphatically clear that Tolkien uses “fair” to imply beauty in almost every instance of physical description (171 times) and only rarely does he use it for blond (2) or pale complexion (3). *** When Tolkien does mean blond or pale complexion, he explicitly refers to either the hair or the skin. **** In fact, Tolkien pairs the word “fair” with the color green (the fields were “fair and green”) more commonly than he pairs it with gold or yellow.
The "Fairest" Results
Unsurprisingly, the Elves (and anything to do with the Elves) were most commonly referred to as “fair” out of all peoples/places/things. However, regarding the “fairest of them all,” only one elf cracked the Top Three. The person most commonly referred to as “fair” was Eowyn (13) followed closely by Galadriel (10) and Goldberry (7). Boromir and Legolas tied as the most “fair” dude (4), beating out Imrahil but also registering more counts than Luthien (!) and Arwen. Of all places, Lothlorien (15) came out on top with Ithilien (8) coming in second.
Take-aways
- The word “fair” appears frequently in the Lord of the Rings. Understatement.
- The word “fair” has multiple uses, namely: physical beauty, nonphysical beauty, respectable/proper, quality of weather, just/unjust, complexion, hair color, festival, and as part of a name.
- It seems as if Tolkien has a habit of implying multiple usages of the word “fair” in a single instance.
- A thing can be “fair” to either physical senses (eg. sight, sound) or nonphysical senses (eg. delight, moral apprehension) or both simultaneously.
- In regards to physical description, “fair” almost exclusively refers to beauty, not the color of hair or skin.
- The most “fair” women are Eowyn (13), Galadriel (10), and Goldberry (7).
- The most “fair” men are Boromir (4) and Legolas (4).
- The most “fair” places are Lothlorien (15) and Ithilien (8).
- “Fair” weather is almost always depicting a morning.
- “Fair” as an English colloquialism is used by hobbits, Treebeard, and the narrator.
* I am aware that my categorical counts do not add up to my total count. I attribute this to my failure to accurately update each category. The total number is the result of a word search (excluding the word “affair”) and is accurate.
** The Fairbairns, Wardens of Westmarch who kept the Redbook. Fairbairns seems to mean "Fair Children."
*** The Fallowhides are referred to as “fairer of hair and skin.” The Rohirrim are described as blond. Both Legolas and Frodo are described as having a “fair” or pale complexion. That sums up the uses of physical description apart from beauty.
**** I was however frustrated by descriptions of the Rohirrim. I could not tell whether Tolkien meant to describe them as “beautiful” or “beautiful AND blond” in repeated instances of double-meaning. I also was not sure if I was being influenced by the Jackson depiction (I have only ever envisioned the Rohirrim as blond). Differing interpretations would skew the count for the blond category.
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