'high', purged of the gross: culture - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Faramir Jones · 07-13-2016, 08:08 AM

Thanks for restarting this thread, Formendacil!

Tolkien was, of course, well aware of the 'gross' parts of the time he lived in, including how badly people behaved towards each other, from among other things his military service in the First World War, including in the Battle of the Somme.

He alluded to this in letters to his son Christopher, then serving in the RAF in the Second World War. In a letter to him of 30th April 1944, Letter 64 of the published Letters, he said that he first began to write the ‘H.[istory] of the Gnomes[Noldor]’ in ‘army huts, crowded, filled with the noise of gramophones’. In another, Letter 66, dated 6th May, he said that ‘lots of the early parts’ and ‘the languages’ of Morgoth and the History of the Gnomes were done ‘in grimy canteens, at lectures in cold fogs, in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candle light in bell-tents, even some down in dugouts under shell fire’.

07-13-2016, 08:08 AM	#16
Faramir Jones Ghost Prince of Cardolan Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Lonely Isle Posts: 706	Tolkien well aware of the 'gross' Thanks for restarting this thread, Formendacil! Tolkien was, of course, well aware of the 'gross' parts of the time he lived in, including how badly people behaved towards each other, from among other things his military service in the First World War, including in the Battle of the Somme. He alluded to this in letters to his son Christopher, then serving in the RAF in the Second World War. In a letter to him of 30th April 1944, Letter 64 of the published Letters, he said that he first began to write the ‘H.[istory] of the Gnomes[Noldor]’ in ‘army huts, crowded, filled with the noise of gramophones’. In another, Letter 66, dated 6th May, he said that ‘lots of the early parts’ and ‘the languages’ of Morgoth and the History of the Gnomes were done ‘in grimy canteens, at lectures in cold fogs, in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candle light in bell-tents, even some down in dugouts under shell fire’.