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#10 | ||
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Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
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Quote:
Our ancestors worldview was not 'political' or 'philosophical', but magical. The world worked differently for them to the way it does for us. For them Elves & Dwarves were not (as they were for Tolkien - at least when he put off his artist's hat & put on his critic's) - 'aspects of the human'. They were real beings. Faerie was a real place. Modern critical theories abound, but none of them seem to take that simple fact into account. Our ancestors lived in a reality where you could stray into Faery & encounter the Faery Queene. Critical & literary theories can go on till the cows come home about Archetypes & the idealisation of the Feminine, about male societies reducing women to stereotypes of the Virgin or the Whore, but they miss the point entirely. The 'meaning' of your story of the Monk & the mother eating her baby is clear enough to anyone who has encountered the Dark Goddess in meditation. It isn't 'nuanced' at all - its very stark & simple. The Goddess is both giver & taker of Life, She weaves & she unweaves all things, is both womb & tomb of all life. Ask any Pagan. Quote:
Peig Sayers, the Aran Island storyteller, told how she remembered long stories (which could take many evenings to relate) after a single hearing. She would stare at a blank wall & visualise the events as the storyteller related them. These tales are collections of Images & these Images have very powerful effects on the individual consciousness, if they are allowed to work, & not subjected to 'analysis'. Tolkien's work is full of such Images & that's why it affects us so powerfully (its also why all our attempts at explanation & analysis are ultimately unsatisfying - these images, like the traditional images of folktale & song - affect us on a much deeper level than the intellectual). (If you want to really understand what the story of the mother becoming a monster & eating her child means, visualise it as powerfully as you can, as if it were happening in front of you. Don't analyse it, or attempt to 'explain' it to yourself. No 'theory' will tell you as much about the 'meaning' of it.) |
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