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Originally Posted by Aiwendil
No? If you ask me, a good deal of The Canterbury Tales IS rather adolescent.
I think it's clearly true that Tolkien's avoidance of lust and such in his tales is unusual, but I don't see that he should be blamed for it. If you ask me, he improved on traditional faerie stories in several ways, including this. If Tolkien is more mature than many of his predecessors, then I say good for him.
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Well, I don't think 'blame' is quite what was going on here, however. ... Perhaps some of our difference of opinion rests on different understanding. I think Chaucer's
Pardoner's Tale is one of the most subtle and complex narratives going--hardly immature. Certainly some of Chaucer's stories are ribald, but defining those as adoslescent is a value judgement. Even the idea that as one gets older, one leaves 'sex' behind is a value judgement. It may be an idea Tolkien had, which is all well and good to his beliefs, but it is not an absolute value or necessarily a historical fact.
That said, to me the difference here lies in the idea that any depiction of what is being called 'lust' is a lower form of intellect, being, literary interest, and morality/ethics. Like any aspect of the strange, weird, and wonderful complex we call human beings, sexual desire can be depicted crudely or honestly, immaturely or maturely, wisely or sillily, postively or negatively. It is, however, a moral value rather than an absolute standard which says that any discussion of sexuality is 'less, lower, somehow substandard and even dirty.' Perhaps this is part of the Christian heritage that sees sex as demeaning and dirty and which denies the body in favour of intellection, (part of our inheritance from Greek philosophy also) but it is--at the risk of repeating myself--one that is a value judgement.
The idealisation of women which is being discussed here had--in the primary world as opposed to the subcreated world--historically and politically and culturally, a profoundly and seriously detrimental consequence not only for women but for all human beings. It is not 'maturity' which made Tolkien omit 'lust', but rather a function of his system of belief. Nor is it a function of modern author's scatological interest or immaturity that 'lust' appears more dominantly in modern literature. It is a function of different understanding and different beliefs.
My opinion likely is not shared by many here at the Downs, and in that case I suspect discussion here will finish, at least on my part.