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Old 12-30-2004, 11:23 AM   #1
littlemanpoet
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Pipe Mythic Unities in The Lord of the Rings

Over the past year or so, I've posed myself a difficult question to answer, which is why it took me a whole year to find the answer.

The Question(s): Is mythic fantasy qualitatively different from other genres of literature, and if so, how? Another form of this question might be rendered: Why do I love LotR and find so few books that come anywhere near its standard? (reminiscences of Kalessin's rant, eh?)

I came up with a definition of mythic fantasy that sufficiently answers the question for me. Call it "LMP's personal definition of mythic fantasy", for what it's worth. So I'll quote myself.

Quote:
Mythic fantasy is story that contains the stuff of myth, legend, and fairy tale; it works like waking dream and nightmare; in it, concrete and abstract, previously distinguished, have been reintegrated; it is apprehended by the reader as a unity of meaning and being; the signal of this apprehension is a sense of wonder or a thrill of horror, or both.
If you choose to read any further, you will see that this amounts to a thesis of sorts. Maybe some of you here can help refine, or explode, this definition or thesis and its explications. I welcome either action.

Member Alert! The next section is full of theory and may be a little deep. Venture forth those of you who care for this kind of thing.
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BEGIN ESOTERIC BACKGROUND

I think the qualitative difference in mythic fantasy has to do with the nature of language. Owen Barfield, in his seminal work, Poetic Diction, demonstrated how meaning has evolved in the languages of the West. He says that among the early speakers of Greek, Latin and English, for example, language was simpler and more organic. And meaning was not splintered into a mix of things we sense on the one hand, and concepts we comprehend on the other.

The best example, but certainly not the only one (English is littered with examples), is the Greek word for "breath" and "spirit", which was "pneuma". It has entered our language as "pneumatic", which means, "of or relating to the use of gas (such as air)". The early Greeks were not confused in naming both breath and spirit the same thing. Rather, they saw no difference. Breath was spirit and spirit was breath. It meant the same thing to them. They would be confounded by our separation of the two. They saw no need to distinguish between them. Later Greeks, such as the early philosophers, did see a distinction, because their ability to do abstract thinking was developing. Greeks are credited as the first people to think abstractly. But the later Greeks continued to use the same word for the two different meanings, using context to distinguish between them. If that seems silly, so be it, because the English language is rampant with multiple meanings for the same word. Look up the word "irony" in the dictionary some time - I chose that one just by flipping it open and finger pointing!

But so what? Here's what: It's the nature of myth to retain the unities of meaning. To quote Barfield:
Quote:
"... myth ... is intimately bound up with the early history of meaning. It is the same with innumerable words; if one traces them back far enough, one reaches a period at which their meanings had a mythical content ... [such as] "panic", "hero", "fortune", "fury", "earth", "North", "South".
The concrete "breath" and the abstract "spirit" are held together as one. It is this unity in myth and fairytale that calls to us. Why? These unities of meaning are the means by which we are able to access the unity of being.

But aren't the distinctions that we've discerned over the ages, valid? Aren't we better off knowing that breath is a biological phenomenon having to do with the interaction of lungs and oxygen? This knowledge has resulted in much good; but at a price: spirit has become disembodied. We've lost our grasp of it, and are forced to use theology (abstraction!) or artful (and sometimes tortuous) metaphors to get a grasp at what spirit is and how it affects us. And this has happened to us in every case in which a distinction has been discerned between a concrete and an abstract. Is it any wonder that there's a school of thought that has decided that only what we perceive with our senses is real? And is it any wonder, having lost the unity of abstracts to their concretes, that we crave unity of meaning and being?

This unity is what story is all about. Through story, or fiction, we achieve unity as in no other way. Myth and fairytale achieve it best, because they are closest to the original unity. It should come as no surprise that Tolkien was so successful at it in LotR, being a philologist and a monist (Roman Catholic). He knew language and myth from the inside. There is no better knowledge base for creating new myth. Was he completely successful? Probably not; but no modern writer has done better.

END ESOTERIC BACKGROUND
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It was unity of meaning, and not nostalgia, nor magic, nor romance, nor Elves, Hobbits, or what have you, in and of themselves, that drew so many people to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. His work is free of the splintered and dead abstractions of the world in which we live. It partakes of myth.

Can mythic unity be exhibited in LotR? If my guess is right, at least in part, we should find instances in the story where the abstract and the concrete have been joined in a harmonious unity. But allow me one clarification. Above I said that Elves, Hobbits, etc. in themselves, did not draw people to LotR. I stand by that. So my examples of Elves, Hobbits, and Tom Bombadil and Goldberry may seem like contradictions; they are not. Middle Earth, which is what LotR is about, must be taken as a whole, and these three examples are only three that, together with the totality, achieve the myth. They are my three examples because I think I can explain them most easily.

The Elves are such an instance. Like Native Americans and many other so-called primitive cultures, they are close to the earth. But they are not primitive; rather, they are an advanced culture, complete with a technology and developed languages, joys and sorrows, wisdoms and foolishness, characterized by a need to talk to everything. They are spirit married to matter in a way that cannot be found this side of Eden, nor before it - for Elves are fallen and still at unity with themselves. Being Elvish is to be both spirit and matter in harmony with a destiny wrapped up in the world they live in.

Then there are the Hobbits. It has been said, I think mistakenly, that Tolkien set them up as a pre-World War One utopia about which he is nostalgic. This misses the point. For one thing, it does not account for the animality of Hobbits: the hairy feet and barefootedness; the penchant for eating at all times of the day; living in holes; their ability to move quickly and quietly so as not to be seen by Big Folk. This aspect of Hobbits has been made endless fun of, but that misses the point as well. Hobbits are quite comfortable with their animality; they frankly revel in it. At one and the same time they are quite clearly human: they farm, they smoke, they read and write, they have a society with customs. Though drastically different from Elves, the Hobbits live in a unity of being. They too are fallen, rife with all the pettinesses of pride and foolishness and greed; yet they live in a unity of being.

So in one case we see the unity of spirit with matter; in the next, we see the unity of animal and human.

Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are another example of unity of being. I sympathize with those who complain that Goldberry is stereotypical; but to ask that she be different is like asking for fuel injection before the combustion engine is invented: Tolkien did the most humanely he could, writing in the era he did. But it must also be remembered that Tolkien is constructing myth, and Tom and Goldberry are Father and Mother. The two live together as in a dance, each having their roles, confident in themselves and in each other, in control (but not abusively) of that which they rule. They are at unity with themselves, each other, their home, and their surroundings. They are married to their lives in a unity of harmony and bliss. It is not an empty bliss that ignores or is deluded about the Darkness beyond their borders, but one that recognizes the realities of their lives, including precisely where their borders are. To be guests there is to be safe and at peace, and in the case of at least Frodo Baggins, to partake of myth. In short, to live within a myth.

If these examples do not prove my claim, they at least provide some weight of evidence.

Are there other unities in LotR? Am I all wet? Are there refinements needed, to my definition and/or explication? I welcome your responses.

LMP

Last edited by littlemanpoet; 12-30-2004 at 11:29 AM.
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