[Aiwendil]

Bethberry wrote:

To discuss 'eucatastrophe' means that we must be very precise in our understanding of the term.

We certainly must. Which is why I think an important question is whether eucatastrophe is to be understood as a response on the part of the reader or as a property of the work itself. Can we point to something and say "that is a eucatastrophe" just as we can point to something and say "that is a subplot" or "that is a character" or "that is suspense"? I would suggest that we can. And though different readers will undoubtedly respond differently to the eucatastrophe, that does not invalidate it's independent nature, any more than the fact that different people respond to suspense in different ways invalidates suspense as anything other than a purely subjective object.

Tolkien also suggests that the experience is very much a readerly experience.

Yes, but notice what he says - it "can give to child or man that hears it, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears ". Not must or does. A climax can elicit excitement, but it is no less a climax if some people fail to be excited.

Mark12_30 wrote:

To me the Silm is more like Beowulf than it is like Smith of Wooton Major (A superb faery tale.) Do I expect a eucatastrophe from Beowulf?

I agree that the Silmarillion is much like Beowulf in some regards. And I also do not see a eucatastrophe in Beowulf. However, I think that that is precisely where the Silmarillion is at its least similar to the poem. The Silmarillion is a work in high contrast and is infused with the most powerful joy and the most powerful sorrow (I think it is this that gives rise to the incorrect argument that Tolkien's work is absolutist, morally black and white). Tolkien points out that eucatastrophe does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe. I would say further that dyscatastrophe does not deny the existence of eucatastrophe. The sad fate of Maedhros and Maglor does not erase that moment when Ancalagon falls and breaks Thangorodrim.