The Capturing of Myth

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

I also hesitate to assign to fantasy qualities or affects which make it radically unlike any other form of literature or set it aside as opperating under different conditions. This no doubt derives from your belief that fantasy comes from something other, but it is not a belief I share.

Drama has, of its nature, already attempted a kind of bogus, or shall I say at least substitute, magic: the visible & audible presentation of imaginary men in a story. That is in itself an attempt to counterfeit the magician's wand. To introduce, even with mechanical success, into this quasi-magical secondary world a further fantasy or magic is to demand, as it were, an inner or tertiary world. It is a world too much.

Actually, I think Tolkien's point does apply to fantasy alone. Its a matter of how much an audience can 'believe'. Everyone has limits! Essex has given an example of where Jackson has 'succeeded' - for me it didn't work, because I simply couldn't believe in Denethor - he was too much of a pantomime villain, so the whole effect was destroyed (bit like the 'inquisitor' at the end of Braveheart).

But take another example - the Balrog - to show the Balrog fully, & particularly in long shot, destroys the impact, & the sense of terror & overwhelming power is completely lost - we see a Balrog of Morgoth a few inches high. The mythic dimension is too easily lost when translated into other media.

As for sound effects, well, perhaps I should refer you to Mr. Underhill for his understanding of how sound effects people can hear things newly and persuade us of that new vision.

You simply cannot communicate all the connotations of 'doom-boom' in any other from than the literary. Language is essential to the communication of myth & fairy story. Literature, for its power, relies on either detailed back story, which cannot be translated into drama, or with myth & fairy story, on what the reader/hearer brings to the experience in terms of the imagery. So, realistic fiction can be translated into drama, because we are seeing something close to our own lives, our everyday experience. Or if we take modern dress productions of Shakespeare we see that the producers feel the need to enable the audience to bring their everday experience to the play.

What's interesting in traditional folk tales is the way they are adapted to the audience's experiences - even fairy palaces are described as being like large versions of the houses the people knew - this is especially clear when you read Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, but what we see in this is a movement away from myth towards realistic fiction. Drama has to present the story in a way, a form, the audience can relate to, & the more 'popular' it seeks to be, the more it will have to play down the magic - hence Jackson's approach to LotR - but the more that is done, the further away from myth we move.

Myth is probably the artistic form furthest from drama. I'm not here speaking of a native people's presentation of its myths in dramatic form, which grew out of ritual & worship practices, & has a religious dimension/purpose.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I’m really going to stick me neck out here and say that I disagree with the two premises that underlie so much of this thread…

1) I don’t agree that Tolkien has created a myth (but then, I don’t think that any one person can)

2) I don’t agree that this attitude or ‘feeling’ which we attribute to a tale and call ‘mythic’ must forever and anon reside only in the original work (that is, a ‘mythic’ book cannot become film or vice versa).

To tackle my first point: with all due respect to Lewis, I think he missed a major component of myth – that it is not something that can belong to any one person, but is instead a communal/societal experience. Works of art can be ‘mythic’ (like classical Greek drama) only insofar as they rewrite or represent a body of myth that the society is already organised around or in response to in some way. But no-one can just sit down and write a myth; when we come to read such a work, we are not finding an expression of something that we share, but something alien. (Unlike the citizens of Thebes hearing about Theseus, the ‘founder’ of their city, we read of Aragorn and the refounding of some place called ‘Gondor’ that is meaningless outside the book.) Myth is not just a story that one person tells and that we like, it is a living body of tradition that finds expression in and through a wide range of social and communal experience. Yes, LotR has become widespread and lots of people find meaning in it, but it is not the expression of our own societal belief system – it is the expression of a belief system, but we do not look to Aragorn and Frodo, Boromir and Éowyn as part of the ‘us’ the way that the ancient Greeks looked at Odysseus, or Native Americans regard Old Woman or Coyote.

What LotR is, is ‘mythic’ which is an entirely subjective attribution that some people are willing to give it and others are not. By ‘mythic’ I mean, does it ‘feel’ like a myth? As I said, this is entirely subjective and personal, so I will not attempt to argue anyone into or out of their position toward the mythic in LotR, since if you think it is, it is. But where I will take issue is with anyone who would want to move from their own subjective response to the text (“This feels mythic to me”) to a normative stance that they wish to impose on others (“therefore, it really is a myth, and therefore expressing a value and belief system that describes and embodies the world we live in”).

This is why I make my second point. Because a reader decides that the book is mythic and the film is not, or the film is mythic and the book is not – well, that’s their subjective response, and they are not only welcome to it, I cherish that response and embrace it. But to take the step beyond that and start claiming that the film is categorically not myth but the book is, is to make the mistake of assuming that something one has attributed to the book (the mythic ‘feel’) is part of the book. Again, this is not how myth is. Myth does not adhere to the work of art that represents it: Odysseus is not a character in a poem by Homer. Rather, the Odyssey is a work of art that is meant to capture and reflect a myth that already has cultural, social, religious reality in its world. That is why LotR, great as it is, cannot be myth, and that is why to say that it is myth and the film is not is to do what I can only describe as a form of interpretive violent to other viewers, for that statement assumes that one’s own subjective assessment of the book is somehow part of the book, not part of one’s individual experience of the book.

And another thing…

The Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy, it’s a single book in three volumes. I know that nobody in this thread has made this mistake, here or elsewhere, but as long as I was being cranky I figured I’d get that one off my chest too.

[davem]

Yet, the creation of a mythology for England was Tolkien's (original) motivation, so He clearly believed it was possible for an individua to create a mythology.

That aside, Tolkien did make use of mythic themes & elements, & his approach was, in large part to re-create what had been lost. My own feeling is that the sense we have that LotR is 'mythic' derives from this - the Legendarium itself may not be genuine myth, but there is enough genuine myth in there for it to affect us in the way genuine myth does.

Aragorn may not have existed prior to LotR, but Arthur, did, Gandalf may only have come into being with Hobbit & grown with LotR, but Merlin had existed long before.

The point for me, is that LotR communicates the remanants of our mythology in an incredibly effective way - & I think that has a lot to do with the form Tolkien uses - literature. The movies don't communicate the mythic dimension to me, & I think that's because they make the characters too 'real', too 'everyday'. The magic, the mythic elements are played down, in order to make the characters acceptable & believeable for a modern audience.

[Lalwendë]

Fordim says:

But no-one can just sit down and write a myth; when we come to read such a work, we are not finding an expression of something that we share, but something alien.

What immediately sprung to mind when I read this was Bram Stoker's Dracula. The figure of the vampire is not a part of myth or legend in the UK and Ireland, yet has now entered our collective minds as though it was a part of our myths. Obviously vampires are a strong part of myth in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world, but they are essentially alien elsewhere and yet Bram Stoker began the process of making them a part of our own culture. What this shows to me is that it is possible to create or adapt myths anew.

Whether or not Tolkien was successful in creating a mythology for England is a difficult question; to put it simply, I think he was successful in creating a mythology, but I do not think it is one purely for England. The mythology of England was pushed back, by successive waves of invasion, to the Celtic fringe (Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall) but many strong mythological elements remain, so I do not think England ever was lacking it's own mythology - it is just not written down.

Davem says:

The point for me, is that LotR communicates the remanants of our mythology in an incredibly effective way

I think that by and large this is true, there are many echoes in Tolkien from English mythology and folklore, but there are some elements which do not appear, the darker, less 'wholesome' aspects.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Lalwende

I think that by and large this is true, there are many echoes in Tolkien from English mythology and folklore, but there are some elements which do not appear, the darker, less 'wholesome' aspects.

For instance ravens, which have very dark connotations in Northern myth, associated with battlefields & the Dark Goddess & with Odin himself, yet this primal image & symbol of 'northerness' only makes a brief appearance in the Hobbit & not at all in the Sil or LotR - it seems that there were some symbols Tolkien felt it was as well to leave 'sleeping'!

(I think Lalwende may understand what i'm getting at here, even if no-one else does!)

[Bêthberry]

Lalwende wrote:

I think that by and large this is true, there are many echoes in Tolkien from English mythology and folklore, but there are some elements which do not appear, the darker, less 'wholesome' aspects.

davem wrote:

For instance ravens, which have very dark connotations in Northern myth, associated with battlefields & the Dark Goddess & with Odin himself, yet this primal image & symbol of 'northerness' only makes a brief appearance in the Hobbit & not at all in the Sil or LotR - it seems that there were some symbols Tolkien felt it was as well to leave 'sleeping'!

(I think Lalwende may understand what i'm getting at here, even if no-one else does!)

Well, I think I understand as well. Does that make us witches or something?

I wonder here if Tolkien was not consciously doing something similar to what happened with the modern editions of fairy tales. Certainly Red Riding Hood and Cinderella are nothing these days to what they are in the original versions. Did this represent a sense that the fairy tales were the province of children and so should be censored of any dark frightening fears? Such an attitude is wrong on both counts, I think. (reasons forthcoming if you wish, but I hesitate to steer off -topic)

Why do you think Tolkien omitted the darker aspects of mythologies?

[davem]

*********** to anyone who reads the following *************
This was written in response a post which Bethberry has just removed, but is intending to to reinstate. I have included all of her important points in my quotes, though.

Originally Posted by Bb

Does that make us witches or something? ....Why do you think Tolkien omitted the darker aspects of mythologies?

(Is Bethberry trying to get davem to break his vow of secrecy - 'To Know, To Dare, To Will & To Keep Silent', reveal the sacred secrets & bring the wrath of the Sisters at the Back of the North Wind down on himself? )

There are certain 'mythic' images & symbvols which can't be used freely.RJ Stewart gives some images relating to the Goddess in her 'dark' aspect-

Black Crows flying over White Ice.
A flowering Broom plant within a cloud of fire.
The cry of an owl within which is the voice of a young girl.

We could add to that the image of ravens feeding on the corpse of a slain warrior.

None of those images could fit comfortably within Tolkien's mythology. If Tolkien had tried to fit them in there he would have been forced to take the mythology in a different direction, change its mood completely, or they would have stuck out like sore thumbs. This is because some images & symbols communicate particular ideas & psychic 'experiences', & cannot simply be taken by a writer & used as he or she wishes. The 'darker' aspects of northern myth communicated through these images weren't something Tolkien wanted to go into - for various reasons.

Of course, he did make use of numerous 'pagan' themes & images, some (the ones he felt comfortable with) he did take up 'straight' into his mythology - the wise old man, the once & future King, etc. Others he would use in his own, 'non-traditional' way, but some were difficult to make use of - the figure of Odin appears, but with his 'good' qualities given to Gandalf, & his 'bad' qualities shared among Saruman & Sauron.

So, its not just a matter of excising certain things so as not to upset the children & frighten the horses, its more a matter of wanting to retain some degree of control over what is communicated to the reader, & over what the reader is put in touch with, & how he or she is affected.

Of course, if you don't believe there is any objective, underlying 'reality' beyond the one we experience in our waking lives, then none of that will make sense.

(Now, who felt they'd been given a 'glimpse' of something by my first comment about 'sacred vows' & 'the Sisters at the Back of the North Wind'? - see how certain images affect you & can spark off that sense of something half glimpsed?)