And Eru Smiled

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

IS this primary world of ours not enchanted, but mundane?

Originally Posted by davem

I think what you say about 'the right frame of mind' is the key to what we're talking about. Mountains in & of themselves are not 'enchanted' - they're just very big rocks. ... The enchantment they inspire in us comes from the 'story' we tell ourselves about them when we look at them.

'Halflings!' laughed the rider that stood beside Éomer. 'Halflings! But they are only a little people in old songs and children's tales out of the North. Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?'
'A man may do both,' said Aragorn. 'For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!' - J.R.R. Tolkien in The Two Towers

Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining -- regaining of a clear view. I do not say "seeing things as they are" and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say "seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them" -- as things apart from ourselves. - Tolkien in On Fairy-Stories

Here Tolkien describes precisely what that "right frame of mind" is, as he understands it in On Fairy-Stories.

I'm (more than) troubled by the subjectivity that seems to take over every discussion I observe on the BarrowDowns lately, such as here, regarding "the stories we tell ourselves". Tolkien is saying something different: To see mountains, or the green earth, with a clear view, is to see them as we are meant to see them. They are not mere stones nor mere dirt unless we tell ourselves otherwise. The mountains and earth don't need us to reinterpret them as something more. They are, to use Tolkien's words, "meant to be" the stuff of legends. Yes, here's story, but not "stories we tell ourselves". Rather, it's story that gives us the chance to regain the ability to see mountains and green earth the way they were meant to be seen. Meant to be? Who is purposing this "meaning to be"?

Of course, it could, and probably will be argued, that this was Tolkien's subjective opinion, and the "author is dead", and we all reinterpret not only his stories but also his essays as we will and must because we are who we are. Sigh.

I am troubled by Tolkien's paranthetical "or were", as if he is no longer sure that we are meant to see things with a clear view. There are perhaps many possibilities as to what could be meant by that. It could be that Tolkien believed that the Someone who "means" us to see things with a clear view is as distant as Eru seems to be (by some readers) in the Legendarium. It could also be that Tolkien knew that subjectivistic moderns like us are losing the ability to regain a clear view (this would not be a surprising view for him, considering his pessimism). Or it could be that Tolkien is referring here to the nature of language and the way in which it changes, which brings me back to Owen Barfield and Poetic Diction, which I've interpreted in the Mythic Unities thread. In short, the language we speak has been developed to such a point that we are no longer able to comprehend the wonder of things in the primary world; to which Tolkien would say we need Fairy-story to regain the clear view (which is done, I think, through the unities).

The 'Way of Affirmation' or 'Beatrician Experience' posited by Charles Williams is something I've given a lot of thought to over the years. It's interesting to me that Tolkien is known to have said that when it came to literature, he and Williams "had nothing to say to each other". Which suggests to me that Tolkien didn't have a very high opinion of the Way of Affirmation. Nevertheless, it could be argued that LotR is itself a Way of Affirmation. Anyway.