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Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

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Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#31

Post by goto11 »

eredengrin wrote: post #24
goto11 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the connection between the quote and the article. Tolkien is rejecting allegorical reading like "the ring symbolize the coronavirus, Saruman represent Trump" etc. The article is not about allegory though but about the intentions and influences of Tolkien. Tolkien was open about his influences and at times they are pretty blatant, like directly taking the names of dwarwes from the Edda. Also the whole myth…

> Also the whole mythology is directly based on christian mythology That sounds like a pretty big stretch to me, could you elaborate? I agree there are most certainly elements from Christianity in it, but claiming the entire thing is based directly on it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, nor does that seem to be how Tolkien viewed it, at least as far as I can tell. For example, in one particular quote in the p…

Just read the creation myth in the first chapters in Silmarillion. It's basically Paradise Lost with more diacritics. What other mythologies have angels anyway? The Tolkien mythology is monotheistic and morally dualistic (good vs evil), which is fundamentally different from the pagan cultures he is otherwise inspired by.

I actually think this is key to his success: He takes a lot of cool stuff from pagan mythologies and legends, but he frames it in a simplified "good versus evil" dualism which is easier to understand for modern readers with this background.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#32

Post by macleginn »

ttctciyf wrote: post #29
macleginn wrote: post #13

One fascinating aspect of Tolkien’s oeuvre is that his writings are, how to put it, endlessly derivative. Not only did he use words from different languages, motifs from different mythologies, and images from different poetical traditions. He also mercilessly raided the writings of George MacDonald for characters and plot elements (try reading ‘Phantastes’ or ‘The Princess and the Goblin’ to appreciate just how freak…

"Endlessly derivative" aligns pretty well with Tolkien's idea of the "Cauldron of Story": > Speaking of the history of stories and especially of fairy-stories we may say that the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty. > For this reason, to take a casual example, the fact that a story resembling the one known as The Goosegirl (D…

Yes, so I hope it was okay with him when Lloyd Alexander took LOTR, watered it down, combined it with everything he could profitably extract from Mabinogion, and published the end result as the Chronicles of Prydain.

On a more serious note, I would suggest that Tolkien with his unabashed traditionalism was actually a major figure in the 20th c. postmodernist tradition. The "Cauldron of Story" is not very far removed from "Death of the Author" or "Primacy of Language". Tolkien was just peculiar in his choice of source material. He also managed to make his texts not look like romanticised folkloristic pseudomedieval fare of the early fantasy writers by adopting the technique of realist writers of the 19th century.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#34

Post by macleginn »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #23
macleginn wrote: post #13

One fascinating aspect of Tolkien’s oeuvre is that his writings are, how to put it, endlessly derivative. Not only did he use words from different languages, motifs from different mythologies, and images from different poetical traditions. He also mercilessly raided the writings of George MacDonald for characters and plot elements (try reading ‘Phantastes’ or ‘The Princess and the Goblin’ to appreciate just how freak…

He did it so well that most "high" fantasy that came out after him felt derivative of Tolkien. I'd really like to see counter-examples though; I feel like I haven't dived into the genre enough, in part because I'm turned off by the sheer volume of some book (series) on the one hand, and the juvenile tropes (generic hero's journey formula) on the other.

One way to avoid Tolkien’s shadow was to branch into related genres. Cue weird/ubran fantasy (e.g., Perdido Street Station), historical fantasy (e.g., The Spirit Ring), or pseudo-fantasy (the Ghormengast series, The Buried Giant). Interestingly, it seems that only works from last category have some real literary value.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#35

Post by varjag »

ttctciyf wrote: post #29
macleginn wrote: post #13

One fascinating aspect of Tolkien’s oeuvre is that his writings are, how to put it, endlessly derivative. Not only did he use words from different languages, motifs from different mythologies, and images from different poetical traditions. He also mercilessly raided the writings of George MacDonald for characters and plot elements (try reading ‘Phantastes’ or ‘The Princess and the Goblin’ to appreciate just how freak…

"Endlessly derivative" aligns pretty well with Tolkien's idea of the "Cauldron of Story": > Speaking of the history of stories and especially of fairy-stories we may say that the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty. > For this reason, to take a casual example, the fact that a story resembling the one known as The Goosegirl (D…

“Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.”

― Paolo Coelho

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#36

Post by [deleted] »

varjag wrote: post #35
ttctciyf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Endlessly derivative" aligns pretty well with Tolkien's idea of the "Cauldron of Story": > Speaking of the history of stories and especially of fairy-stories we may say that the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty. > For this reason, to take a casual example, the fact that a story resembling the one known as The Goosegirl (D…

“Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.” ― Paolo Coelho

[deleted]

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#37

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Thorentis wrote: post #3
Causality1 wrote: post #2

Tolkien utterly detested people like the author of this article. As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical.... Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary en…

Yeah, this author is off on a few points, sometimes grossly so. Also: > a land of enchantment and possibility and freedom, with a powerful and complex mythology that would bear comparison with those of any other country. No, they wouldn't bare comparison with just any other country. Tolkien was writing about his own country, which was England. The English countryside and culture is unique. The Shire, its jokes, its t…

frankly the shire is quite similar to small Danish towns.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#38

Post by 867-5309 »

leereeves wrote: post #12
MintelIE wrote: post #10

I went to the site and started to read but then this page blocker kinda swooped in and faded the page out so I closed the tab. No I’m not giving web sites my email address.

Just click the X in the upper right corner.

if there is one..

inbuilt mobile viewer is just at 10% opacity with nothing at the fore

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#39

Post by notahacker »

eredengrin wrote: post #24
goto11 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the connection between the quote and the article. Tolkien is rejecting allegorical reading like "the ring symbolize the coronavirus, Saruman represent Trump" etc. The article is not about allegory though but about the intentions and influences of Tolkien. Tolkien was open about his influences and at times they are pretty blatant, like directly taking the names of dwarwes from the Edda. Also the whole myth…

> Also the whole mythology is directly based on christian mythology That sounds like a pretty big stretch to me, could you elaborate? I agree there are most certainly elements from Christianity in it, but claiming the entire thing is based directly on it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, nor does that seem to be how Tolkien viewed it, at least as far as I can tell. For example, in one particular quote in the p…

He apparently said 'the Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.'

But what he didn't like were crude 'Saruman represents Judas' type comparisons, not least because he'd criticised his friend CS Lewis for being as explicit as to incorporate Jesus as a talking Lion who is resurrected into his novels and said he found their symbolism heavy handed [it's interesting Lewis himself rejected the idea of his books as allegory, but not the idea that Aslan was supposed to be that world's Jesus or that respective books in the series were supposed to have Creation/Crucifixion/Antichrist themes. Perhaps they both viewed the term allegory as an accusation the scope of their work was too narrow]

LOTR is Christian inasmuch as it has very explicit concepts of good and evil and temptation, but it's also a book involving more explicit anti-industrialization messaging and Tom Bombadil.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#40

Post by bjz_ »

have_faith wrote: post #26
macleginn wrote: post #13

One fascinating aspect of Tolkien’s oeuvre is that his writings are, how to put it, endlessly derivative. Not only did he use words from different languages, motifs from different mythologies, and images from different poetical traditions. He also mercilessly raided the writings of George MacDonald for characters and plot elements (try reading ‘Phantastes’ or ‘The Princess and the Goblin’ to appreciate just how freak…

I think we have an unhealthy obsession with trying to achieve 100% original thoughts and ideas, to the point that people often hide their influences unless they feel people will understand that they didn't borrow too much. Feels like a psychological trap.

Yeah, it's not an uncommon to feel this way, especially if you've not learned the humanities formally. Pretty much the first thing I learned in art theory at university was how much art depends on influence and appropriation, and that it's important to accept and embrace this. It was a hard lesson to learn as a young person striving to be original, but it's served me really well.

Even as I now move into programming, computer science, and industrial programming language research, I'm still grateful for that small amount of art theory I did at university. You don't need to try to be original - rather it's important to seek wide and varied influences, develop your sense of taste, and from that will flow seemingly unique and varied insights.

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