[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by davem

So, perhaps 'language', literary theory & linguistics have as little place in this discussion as 'psychology'.

Let's see now, I think we're all on this board talking about a literary work, not a psychological treatise. And this particular literary work is chock-full of fascinating tidbits about language, literary craft, and the results of a philological rootedness (not linguistics). Or am I missing something? This, I confess (and it probably says twice as much about me as anyone else around here) is the second time I've reacted to something asserted on this thread with "You have got to be kidding." Ah well.

The quote below has been altered merely to illustrate something, not to poke fun or anything derogatory at all.

I can't bring in a lot of [spirituality or theology] to support my position. Its based on a 'gut feeling', that it should be possible to experience [spiritual reality] as a thing in itself, something objective, unknown. That seems to me what we 'owe' to [god/spirit/the other]. [God] is the 'not me', [god] is 'other',[god] exists in [god's] space, which I may enter to commune with [god], but that 'communion' will not be so much an interaction as an opening up on my part to that 'other'.

davem is revealing a similarity between literary and spiritual experience, which may be part of why reading LotR can be so profound, as dinziliel said on the Visible Souls thread recently, it's about Truth, Reality. That means that those things that prove to undermine our belief or faith in whatever we hold dear, are likely to be similar to that which breaks the enchantment for us in LotR.

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

It seems to me that lmp is offering more of a professional opinion here, an opinion that Tolkien has violated a rule or convention of craft with his handling of Gandalf.

Call it avocational rather than professional, for I cannot claim to have earned anything from my writing beyond "my very own copy" of the issue of the literary magazine in which my poem was published. Big deal.

The convention is the distinction between narrative voice and character voice. If it is unclear, then it becomes possible to say, in the case of Tolkien, that there is at least overlap. If so, then Gandalf as a character has been compromised. How much does this matter in the overall? It depends upon (1) an individual's reading (2) how Tolkien uses Gandalf at all places in the story.

My research continues and the results will be forthcoming soon.