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#9 | |||
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,491
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I will try to be concise, answering the questions without going off on tangents.
Quote:
And if you think of it that way, atheism is also a kind of religion. And so is science. So whatever world view you have, whether it's Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant or Muslim or Hindu or atheist, when reading something from an academic point of view, you may either agree or disagree with it depending on its world view - and at that point, if you disagree, either continue stubbornly disagreeing because you're standing on two different foundations or accept (for the time being and for the sake of getting something out of it) the writing's view. Quote:
If there is a eucatastrophe - good. That means it's there, and deal with it. No eucatastrophe - good. That means - guess what? - you have to deal with it too. I think that nothing defines an author's stories more than his stories do. That might sound stupid, but there's a point. Religion(s), personal experiences, ideals, and etc. may influence an author and his writing, and may even to some extent define him, but only his writing defines his writing. You can say that there is eucatastrophe in Tolkien - but you can't say that Tolkien is eucatastrophe. That just wouldn't be true, like with the example of COH that you bring up. So can you put together all of Tolkien's works and define them? Not if you want to measure how much Tolkien believed in eucatastrophies himself. What he believed in has an affect, but does not define the product. The eucatastrophe is just an example, but this works for any aspect of any work. I think it's not right to define all the works of an author, especially someone who wrote as diversely as Tolkien, with one term or concept, because in most cases it will not be wholly true. The works are fact, within the works. You cannot disagree with fact. And the best way to explain such a complicated "fact" is to, well, say it. Quote:
Tolkien's works cannot be defined as Christian, just like they cannot be defined as eucatastrophic. They have a Christian influence - certainly. But Christianity is not the only influence. So while Tolkien's works are not, as you put it, explicitly Christian, there are elements of Christianily in them. An influence doesn't have to show 100% in order for it to be present. Huh, seems like I failed epicly to be concise. ![]()
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