What was it all for?

[davem]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

My immediate reaction, I suppose, is "What does it matter?" My own reaction to Tolkien's works is more important to me than his purpose in writing them. But that may just be me.

But ... and I hesitate to ask this ... but, if you are seeking to establish Tolkien's purpose in writing what he did, does that not inevitably involve a consideration of his experiences, influences and sources - those things that led him to write it? And, quite apart from the difficulty of reaching any definitive conclusions on these issues, does that not therefore involve "breaking the thing down" in order to examine it?

Well, his experiences obviously provided the raw material - but the Legendarium is not a 'biography'. He srew on various literary sources, yet it is not a re-write of Northern Myth, or of the Bible. It is something else.

In the Beowulf 'allegory' the man built the Tower to be able to 'look out on the Sea' - ie, he built it for a purpose. After his death his friends come along & sdismantle the Tower to find out wher the stones came from.

Now, there are two ways of looking at most things - 'Where did it come from?' & 'What is it for?' Source analysis tells us a great deal in answer to the former question, but almost nothing in answer to the latter. Just because the former question is the easier to answer does not make it the more important, or more interesting, question.

Something drove a human being to spend 60 years of his life in the creation & perfection of something which has transfixed millions of readers for the last two generations & looks likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Leaving aside the Bible, one has to say that the other sources he used have not had such a profound effect. Why not? When we read about Surtr crossing Bifrost we are not as affected as when we read of Gandalf's stand against the Balrog. So, finding sources will not explain the effect the work has on us, nor will it explain why Tolkien chose that particular image out of all the ones Tolkien could have chosen from the Pagan sources he had to hand.

Tolkien spent 60 years doing something, & he must have had a reason for devoting such time & energy to it. He wasn't just using 'sources', he was using them for something.