I don't want to deny the main tenor of your point, Child, that The Shire is informed by a vision of England past. However, it seems to me that Goldberry is very much informed by Tolkien's vision of Demeter and Persephone, without the violence of abduction and assault. Goldberry represents Tolkien's rewriting of the classic myth just as the Akallabeth is his desire to incorporate Atlanta and the Flood.
lmp and others,
What Tom and Goldberry and the Old Forest represent to me is a primordial sense of the world where the desire to use knowledge of the world and of others to control and manipulate them are absent. This is not a sentimental or softened vision--harm and decay still occur--but it is, to me, substantially different from The Shire.
Bethberry
[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away.
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