Has it all been said?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

It just seems to me that the interesting stuff has mostly been said by the serious scholars & that what's coming out now is so obscure as to be irrelevant to most of us, & that even the interesting stuff can actually get in the way.

I rather suspect that scholarship is much like fandom in that it has trends and styles and special interests. Once a topic has been explored to the extent that either scholars or fans wish, it quietly is relegated to the back of the library shelves or discussion forum backpages and a new topic arises.

What is fascinating about scholarship (as about pop culture or fandom) is that all the interesting stuff is never done and said. The boredom lies only in the minds of those who cannot see beyond the current fad. One particular approach will hold sway for awhile but it will pass and someone else, with a different approach, will suddenly bring to light an entirely new idea or avenue of thought. The current fad for sources which bores davem (and in some of its applications, me) will wear itself out eventually OR will be overwhelmed by some scholars' new approach. That new approach will be something inspired by an entirely new imaginative appreciation of Tolkien and his stories and will lead to a swarm of papers in its fashion, eventually to fade out and be replaced by a new 'paradigm shift'. We need only consider the changes in, say, the appreciation of Kipling, to understand that scholarship as with fandom has its ebb and flow.

It is true that students moan about how everything has already been said about Shakespeare, or about Milton, or, now perhaps about Tolkien, but what is interesting is how new approaches arise which provide new ways of thinking about a story or an author. Literature, after all, isn't an archeology of digging up what is significant, but a vital process of the human mind, of making connections. Each new reading or new generation of readers will find its own unique approach, taste, preferences. Maybe the current trend is one which some fans don't appreciate, but they don't need to read it. And it won't necessarily remain the favoured way of reading. Some new writer will come along and make us see story in a new way--the way Tolkien made students see Beowulf or fairey in a new way--and bam! people will wonder, hey, didn't Tolkien do that too? And they'll go back and read LotR in light of what that other writer taught them about story, or about character, and suddenly, there will be new interesting stuff to see in Tolkien.

In short, there is no limit to readers' or scholars' or fans' imaginations. Sometimes they just have to work a vein to death before finding new gems down another shaft.

Oh, and has Christopher Tolkien ever made any public comments on the scholarly stuff? As a scholar himself, has he expressed any opinion about that heavy lable "Tolkien Studies"?

You know, early BD topics of 'merit' were quite different from what they were when I joined, and again different now from the popular threads. Some people care that the Legendarium has to be consistent, and suss out every potential inconsistency. Others just enjoy the stories. And still others are intrigued by how comparing events and characters sheds new ways of thinking about them. And still others find their way back to earlier mythologies and legends through Tolkien. Chaqu' un a sa gout.

[davem]

Well, we've had the 'sources' approach, the 'biographical' approach', the 'religio-philosophical' approach & the 'socio-cultural-historical' approach. We've had the 'applicability' approach ('ie 'This is what it means to me'). I'm sure there will be new angles/insights from the 'scholars', but the 'creative' side seems to be very much a poor second, apart from fan-fic. In other words the division seems to be 'scholarly=Proffessional' & 'creative=Amateur'.

It could be argued, I suppose, that the 'creative' side could include those professional writers of fantasy who were inspired by Tolkien to create their own secondary worlds (Patricia McKillip & Gene Wolf spring to mind), or the movie makers & the people behind the musical.

As an aside I do find myself wondering how much 'analysis' a work of literature can survive? Does a novel only get accepted as 'literature' once it can be dissected for analysis & taught in class?

[davem]

The Book that Inspired Tolkien (yes, another one)

http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/8/1150764276 http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...=UTF8&v=glance

Clearly a bit of a cash-in on Tolkien's name, but more confirmation that Tolkien was inspired as much by contemporary literature as by ancient myths. That said, its probably only the Tolkien connection that has seen this work published. I also notice that recent re-prints of some of Morris's romances are sold as 'books that inspired Tolkien'. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...books&v=glance

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...books&v=glance

(Note in both cases how Tolkien's name is more prominent on the cover than Morris's)
This is obviously another attempt to use Tolkien. Having said that, the book does look interesting....

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Surely there can't be more than one book that inspired Tolkien? Nobody reads that much.

Actually, quite a few of the elements of Tolkien's fiction are present in Morris, but the earlier writer tends to base his fantasy more firmly on actual history and legend. Whereas Tolkien would adopt a story, add elements of another and then give the whole a personal twist, Morris would re-tell one story in his own style. Both were drawing inspiration from the medieval world, but they did so in different ways. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Tolkien had read and enjoyed medieval historical fiction (perhaps we'll see Conan Doyle's The White Company and Sir Nigel released with a similar puff soon), but all this publisher's blurb is just that: marketing spiel with no real meaning. William Morris at least deserves better of posterity than to sit in Tolkien's shadow.

[davem]

I've found myself wondering whether the series of collected Myths & Legends published by Gresham in the first two decades of the 20th century, by writers like Donald Mackenzie & Lewis Spence were read by Tolkien. Don't know if anyone knows? Many of them were reprinted in p/b about 10 years ago (I have about 20 volumes - plus one original - Mackenzies Teutonic Myth & Legend - from around 1910). There was a massive surge of interest in myth & legend around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries.

Its easy to get the idea that Tolkien had wandered into some old library & pulled down original medieval texts of the shelves which no-one had looked at for centuries. Not the case at all. Fantastic literature drawing on ancient myths was a well established genre pre-Tolkien. Morris, MacDonald, Eddison, Dunsany, Howard, Lovecraft & Mirlees (along with Haggard & Buchan), among others, were/had been producing 'fantasy' for a good while & reviewers were able to place Mr Baggins comfortably into the genre of 'children's fantasy along with Alice, Wind in the Willows, the Snergs, etc.

In other words, we should not be surprised at discovering books which 'inspired' Tolkien. Effectively, we've been mislead by the emphasis placed on early sources.

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by davem

I also own a good 50-60 volumes of secondary literature on Tolkien

Gah! I knew that Tolkien-related books have been steadily proliferating since the movies, but I had no idea there was this much.

Originally Posted by Lal

The whole business of doing a degree in English is designed to make you almost hate literature. I wouldn't recommend the subject to someone who finds a lot of 'magic' in their leisure reading, as you will be required to pull apart and analyse everything you read, and you will also have to read a lot - not just the primary texts (AKA the novel, story, or poem, in human language) but also many critical works and articles. You will be required not just to analyse but to apply types of critical analysis, maybe doing a feminist criticism or a marxist one or a post structuralist one.

Or you may become an ironic trickster, the type who can magically conjure themes, symbols, allusions, and whatnot out of the most innocuous details of a story, all the while laughing up your sleeve while your professor eats it up with a spoon.

Analyses in Books in the far distant past used to treat the texts on their own terms, almost as history rather than literature. Though this still occurs from time to time, nowadays literary-criticism type analysis is the order of the day in the deeper threads. It's interesting how this shift has mirrored the evolution of the secondary literature in a way -- remember back when secondary Tolkien literature meant Foster's Middle-earth companion, Fonstad's Atlas, I.C.E.'s Middle-earth Roleplaying game (MERP), the odd book on learning Elvish? These were all creative responses to Tolkien, however flawed.

Now -- literally dozens of texts analyzing Middle-earth, its meaning, its symbols, its influences and history. Even Christopher went through this arc -- Silmarillion to History of Middle-earth. For my tastes, the analyses are a lesser response. In fact I'm hardly interested in them at all, and don't own a single "analysis of Tolkien" type text.

Learning about sources and inspirations of a favorite author can lead you to many interesting works. But in my opinion, if you read Tolkien's inspirations (or supposed inspirations) primarily with an eye out for how they influenced the professor, you're doing both Tolkien and the original work a disservice.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lal

The whole business of doing a degree in English is designed to make you almost hate literature. I wouldn't recommend the subject to someone who finds a lot of 'magic' in their leisure reading, as you will be required to pull apart and analyse everything you read, and you will also have to read a lot - not just the primary texts (AKA the novel, story, or poem, in human language) but also many critical works and articles. You will be required not just to analyse but to apply types of critical analysis, maybe doing a feminist criticism or a marxist one or a post structuralist one.

Originally Posted by davem

Well, we've had the 'sources' approach, the 'biographical' approach', the 'religio-philosophical' approach & the 'socio-cultural-historical' approach. We've had the 'applicability' approach ('ie 'This is what it means to me'). I'm sure there will be new angles/insights from the 'scholars', but the 'creative' side seems to be very much a poor second, apart from fan-fic. In other words the division seems to be 'scholarly=Proffessional' & 'creative=Amateur'.

It could be argued, I suppose, that the 'creative' side could include those professional writers of fantasy who were inspired by Tolkien to create their own secondary worlds (Patricia McKillip & Gene Wolf spring to mind), or the movie makers & the people behind the musical.

As an aside I do find myself wondering how much 'analysis' a work of literature can survive? Does a novel only get accepted as 'literature' once it can be dissected for analysis & taught in class?

On the one hand, I think both Lal and davem rightly identify an overwhelming aspect of formal English studies, its tendency towards autopsy. Traditional university curricula gave prominence to abstract thought and philosophical debate and looked it long nose down at many things which didn't fit this ancient model of study. The themes and topics and approaches at universities have shifted slightly in the last few years and performing arts as well as creative studies can be found at least in the newer unis--dare I say redbrick?

On the other hand, I am often amused by those who have such a negative response to traditional literary studies, because Tolkien himself was part of that entire enterprise. While his best work opened up literature to appreciation as literature (my own POV here), he also produced, as an academic, lots of textual analysis of language that ignored the creative aspects of the books--or manuscripts as the case was. (For a very tiny look at that aspect, see this post about Tolkien on medieval dialect )

At its best, discussion of literature ought to be a process of learning how to read with greater awareness, which to my mind means learning how to appreciate/enjoy story and book and verse in as wide a range as possible. Like all learning, sometimes this requires analysis. It also requires self-reflection and awareness of all the 'tricks' of language available to writers. Too often academics don't approach stories as creative writers would, but that in itself does not mean their approach can't produce minds in greater awareness of themselves and of story. My favourite teachers were always those who insisted upon a reading of the text and not the outside apparatus of scholarship, except where that scholarship actually illuminated something. One sad result of all the emphasis on 'critical theory' it seems to me is this emphasis on the theorists first and the creative texts second. Backwards!

Originally Posted by Mister U

Learning about sources and inspirations of a favorite author can lead you to many interesting works. But in my opinion, if you read Tolkien's inspirations (or supposed inspirations) primarily with an eye out for how they influenced the professor, you're doing both Tolkien and the original work a disservice.

I think this is the wrong way 'round--or maybe we are agreeing. I don't think people necessarily read "the sources" to understand how they influenced Tolkien--this was always one of the reasons why I downplay 'author' as opposed to 'text'--but because they are interested in fantasy, in all its forms and permutations. It is a shame that De La Motte Fouqué is being marketed as Tolkien's 'source', but that marketing ploy should not itself detract from what might be a fascinating read. I would really like to see how Moorish Spain is handled! Also fascinating is the question why fantasy developed at this cusp of the twentieth century. Maybe that doesn't lend itself to enjoying the fantasy on its own--a biggish maybe--but it is nonetheless a legitimate reading response.

Why should any one way of reading literature be the only way? After all, Tolkien himself likely had many different reading strategies behind his eyes.

Oh, and Azaelia--it isn't only literature and essays than can ruin kids' reading. Nowadays teachers force kids to keep journals, even if the kids don't wish to put their private feelings on the page for a teacher to read. There's always something out of whack when learning is structured.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

Also fascinating is the question why fantasy developed at this cusp of the twentieth century. Maybe that doesn't lend itself to enjoying the fantasy on its own--a biggish maybe--but it is nonetheless a legitimate reading response.

I've always found it interesting that there was an upsurge in interest in the Occult at exactly that time too. Not just the fascination with spiritualism, but also Aleister Crowley, AE Waite & the Golden Dawn. Perhaps it was in reaction to the extreme materialism of the Victorian/Edwardian Age, industrialism & the appearance of of Darwin's evolutionary theories. Its as if the one produced the other.

Certainly there was a near obsession with fairy stories & the fantastic among soldiers in the trenches, & both Tolkien & Lewis were WWI veterans who went on to write fantasy. We could also bring in Mervyn Peake, who served as a war artist & who was a witness of the opening of the death camps.

[Lalwendë]

It could possibly have had something to do with the growing interest in Medieval artistry? The Medieval/Elizabethan period seems to have produced a lot of fantastical art and literature in itself, so maybe this was another aspect of this interest?

Of course the move to a greater interest in esoteric/occult subjects could also have been a reaction to incredibly rapid social change and experiencing horror, and hence questioning established religion? There was also the reaction in the late 60s of American youth to Vietnam and the move to New Age philosophies (and of course, Tolkien fandom), so perhaps people do seek out fantasy as a reaction to horror?

[davem]

It is interesting that Both Lewis & Williams were deeply into the 'occult' before becoming Christians & their felllow Inkling, Owen Barfield was a follower of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy. We don't know that Tolkien ever shared that interest, but we do know that he was very interested in metaphysical subjects (as Flieger has demonstrated, Tolkien was greatly influenced by the ideas of JW Dunne on the nature of time & re-incarnation).

[littlemanpoet]

I hope I'm alive long enough to see the development of a historical perspective on Tolkien and his Legendarium. Perhaps fifty years from now, events will have occurred that will make Tolkien appear (1) dated {I doubt it}, (2) prophetic {I expect it}, (3) the most important modernist of the last four centuries {wouldn't that be fun?}; (4,5,6,7.....) and all kinds of other possibilities. A third world war (War of the Ring)? The passing of democratic forms of government (Scouring of the Shire, Return of a King, Lord over all Mordor)? The eclipse of Western culture (Eriador a wasteland)? So perhaps all that can be said has been said .... for now .... but let some great new cataclysmic (or not so) event shake the current paradigm to its roots, and see what there is then to say about the man.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

It could possibly have had something to do with the growing interest in Medieval artistry? The Medieval/Elizabethan period seems to have produced a lot of fantastical art and literature in itself, so maybe this was another aspect of this interest?

It is also good to recall that "Old English" and "Old English literature", even the concept of an "Anglo-Saxon People and country", are terms created by modern scholarship. For a wee bit of history in how the Old English texts were discovered and when they came into public knowledge as precursors of our English, see these links:

The Norton Anthology of English Literature online--Beowulf

One contemporary view of how to teach Old English literature

Lets I be called an old serious fussbudget for promoting scholarship, let me say that Tolkien was part of the initial excitement of the first stages of rediscovery of Old English. The philology which to our contemporary times is now old and superceded by linquistics was in Tolkien's time cutting edge--or as cutting edge as Oxford could be in those days.

So, part of this development of fantasy was concurrent with the rediscovery--perhaps it can even be said, discovery--of pre-Christian culture on the British Isles--the recognition of so very many regional dialects, the recovery--yes, that is the better word, recovery--of pagan legends, stories, myths. Perhaps this is why Tolkien so strongly wished to present his Legendarium as a history--part of the zeitgeist of his times, at least pre-WWI.


drigel: About our biographical sources: Carpenter's book is a marvellous read, but as readers of biographies know, there can be many versions of biographies. The Letters we have are selected letters, not collected, and it is very highly possible that letters remain in the hands of heirs of recipients, or trapped in pages of books sold second hand, stashed away in back files of libraries in England, that kind of thing. I also read somewhere--and can't recall now where--that Tolkien left a diary, which is unpublished by will of the Tolkien Estate. I could be wrong about both these facts, of course. Sussing out a writer's character is about as definitive a project as determining canonicity.

We've had bits and bites of discussion over what kind of fantasy Tolkien was writing. As davem said on another thread, Tolkien's fantasy is quite different, from, say, Gaiman's. Gaiman attempts to recoup elements of archetype and chaos and disorder into the 'modern' sensibility. Tolkien--his is historically based I suppose one could say. Lewis was a religious apologist.

Originally Posted by LMP

But there also could be something in LotR and the rest of the Legendarium that we can't see because of our place in history. The passing of time and its contexts will make it possible for those who follow us to see what we cannot, and that might also be true in terms of Tolkien.

They will see what their time helps them see which is not to say they won't also have their blindness along with insight.

All of which is to say that I find it rather funny, these comments which tend to look down on Books--which isn't to say that all BD should be about is Books.

I'm still waiting for a good thread which discusses Tolkien's sense of humour. On the other hand, I can see the possiblity of a werewolf game where the characters are the LotR characters. Now, if that were moderated by pio or Child, boy the cannonical possibilities of the rpg aspects there would be incredible.

[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Oh, and Azaelia--it isn't only literature and essays than can ruin kids' reading. Nowadays teachers force kids to keep journals, even if the kids don't wish to put their private feelings on the page for a teacher to read. There's always something out of whack when learning is structured.

Yes...I do hold certain unpleasant memories about journals of school days gone by...A couple of my teachers actually counted any lines I'd left blank at the end of whatever meaningless rambling I'd written, and took points off for not filling them. Little did they know that I already kept a journal hidden away at home, and also wrote short fiction for fun (none of which will ever see the light of day).

The things they do to get kids to write are just as bad as the things they do to get kids to read.

Originally Posted by davem

I'm not sure its possible to define 'western culture' precisely enough to be able to say its waning. Certainly its changing, but its as likely as not to be changing in a 'western' way into another phase of 'western' culture. Change is inevitable in any case, & to be welcomed if only because the alternative is stagnation. Besides, if 'Western Culture' does disappear it will be because it wasn't going anywhere, & couldn't adapt.

Very true... I think it's certainly changing faster than it was 10 years ago, at least in the USA. Changing into what, I'm not quite sure. Who knows what the history books are going to make of the early 2000's...?

On the subject of Tolkien becoming dated that LMP brought up, I also doubt LOTR will ever be dated--Its continued popularity even over half a century after it was written is definite evidence of that. I certainly get different things out of the book each time I read it, depending on what's going on in my immediate surroundings, my own life...and what's going on on a world level. It's always interesting to see what stands out to me on a new read, and how it differs from what I especially noticed the time before.