LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 07 - In the House of Tom Bombadil

[mark12_30]

the good (elf-friend) and the evil (the ring in his voice).

Fordim: a bit late, but I didn't catch this til Fingolfin quoted it: "ring in his voice" refers to the timbre, the tonal quality of his voice; the joy, firmness, and power in it. Not to 'the Ring' that Frodo carried. Her reference to "the light in your eyes and the ring in your voice" compares him to elvishness in both cases; they have shining eyes and clear musical voices; so does he.



1. To sound, as a bell or other sonorous body, particularly a metallic one.
...
3. To sound loud; to resound; to be filled with a ringing or reverberating sound.
...
4. To continue to sound or vibrate; to resound.

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

I lean towards this idea of Tom as existing 'entirely on the plane of Nature', but then how to explain his power over the Barrow Wight?

Er . . . yes. Well, I didn't think of that. He clearly does have power to command the Barrow-wight, and the Barrow-wight is about as supernatural as one can get. I can't think of much to say to that except that my theory appears to be quite incorrect.

[mark12_30]

There's nature and there's Nature. The Elves are extremely natural, yet they exist in both the shadow-world (the wraith-world, one might call it, except that elves are there too) and they also exist in the "normal, physical world".

I think, Aiwendil, that we will have another one of those divisions similar to the division over truth versus Truth. Maybe it's my Vineyard background! But some of us will say that "Naturally Supernatural" sounds perfectly reasonable, while others will balk at the phrase and call it an iherently illogical contradiction in terms.

Personally, I see no problem with Tom being 'Naturally Supernatural', and having a 'naturally supernatural' power over the Barrow-Wight. In the same vein, the elves' magic is more like Art; it is Natural; it is not about Power, yet it is Powerful.

There was a carpenter like that once.

[Aiwendil]

Mark12_30 wrote:

Personally, I see no problem with Tom being 'Naturally Supernatural', and having a 'naturally supernatural' power over the Barrow-Wight. In the same vein, the elves' magic is more like Art; it is Natural; it is not about Power, yet it is Powerful.

Yes, to a degree I can accept this. But something still makes me uneasy. There is, I think, throughout the Legendarium a contrast drawn between the natural and the artificial, between Nature and Art. It is the difference between the Avari and the Noldor, the difference between Gandalf and Saruman, the difference between Ulmo and Aule, the difference between Finarfin and Feanor. The Elves' magic is Art, which is to say "artificial" - i.e. works of artifice, of skill. Now I don't see any problem with the Elves also appreciating and representing the Natural side of things - no real person can be all artifice or all nature. But I had thought of Tom as representing the purely Natural, without any of the "learned", without any of the curwe so prized by Aule and Feanor. And I think that the simple and obvious fact that he has a power of command over the Barrow-wight poses problems for that view. Also, there's his singing - indeed, it seems unlikely that anything in Arda could be completely devoid of connections with Art, since the world was created in the Ainulindale.

Sorry if that's not very coherent; I'm thinking and typing at the same time.

[HerenIstarion]

Aiwendil - Art as it is forms a part of Nature. After all, the Nature itself is created = act of art. Art rightfully employed = sub creation = imitation of the first Act of Art. Only perverted art, one not conforming to natural pattern, is opposed to Nature.

Besides, it may be argued that only humans when dead leave Nature behind, as they leave the Circles of the World. All else, including ghost world of wraiths, is inside it, though on different plane. Hence, only Supernatural acts (=miracles) are those coming outside of it - i.e. interventions of Eru - Numenor case, resurrection of Gandalf, and the case of Bilbo finding the Ring. Even in those cases, pattern is natural - the island is overflowed, the body is not destroyed, the finding of the ring is, well, just chance-finding.

Dratted lack of time, so I must refer you to, instead of developing it on the spot:

Evil Things
Acceptance of Mythology

Those do not deal directly with the issue in hand, but touch upon it as well

cheers

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Aiwendil, Mark and HI: very interesting take on the relation of Art and Nature here. I agree with HI, however, that in ME Nature (ie the created world) takes 'precedence' over Art (ie the practice of the created beings who form a part of Nature). In his works, I think that Tolkien recovered a much more substantive and meaningful conception of Nature: not just trees and hills and all the stuff 'out there' or 'outside' the human, but the sum total of creation, which includes humanity and our own acts of creation, or Art.

Shakespeare put it best in The Winter's Tale:

Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean; so over that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes.

This is why things like Rings and Barrow-Wights (which are the result of Art, be it the art of Ringmaking or the art of magic) are irrelevant to Tom and Goldberry, who embody the Nature from which all Arts spring.

Rimbaud: I like your football analogy for the eucatastrophe of Tom's appearance, not in the least because it shows the ultimate paradox of Tolkien's attempt to embody nature: Tom's existence as a part of nature is made possible only through Tolkien's art!

[Aiwendil]

Heren Istarion wrote:

Art as it is forms a part of Nature. After all, the Nature itself is created = act of art. Art rightfully employed = sub creation = imitation of the first Act of Art. Only perverted art, one not conforming to natural pattern, is opposed to Nature.

I'm not sure that I agree. Art is artifice - it is by definition artificial. And throughout the Legendarium there is a contrast drawn between Art (craft, skill, lore) and . . . well, something else - I'm not sure whether to call it "nature" or "wisdom" or what. The Noldor, Aule, Sauron, Saruman, Feanor - they all exemplify the Art side of things. I'd say that Gandalf, the Vanyar, Yavanna, and Ulmo, among others, exemplify the other side. Remember Aule's words to Yavanna about the Dwarves - "Nonetheless, they will have need of wood." So there is some kind of opposition between the world of skill and the world of growing things.

But perhaps the opposition I'm seeing is not to be thought of as one between Art and Nature, but rather between Art and something else.