[Child of the 7th Age]

Frodo,

I think there is another issue which is pertinent to this question when you compare the women present in LotR with those who appear in the Arthurian corpus. And I think that issue does have at least indirect relevence to the question that's been raised in this thread.

First, my general feelings on this question......I think Tolkien's depiction of the fellowship, and its close bonds (with the exception of Boromir), stem from his own perceptions of male friendship which grew out of his experience at Oxford. Whether we like it or not, women were not in plentiful numbers at the University when Tolkien was a professor there. This is an historical reality. The ethos of Oxford, and more importantly JRRT's own experience with the Inklings, rose from very male roots.

Yes, I know JRRT acted as a tutor for one of the few women's colleges because he was a "safe" married man, but this is definitely the exception rather than the norm.

In my mind's eye, both JRRT's portrayal of the bonds of the fellowship, and the friendship between Sam and Frodo, are actually a reflection of the kind of male bonding that one finds in the Inklings. I truly think that the interaction of the men in the Inklings had a great influence on his depiction of male relations in the fellowship. Because I feel and sense that whole backdrop of male bonding, a woman would not fit into the fellowship per se, at least not for me.

I do wish that Tolkien would have included stronger female characters, particularly human women (as opposed to Elves or Ainur) at other points in the book. And I wonder if he might have done it, if he'd written LotR later in his life. His portrayal of Andreth certainly shows that he could have.

But what about the Arthurian issue wich you raise? Was this Tolkien's model? To me, there is one huge difference between how women are portrayed in the Arthurian corpus and how Tolkien depicted them. This has been discussed many times before--the fact that it is very rare for women to be depicted as evil, or even as perpetrators of evil in LotR. The same is not true of the Arthurian legends. Figures like Morgause, Morgan le Fey, and Iseult are far more "corrupted" than any of Tolkien's women. This is true even of the figure of Guinevere. While she is not "evil" per se, it is her presence that brings about the love triangle and eventually leads to the downfall of Camelot.

JRRT did not portray women in this light. Perhaps, it was his position as a Catholic, his devotion to Mary, that pushed him to develop a far more idealized picture. Perhaps it was his love for his own wife. But, for whatever reason, Tolkien rejected the often negative slant on women that's given in the Arthurian corpus where women often appear as the deceivers and tempters of men. (We also know he had ambivalent feeling about the legends as a while, since he speaks of this in the Letters.)

So I don't think he consciously looked to the Arthurian legends as a model for women. His depictions of women in many respects deliberately rejected what he'd found in the Arthurian legends. I think if we want to look for influences on Tolkien and how he depicted women, we have to study the historical climate he grew up in, his views as a Catholic, and perhaps just as importantly, the body of Norse legend.

sharon

[ March 21, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]