LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 01 - The Departure of Boromir

[Aiwendil]

HerenIstarion: You make a good point. I think that Shippey discusses the 'one day we shall put it to the test' formula in connection with that passage.

Yes, I know that it is Boromir who does the boasting, but he does it, in a way, in Aragorn's stead - the passage would have been weaker if it were Aragorn to boast an ability to 'stem the tide'

Yes. I wonder if there is perhaps more significance in the point you raise than at first meets the eye. Are there instances in northern epics like this one - where one character effectively makes the boast for another? I can't think of any in what I've read, but I'm certainly not an expert. For that matter, it's hard to think of instances of humility in those works. Aragorn is indeed confident and proud, but he is also, I think, humble in what may be a peculiarly modern sense. I think that this is one way in which Tolkien's heroic ideal differs from the Norse or Anglo-Saxon or even Homeric ideal.

Of course, one's interpretation of those ideals has some relavance. I recall that in the essay "Turin's Ofermod", Richard West discusses Tolkien's interpretation of the word "ofermod" found in "The Battle of Maldon". The word may be translated "overmood", "overboldness". Many or most scholars read the word as one of praise for Beorhtnoth and as reflecting the heroic ideal of the Anglo-Saxons. Tolkien, on the other hand, read it as expressing fault. Now I don't know enough about "The Battle of Maldon" or Anglo-Saxon literature in general to make a reasonable guess as to which view is correct. But the disagreement suggests that Tolkien's version of the northern heroic ideal may in fact have differed from the truth about it.

In a way, then, one could see Boromir as representing the old ideal, the Anglo-Saxon ideal, which is giving way (as it must) to Aragorn, the modern, perhaps Christianized, ideal. It is hard to imagine an Anglo-Saxon epic in which it would not be thought a wholly admirable thing to take the Ring and to use it against the enemy; the idea that power can corrupt and that valour in arms may not be the best course seems distinctly modern. LotR, then, could be viewed as a work that shows a shift in the heroic paradigm, if you will, somewhat like "Beowulf" or, I don't know, American Graffiti - not, perhaps, an intra-Legendarium shift, but rather a real world one.