[Kalimac]

Rumil - I believe he did (respect the priest, that is - eesh, I wish I could remember his name). They had a major falling-out over whether Tolkien should be courting Edith, obviously, but Tolkien seems to have remained respectful of him and later wrote to one of his sons that he believed that he himself had also not been without fault, and while he thought his guardian had been wrong to forbid the relationship, looking at it from the guardian's perspective he could see why he might have had reservations (after all, how many 17 year old guys in love really HAVE found the true love of their life? Not a high percentage). So I'd say that we could be looking at a Gandalf-prototype, albeit a more "The Hobbit" style Gandalf than "LOTR".

Lush - couldn't agree more [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. Tolkien's females are very medieval in their way (shades of courtly love) and even Eowyn has a strong whiff of an adventurous Joan of Arc about her (except for the ending, of course). But this doesn't mean that these were the ONLY kind of women around in medieval times - as in all eras, they managed to start as many quarrels as women do now, regardless of whatever society's official strictures may have been (I mean, look at our society now. We do have some official standards, but how many people actually follow them rigidly?).

For literary characters, look at the women in Canterbury Tales (the wife of Bath, the Miller's wife - no shrinking violets they), also the women in "Roman de la Rose" - and remember that this is the era that first gave us the term "fishwife." For real people - Lucrezia Borgia, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joan of Arc, Isabeau of France (Charles VII's mother who did her best to get him declared illegitimate and disinherited, there's motherly affection for you) Queen Isabelle who married Edward II and then killed him when he showed more of a taste for boys than for her, Margery Kempe the village-woman who ditched her husband and ten children and jaunted off to Palestine and wrote (or dictated) a book about it later, Empress Matilda who fought King Stephen for the English throne upwards of 15 years or so, etc etc. I realize most of these women were nobility or at least better-educated than most, but those were the people who tended to write and have their deeds recorded - it's hard to believe that noblewomen were somehow fundamentally different in their characters from the commoners; just that instead of having their tantrums and picking quarrels between families, they were doing it between kingdoms.

ANYWAY to tie this all in to the topic (I'm sorry about the ramble, Estelyn [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] ) Tolkien obviously had a great appreciation for the noble, above-all-this, strong but self-effacing woman who appears in the stories of courtly love; and he may well have seen parallels between their silent, enduring strength and pride and the sort of strength and pride he saw in his wife and his mother. Just because he appreciated and wrote about this kind of woman, though, doesn' necessarily mean he thought this was the way women SHOULD be (though of course I'd pick an Eowyn over a Lucrezia Borgia any day, but who wouldn't) simply that that was how the women in the story - whose creation would inevitably be at least slightly influenced by the real women he knew - appeared to him. Judging a writer's views a particular sex simply by their stories is very tricky, no matter which way they seem to lean on the question. I might write a story where the only female characters are cold and bossy, but does this mean that I only know cold and bossy women, or that I think this is the way all women should be? Not necessarily. It very likely means that I've encountered a woman or women like that who have influenced me very strongly (for good or ill) and that influence is one of the things that makes me think subconsciously the way I do, which is why the story turned out the particular way it did. It's not that I choose consciously to elevate or put down that type of woman, just that all the influences of my life have combined and that particular influence has created those particular characters.

OK, I hope that made some sort of sense. Thanks for reading my 2.5 cents, everyone [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img].

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: Kalimac ]