The Nazis & a Mytholgy for England

[davem]

First of all, I hope Aiwendil will forgive me for posting a PM I sent to him. Its really part of a 'debate' we've been having regarding Tolkien's changed attitude to the Legendarium during & after WW2. This is the post:

There's clearly a lot to be learned about Tolkien's mind set in the post LotR period, but untill we get the rest of the Letters & his diaries - if we ever do - we can only speculate.

There is a change in what Tolkien wants to do with the Legendarium. Certainly, after ww2 the Northern myths which had inspired him could no longer be considered entirely 'innocent', as Tolkien had seen what could be done with them - positively by himself, & negatively by the Nazis. So he seems to be driven to ground them in a scientific explanation & in Christian theology - which is what I consider the Athrabeth in particular to be. The hope it offers is a Christain hope. Middle earth is no longer a pagan world, its is now sufficiently 'safe' & Christian. He is clearly reacting to something.

But he can't have it both ways, & a pagan Middle earth seems to fade into the background. It becomes more medieval - pagan themes survive in another form, but he still seems unsatisfied, & needs to move it further & further away from its roots. Certainly, in letter 45 he condemns the Nazis for 'Ruining, perverting, misapplying, & making forever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, & tried to present in its true light.'

'Forever accursed' is not a light accusation, & I think we have to accept that Tolkien's own relationship to Northern myth was adversely affected to a great degree. I can't help feeling that if 'his crest fell' regarding creating a mythology for England it was then. He had seen what national mythologies could produce. It was no longer an 'innocent' aim - & we've seen how Tolkien's work has been appropriated by neo Nazi groups.

So the Legendarium becomes a sub creation 'only', with no intended relation to the primary world. In a way this liberates him - he no longer has to tie it in precisely to the ancient sources - but it becomes 'art for art's sake' - it can have no relationship to the primary world - hence, I feel, the difference between the first & second forewords to LotR, & the strident denials of 'allegory' in the second. He began by desperately wanting to be England's Lonrot, to give his country back its lost mythology, & ends by simply wanting to 'write a really long tale'.

When did his desire change, & why? Yet, it was the desire to create a mythology for England, which would inspire his own people to rediscover their 'true' nature, which was the driving force behind his 'career'. When he no longer feels able to do that, because its no longer 'safe' to do that, he loses momentum. The whole thing becomes 'a secret vice', something done for its own sake, & so why struggle, why drive himself to complete it? Effectively from then on he 'plays' at it, dreams of what it could have been, tries to make it as beautiful as he can, while making sure it cannot get out of hand & be 'Ruined, perverted, misapplied, & made forever accursed'.

As I said, something must have effected that change in his desire. He may have produced a great deal after LotR - far more than most other writers would, but what is lost is the motivation that originally inspired him, the new motivation may have kept him going in his creative endevours, but it wasn't as strong, because he realised he would never (should never?) achieve his original goal.

WW2 probably deprived a great many artists of their desire to change the world - at least in a major way. The prime diference between the pre- & post-LotR period is the war that intervened, & LotR reflects this - the early drafts are full of hope & optimism - an adventure for hobbits searching for more dragon gold - but as the horrors of the war become clearer Tolkien responds & produces a tale of loss & renunciation - of myth, of the past & its atavistic pull towards nationhood, blood & soil. Its not an 'allegory' of the war, but its certainly a response to it & a product of it.

Which is my reading, anyway

So, does anyone have any thoughts? Was Tolkien's change of heart, & discarding of his desire to provide a 'mythology for England' due to the Nazi's use of Northern Myth?

[Rimbaud]

One brief comment I would make in response to this would be that although the horrors of WWII cannot be overstated, Tolkien was not naive to the truth of conflict prior to 1939. Having lived through the Great War of 1914-1918, and been aware of numerous contemporary smaller but equally bloody conflicts elsewhere in the world, he was only too aware of the truth of these matters.

Your point on the adoption of elements of Northern mythology by the propagandists of the Third Reich is well-drawn, and his bitter resentment of this is evident in the quote you provide and elsewhere.

The prime diference between the pre- & post-LotR period is the war that intervened, & LotR reflects this - the early drafts are full of hope & optimism - an adventure for hobbits searching for more dragon gold - but as the horrors of the war become clearer Tolkien responds & produces a tale of loss & renunciation - of myth, of the past & its atavistic pull towards nationhood, blood & soil.

I do not think the change in his style, tone and import went through so clearly defined a switch from this. Much of the mythological background to Arda Marred and the Legendarium, and those parts specifically which deal with "loss & renunciation" were written well prior to WWII. Although LotR does see a marked shift in tone, there are some other explanations - although, as you will find elsewhere on the site, these inconsistencies of style form my major criticism of the work.

These explanations run from the mundanely deliberate - very naturally, Tolkien would want the scenes of the Shire and Old Forest to be markedly distinct from those epic scenes in Gondor and Mordor in RotK - to the sub-conscious - Tolkien had always intended to weave such a powerful tale, you can see it screaming to be released from all his earlier writings.

[Aiwendil]

Good idea, putting this in a thread.

As I was going to say in an aborted PM response, I certainly agree that after LotR there was a change away from a mythological perspective toward a mixed theological and scientific one. Where I think that I disagree with you is in these points: 1. I don't think that the change in attitude was simply a result of his being scared away from mythology by the war; 2. I don't think that the change was complete; 3. I don't think that the change was detrimental to the quality of his work.

Certainly he saw in World War II the horrors that were associated with the misuse of the "Northern spirit". But surely he had seen the misuse of that spirit before. Wagner misused it long before. And Tolkien had faced German nationalism (albeit of a different sort) in a far more personal way in World War I. So World War II, I think, intensified certain sentiments rather than creating them.

I also would not analyze the change in terms of pre-LotR optimism and post-LotR pessimism. Loss and renunciation were key themes, even perhaps the main themes, of the Legendarium right from the beginning. Remember when the Book of Lost Tales was begun. If the post-LotR writings can be seen as responding to or dealing with the second World War, certainly the Book of Lost Tales deals in a much more personal and intense way with the first. As I stressed earlier, the planned ending for the Book of Lost Tales is much more tragic than the end of the Silmarillion.

But he can't have it both ways

You see, I think he can and does. It is, I think, this combination that makes the 1950s Silmarillion uniquely great. For he can never alter the fact that this is a mythology (that's why the Myths Transformed round Earth cosmology was so misguided). And there are basic elements of the structure of the Silmarillion that he was quite unwilling to alter. But he now infused it more thoroughly with his own Christian values, and imposed upon it a stricter metaphysics and theology. The result was a mythology unlike any other - one more consistent, more realistic, more coherent, in which the various individual stories contribute to one great story.

So the Legendarium becomes a sub creation 'only', with no intended relation to the primary world. In a way this liberates him - he no longer has to tie it in precisely to the ancient sources - but it becomes 'art for art's sake' - it can have no relationship to the primary world - hence, I feel, the difference between the first & second forewords to LotR, & the strident denials of 'allegory' in the second. He began by desperately wanting to be England's Lonrot, to give his country back its lost mythology, & ends by simply wanting to 'write a really long tale'.

There is a big distinction to be drawn between allegory and mythology. A "mythology for England" is not allegory. I don't see any reason to think that Tolkien's attitude toward allegory ever changed significantly; if anything, his dislike for it lessened in later years (cf. Smith). I think that the denials of allegory in the second foreword can be traced almost entirely to the literary reception of LotR, and its frequent misconstrual. Tolkien's writing was always, pre- and post-LotR, "heroic" rather than "ironic".

[davem]

Short note: I think what did change was what Tolkien wanted to do - without repeating all the quotes from Tolkien & the Great War which I gave in the Canonicity thread, its clear that Tolkien, under the influence of what Lonrot had achieved for Finland with the Kalevala, wanted to inspire some kind of 'moral regeneration' in England through providing it with a mythology of its own.

What the example of Germany confronted him with was the danger of that -providing England with its own mythology wouldn't ncessarily produce the effect it had in Finland - the consequences could be more akin to Nazi Germany - & that wasn't a far fetched fantasy.

Tolkien had been confronted with the 'fact' of how devastating a mythology could be. In a way he had had the power of myth confirmed to him by the war. I think he had decided he didn't want to take the risk, so he actually stopped writing a 'mythology' - at least in the sense that he had understood the term, & had decided to write something else entirely. What he 'renounced' was writing a mythology for England, with all that implied.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

Tolkien had been confronted with the 'fact' of how devastating a mythology could be. In a way he had had the power of myth confirmed to him by the war. I think he had decided he didn't want to take the risk, so he actually stopped writing a 'mythology' - at least in the sense that he had understood the term, & had decided to write something else entirely. What he 'renounced' was writing a mythology for England, with all that implied

You make a lot of sense, but I am a stubborn soul!

I can agree with you that the Nazi example must have underlined to Tolkien the dangers of using any mythology to define what a country is: that he could not be assured of producing the same effect that the Kalevala did in Finland. I have never seen anything written by the author concerning the large number of fascist sympathizers in pre-war Britain, but he certainly would also have been aware of their presence.

However, I don't think this problem of abuse of mythology and its symbols was totally unknown to him prior to Hitler. The simple fact is that Hitler was not the only one to misuse myths and symbols in the name of nationalism. He was the last in a long line. A look at modern European and U.S. history is replete with such examples, mostly from the right but even from the left. There were certainly examples of this in World War I propaganda. While some instances of modern abuse are perhaps more subtle, Tolkien was certainly not unaware of this potential downside of myth even before encountering Hitler's stark example.

The whole process of "abandoning" or at least downplaying the writing of a mythology was, to me, a more subtle and gradual thing that actually began soon after he started setting the stories down on paper. We can see it in his struggle with the whole issue of narrators, his abandonment of the idea of equating England with Tol Eressea, the way he used actual English place names in the writing but later abandoned them. The list could go on and on.

Did he ever abandon this goal completely, or did it instead succumb under the gradual force of a different ideal: that of general world-building? This would be a more difficult question to answer. Davem - I think you are right in stressing that the Nazi example could have had a greater effect on Tolkien and his writing than we've admitted before. Now that Garth has documented the impact of World War I (which I still see as more seminal), perhaps it's time for someone to examine this question with more seriousness. I do not know if you could corrolate changes in the actual manuscripts with things in the society or his wider response and feelings about the War. And, as you say, those unpublished materials may throw light on his attitudes and feelings. But I still see these changes precipitated by the War as one factor among many, and perhaps not the dominating one in explaining the obvious shifts in emphasis that occurred in his writing towards the end of his life.

Incidentally, I'd love to know how much unpublished material exists that the family has not released to the public archives. Or are there troves of letters in Marquette or Wheaton that no one has drawn attention to? That wasn't the impression I had.

Also, there's another question related to this that deserves to be raised. If Tolkien seemed to move away from his mythological base in later years, you could make the same argument in regard to faerie itself. And I would be hard pressed to explain that solely on the basis of the WWII and Hitler. I am struck, for example, that by the mid-sixties Tolkien had moved far in the direction of interpreting the LotR from a Christian perspective, things that he said initially crept into his writing without conscious realization (see Kilby's book).

[davem]

My feeling, based on the material Garth has published in Tolkien & the Great War, is that Tolkien's purpose in trying to create a Mythology for England was, as I said, 'moral regeneration'. England had lost its identity, its moral values; society was on a very slippery downward slope. His inspiration was Lonrot - the Kalevala had reawakened the Finns; their country, which had been a 'shuttlecock' between the superpowers Sweden & Russia for centuries, had found a new identity through that work & the anniversary of its publication is still a national holiday. I think Tolkien took this as an example of what mythology could do for a nation. He decided that a mythology for England, which fused Christianity with that 'noble northern spirit' which he so loved, could do that job for his own country.

The point is that, far from being simply the 'subcreation of a secondary world in the mind', which bore no relation to the primary world, when he began his intention was that it would have a very powerful & direct impact on the primary world - of course he tries different ways to link it to the primary, but the intent is there all through the twenties & into the thirties. Flieger has shown in a recent essay that one of the ways he tries to link it to the English is by having English characters linked 'psychically' to the past (as in Lost Road & Notion Club Papers) - the past of Middle earth would be seen to be alive in the English people of today.

But then something changes. He no longer wishes his mythology to impact in any way on the primary world. He wants it to be taken as a story of a secondary world only, & he will deny as vociferously as he can any suggestion of a relationship with the primary.

I accept that mythology had been misused in the past, & that Tolkien would have been perfectly aware of that, but it had never been so misused as it had by the Nazis. Tolkien blames the Nazis specifically for making the noble northern spirit 'forever accursed' - meaning what? - that although in the past similar misuse of mythological symbols had occurred, something qualitatively different had occured this time? I suspect that's it.

We can't underestimate the effect on a man like Tolkien, with his deep love of northerness, of what the Nazis had done. That 'noble northern spirit' had been 'Ruined, perverted, misapplied, & made forever accursed'.

Tolkien had seen the extremes of what national mythologies could lead to - liberation & regeneration for Finland, moral depravity & the Holocaust for Germany. I think he became frightened not that he would fail in his dream of creating a mythology for England, but that he would succeed, & that dream would translate from the secondary world into the primary world as a nightmare.

As to what's unpublished - well, we don't have his diaries, & the only letters Christopher Tolkien has allowed to be published are the ones that relate directly to Middle earth. Lets speculate on a 'nightmare scenario' some letters from the early thirties, where, before the horrors of Nazism have appeared, or at least been made known - Tolkien sees Germany arising from the depression, inspired by the nordic myths & fired by the noble northern spirit, & makes some positive comments. Of course, as soon as the truth about Nazism comes out he rejects it all immediately, but if such letters, or diary passages, existed, one could understand CRT not wanting them to appear.

I certainly wouldn't deny the impact of WW1 on Tolkien, but he comes out of that war with a desire to give his country its own mythology, in order to inspire its moral regeneration & make it a great nation once again (as, ironically, did Hitler). It was WW2 which confronted him with the reality of how terrible the downside of national mythologies could be.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Thanks, Davem. This is a fascinating argument. I have never heard anyone set forward this idea in quite this way, although many early critics contended that LotR was an "allegory" of WWII, a contention that the author denied.

Yet my own perception is different than your own. It's certainly true that the earlier drafts in HoMe were more light hearted, especially in their use of language and depiction of the hobbits, and that this tone grew progressively darker. Most would attribute this to the fact that Tolkien was gradually shifting away from the mode of writing and thought that had shaped the Hobbit. Even so, there could have been a more profound underlying element at work to produce such a shift. And, as Rimbaud has said, it's clear Tolkien resented how the Nazis had abused Northern myth.

But I read this whole thing differently than you do. If we compare what had been written of the Legendarium prior to LotR with the tone of the Rings itself, I think you come away with a different picture. My impression is that those portions of the Legendarium constructed from the early 1900s down to the start of World War II were often pessimistic in the extreme. With only one or two notable exceptions, it seems to be an unmitigated tale of sorrow and disaster: Men, Elves, and even the Valar making horrible mistakes. The depth of tragedy that permeates these tales is profound and, I always saw it as indicative of the kind of "doom without hope" that permeates most of the early Northern legends. When I read the current Silm up to the Third Age, which admittedly contains material pre and post World War II, I sometimes come away with the feeling of that the history of Middle-earth is an unmitagated tragedy. The tone is extremely grim.

Lord of the Rings itself seems almost like a miracle of hope when compared with these earlier tales. After all those great heroes of the past have gotten it "wrong", you are given the unlikely and almost unbelievable scenario of hobbits, supported by loyal friends from all the Free Peoples, who somehow--with help from providence-- manage to get things right. In view of the failings of most of the earlier heroes, their success, although temporary, is a welcome respite. Many have described the tone of the final chapters as "bittersweet", and I would agree. Great sadness surely, but also profound joy. Some of the later writings -- the debate between Finrod and Andreth, for example -- are even more explicitly hopeful.

As to what caused this change in writing and tone, I don't think we will ever know for sure. Each of us will probably have a different view. I see two things at work, probably related. As Tolkien grew older, he probably began to muse long and hard on what mortality means. Speaking as an Elder (age-wise, I mean) on this board, I know that such questions often begin to intrude more seriously. And in those musings, Tolkien seems to have placed greater emphasis on his religious beliefs and had less faith in the physical world about him. WWII would certainly have been another part of this process of disillusionment. It must have seemed like a replay of the kind of horror he'd known in the Great War. And yes, the misuse of the "Nordic spirit" must have made him very uncomfortable. There are indications in the minor writings that he indeed began to question the accessibility of faerie.

Perhaps this betrayal by the Nazis, placed alongside the fact that mortality seemed to be looming closer, led him to re-emphasize his own beliefs. This is why I believe that Christian themes and symbols unwittingly crept into the Rings, a reflection of what was going on inside of him. And this is why the tone and ending of LotR is different than many of the early tales. The culmination of this would be the Athrabeth.

Yes, I think the Nazi's betrayal, the War and the fact that he had two sons serving underlined Tolkien's sense of urgency and frustration as he rewrote those earlier chapters and the book took on more serious tones. Perhaps he even began to question his own access to the Faeire realm. Yet, the ending of LotR is far more hopeful than most of the tales that made up the Legendarium. It is this that sticks in my mind.

Edit: I have cross posted with Aiwendil as it took me forever to write this thing. I think that he and I are saying some similar things but coming at it from a different vantage point. Like Aiwendil, I would totally agree that the changes we see in Tolkien's writings were overall not bad: they were just different. I have long disliked Christopher's tone and handling when he deals with some of these differences with references in HoMe.

[Mithalwen]

[QUOTE=Child of the 7th Age]Thanks, Davem.

Perhaps this betrayal by the Nazis, placed alongside the fact that mortality seemed to be looming closer, led him to re-emphasize his own beliefs. This is why I believe that Christian themes and symbols unwittingly crept into the Rings,

I feel like a hobbit at the council of the wise but I am sure I read a quote from Tolkien that the rings was Christian and specifically Catholic by intention?

Also I wonder how much more really there is of use rather than curiousity to emerge from letters and diaries ..... love him or loathe him CRT IS a scholar and I doubt that he would suppress much that was relevant to the opus, however loyal and loving a son he also is ..... but then although they are fascinating, I can't help think there is something deeply unpleasant about reading letters intended for one recipient and even more a diary intended for no-one (not everyone does write them with an eye to posterity ) ... I felt like a voyeur reading even my mother's after she died...

[Lalwendë]

Tolkien said that Lord of the Rings was "a fundamentally Catholic work". I think that Tolkien didn't intend his writing to reflect the moral strictures/theology of the catholic church, more the spiritual element of his Catholic faith - as seen in the good/evil struggle (yet with shades of grey), or the redemption of characters such as Boromir. And what is interesting is that Catholicism is quite different to many other Christian churches in that it has an elaborate 'mythology' system (saints), and the tenets of Celtic Catholicism were often built upon older non-Christian beliefs.

This opens up another can of worms...but no offence intended!

I myself get the feeling that as Tolkien got older more sadness did creep into his work, and more emphasis on his own beliefs was evident - perhaps this is as a result of him getting older - I do find that as age creeps up on you either grow more reliant upon your faith or you lose it altogether (my own parents are at these two polar ends of the scale). The other day I read, for the first time, Tolkien's draft of a story set in the fourth age (it can be found in Peoples of Middle Earth), and what struck me was how he was struggling with the implications of a world now at peace. It was as though he believed there never could be peace, and I was affected by how he was obviously struggling with this concept, and was unable to produce a story he felt was worthwhile. In the notes it mentions how Tolkien thought that in the fourth age there might be those who would forget the wars their forefathers had fought and would look to stir up conflict for the sake of it. I did get the feeling that this was Tolkien's own regretful view of human existence, as he got older and saw constant conflict around the world, despite the message of the two world wars he had seen.

I hadn't before given thought to how Tolkien might view the Nazi mis-appropriation of Nordic myths, but I do think, from tying what I have read on here with my recent reading of the abandoned 4th age tale, that Tolkien was deeply upset by this misuse of stories he held so dear. There are many areas of culture which the Nazis 'soiled', and which racists still soil to this day. The appropriation of the English flag by jingoists and racists is just one example. So yes, I think it is probable that Tolkien did lose faith in his original intention somewhat.

This is an interesting topic, but it's hard to express yourself when discussing religion and politics via this medium!

[davem]

I suppose we can only speculate on whether Tolkien would have ended up in the place he did - the philosophy of 'subcreation', as the creation of a secondary world existing solely in the mind, which, if it has any relevance to the primary world, is due to the way an individual reader 'applies' what they read - even if Nazism had not raised its ugly head. All we can say, after reading the words of the TCBS in Garth's 'Tolkien & the Great War', is that he began wanting to produce a mythology which would lead to a moral regeneration of his nation, & he ended his life, ostensibly, wanting nothing of the sort. In the 40 years or so between beginning BoLT & the writing of the 2nd foreword to LotR his outlook & philosophy changed totally. Perhaps no event in the primary world affected his outlook, & the change was purely a result of his own psychological & spiritual growth & the growth of his understanding of myth.

Yet, even this would have to be explained, because clearly in his early life - into his '20's - his concern was focussed on the 'practical' value of myth to effect change on individuals, & he also seems to have believed that that change could be in some way 'directed' - giving England a mythology of its own would re-establish its moral values, its sense of identity, & its sense of purpose. So we'd still have to explain when & why he rejected, or at least moved away from, that belief.

(EDIT: some quotes from members of the TCBS given in Garth's book: (this is lifted from my post on the Canonicity thread)

(On to the TCBS from Tolkien & the Great War)

(p14)Tolkien once compared the TCBS to the pre-Raphaelites, probably in response to the Brotherhood's preoccupation with restoring Medieval values in Art.

(p56) Tolkien maintained that the society was 'a great idea which has never become quite articulate'. Its two poles, the moral & the aesthetic, could be complemantary if kept in balance...While the Great Twin Brethren (Tolkien & Wiseman) had discussed the fundamentals of existence, neither of them had done so with Gilson or Smith. As a result, Tolkien declared, the potential these four 'amazing' individuals contained in combination remained unbroached.'

(p105) Gilson proposed that feminism would help by banishing the view that 'woman was just an apparatus for man's pleasure'

Smith declared that, through Art, the four would have to leave the world better than they had found it. Their role would be ' to drive from life, letters, the satge & society that dabbling in & hankering after the unpleasant sides & incidents in life & nature which have captured the larger & worser tastes in Oxford, London & the world ... To re-establish sanity, cleanliness, & the love of real & true beauty in everyone's breast.

Gilson told Tolkien that, sitting in Routh Road... 'I suddenly saw the TCBS in a blaze of Light as a great Moral reformer ...Engalnd purified of its loathsome moral disease by the TCBS spirit. It is an enormous task & we shall not see it accomplished in our lifetime.

(p 122) Rob Gilson: I like to say & to hear it said & to feel boldly that the glory of beauty & order & joyful contentment in the universe is the presence of God....GB Smith was closely attentive to Tolkien's vision & in some measure shared it....Smith saw no demarcation between holiness & Faerie.

(p136) TCBSianism had come to mean fortitude & courage & alliance. ...But the TCBS had absorbed patriotic duty into its constitution not simply because its members were all patriots. the war mattered because it was being fought 'so England's self draw breath'; so that the inspirations of 'the real days' of peace might survive'...

Gilson: 'I have faith that the TCBS may for itself - never for the world - than God for this war some day.

Tolkien already believed that the terrros to come might serve him in the visionary work of his life - if he survived.

(p174) Tolkien: 'Regarding, presumably, those same 'idle chatterers', the journalists& their readers whom Smith execrated, he wrote that 'No filter of true sentiment, no ray of feeling for beauty, women, history or their country shall reach them again.'

(p180) Smith (after Rob Gilson's death in battle) 'The group was spiritual in character, 'an influence on the state of being', & as such it transcended mortality; it was 'as permanently inseperable as Thor & his hammer'. the influence, he said, was, 'a tradition, which forty years from now will still be as strong to us (if we are alive, & if we are not) as it is today.

(Tolkien) 'the TCBS may have been all we dreamt - & its work in the end be done by three or two or one survivor ... To this I now pin my hopes..'

(p253) Smith had wanted them to leave the world a better place than when they found it, to 're-establish sanity, cleanliness, & the love of real & true beauty' through art embodying TCBSian principles.

(p308) 'The 24 year old Tolkien had believed just as strongly in the dream shared by the TCBS, & felt that they 'had been granted some spark of fire ... that was destined to kindle a new light, or, what is the same thing, rekindle an old light in the world

(p309) But The Lord of the Rings, the masterpiece that was published a decade & a half later, stands as the fruition of the TCBSian dream, a light drawn from ancient sources to illumnate a darkening world'.

So right from the start of the Lost Tales, Tolkien is attempting to cast the TCBSian philosophy into artistic form. It culminates in the publication of LotR - at least during his lifetime. So, its not, or was never intended to be, simply a story. Its not an allegory in the strict sense, but the Legendarium could be seen as a mythologisation of TCBSianism vs the 'world'.

If there is an underlying 'truth' it is perhaps the 'truth' that the TCBS believed in - & so we're back to the question of what 'truth' Tolkien is revealing to us in his works - some kind of 'absolute', archetypal TRUTH, or simply what he felt to be true about the world, & we have to ask ourselves how close the two are.

Wherever we come down, its clear that whatever he was doing, he was attempting to do more than simply 'entertain' readers, because the TCBS was born in the hearts & minds of idealistic young men in peacetime & blasted apart on the Somme. Tolkien's mythology came into being during the horrors of mechanised warfare. But we enter it (or most of us do) as the TCBS would have originally, & it represents for us, as it would have for them, before the war, as a place of escape, of beauty, excitement, sadness, so we simply cannot read it as Tolkien would have read it himself when he came back to it to comment on its meaning for him. For us, it will have no 'meaning' beyond itself, & wahtever meaning we find in it for ourselves & our lives in this world, they will not, cannot, be the same as they were for Tolkien, so, our interpretations of it are as valid as his.

Which is not to say that he didn't intend us to find TCBSian values in it, & to find them more attractive than what was on offer in the 'primary world'. So, I'd say the book certainly contains deliberate 'meaning', that there is an intention on Tolkien's part that we should find in it waht he wants us to find, & also that he wants us to agree with him - but we never really could, because we're our own people, living our own lives, with our own experiences which we take to Middle Earth with us, & bring back out transformed.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Also I wonder how much more really there is of use rather than curiousity to emerge from letters and diaries ..... love him or loathe him CRT IS a scholar and I doubt that he would suppress much that was relevant to the opus, however loyal and loving a son he also is ..... but then although they are fascinating, I can't help think there is something deeply unpleasant about
reading letters intended for one recipient and even more a diary intended for no-one (not everyone does write them with an eye to posterity )

Ok, I see this. Then again - was Tolkien an important literary artist, or simply a clever, inventive, storyteller? Is he worth trying to understand as a man? Should Carpenter's (& Garth's) biography have been written. Should the Sil, UT & HoME have been published - Tolkien clearly wouldn't have published them as they are , because none of them are actually finished.

And this thread? Should we be even discussing this subject? Well, Tolkien published the Fairy Stories essay, which is a discussion on the nature & value of myth, legend & fairystory, which sets out his own 'philosophical' stance on the subject. Are we to simply accept what he says there, without asking what he means, & how he came to his position on the subject? If his stories become in a sense public property when they're published, then don't his views & beliefs also become public property when he 'publishes' them? Perhaps if the rest of his letters & his diaries were published we would be able to end this kind of speculation.