Heren Istarion,
Sometimes a "heavy" and well argued thread needs a lighter touch to put things in perspective. You have definitely done that!
Bethberry
Thanks so much for taking the time and energy to respond and clarify your initial meaning. My dear ancestors who lurked in the factories of Detroit and the mines of the U.K. would definitely faint if they thought I was questioning the reality of class differences in people's lives. I've always felt enormous empathy for Samwise. Tagging along with a bunch of Fallohides, he is required to stretch between two worlds, and that is not always easy.
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Now on to other things....
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There are so many markers of what I will obstinately now call Eruism without the “” that I cannot see how anyone could miss them.
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Saucepan Man ,
I largely agree with your own view of "Eruism" that these markers were not all so clear cut when LotR first appeared. And, today, if we focus only on the text of the LotR, without knowledge of anything beyond it, these markers are still not quite so obvious.
However, I truly think it's difficult for the modern day reader to wash out of his head all the information we have gleaned from the Silmarillion, Carpenter's biography of Tolkien, and, most critically, the published Letters. At least this is true of anyone who goes beyond a casual reading of the books to participate in continuing study or discussion. Even those posters on this site who have never personally read any of the three items listed above are aware that they exist, if only by the comments of other posters.
The Eru-centered view of LotR is very prevalent today. Just look at recent works for sale on Amazon. There are a host of titles dealing with the religious themes in LotR, some scholarly, some popular, and others explicitly intended as devotional aids.
This was not the case in the period prior to 1977. As I hinted earlier, I feel that it was the publication of these three works, all within a two-year period, that irrevocably changed the way we look at Tolkien. I was in college and grad school from 1966 through 1976. (Yes, I know I was a perenniel student -
) During this period I participated in numerous discussions on Tolkien. Some were in college dorms, and others in the classroom with professors. The whole issue of Eru or "providence" was present, but was not the heart of our discussions. There were indeed clues in the text but these were not viewed in the way they are today. I saw providence as a silent spring running deep, but had no idea of Eru's role as delineated in the Silm, while others frankly thought such issues were only of peripheral importance.
The easiest way to confirm this is to take a look at the scholarly and popular writings on Tolkien that appeared before 1977. I have a bookshelf overflowing with battered paperback studies that date from the early sixties forward. Almost universally, the discussion of the divine undergirding of Middle-earth was not a prominent feature in these, the way it is today. There are a whole host of such commentators: Lin Carter; William Ready (the fellow Tolkien didn't like); editors like Isaacs, Zimbardo, and Lobdell who published dozens of essays by various authors; and my personal favorite Paul Kocher. If I sit down and scrutinize the index of these works, looking under terms like "God", "One", "religion", "providence" and such, I come away with only a handful of references.
I do not want to say there were "no" references because that isn't true. But they didn't occupy the central position we've given them today. It's interesting to note that the earliest recognition of Tolkien's views on religion and the divine came not through studying LotR, but through a close reading of "Leaf by Niggle". Kocher studied Niggle in both his books and also wrote a chapter on LotR entitled "Cosmic Order." (The very vagueness of that title says something!)
I think the first writer to have a clear view of Tolkien's ideas regarding Eru (presumably other than Christopher) was probably Clyde Kilby. He was a professor who spent one summer with Tolkien a few years before his death. He was supposed to help get the Silm ready for publication. He was also a deeply religious man. Kilby spent most of the summer talking with Tolkien about the material that would later become the Silm. Discussions about Eru and providence figured prominently in those encounters. Shortly after JRRT died, Kilby published the account of his summer in a small book that makes fascinating reading.
So looking back, I'd say the markers of Eruism were nowhere as clear as they are today. It was only with the publication of the edited Silm, Carpenter's bio, and especially the selected Letters that our whole view of Middle-earth changed and a picture of the Legendarium emerged. I feel that these three books, more than any others, changed the the way we approached interpreting Lord of the Rings, although others may certainly disagree.