Tolkien's Influence Galactic?

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Although Tolkien's use of astronomy was possibly more in "poetic" than "physics" terms, I agree with you. It is really interesting... but it does not end with "hobbit" galaxies: I know about an asteroid named Bilbo... There is even an asteroid named Tolkien! I'm quite sure the Professor would be pleased...

Well to be fair, Tolkien was unlikely to have had much scientific education himself and there has been quite a lot of progress since his day but this article which someone directed me to on another thread a while back, may be of interest.

Having live so long with light pollution it took the blessed chance of waking in the small hours during a rail journey across the Australian outback to become aware of the full glory of a starlit night (and truly "get" the Elvish wonderment at it). It inspired me to take a course but having myself opted for poetry over Physics at 16 I struggled a bit . I wonder if the stars would have been so important in Tolkien's middle earth had he not lived in his youth, at least in lands of dark skies.

While the use of names from Classical Mythology for planets and their moons is long standing, it really is quite an achievement for an invented mythology to have entered the collective consciousness to be used usefully. Splendid news...

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Yes, it is good to see that the mythology 'took', no pun intended.

[Bêthberry]

Since this thread includes Tolkien's knowledge of constellations, I'm going to post this bit here, although it is unrelated to astrophysicists' naming practices.

Mithalwen's link does not mention this reference early in LotR:

Originally Posted by Strider

Their bags they piled on the parlour-floor. They pushed a low chair against the door and shut the window. Peering out, Frodo saw that the night was still clear. The Sickle* was swinging bright above the shoulders of Bree-hill. He then closed and barred the heavy inside shutters and drew the curtains together. . . .

. . . .

*The Hobbits' name for the Plough or Great Bear.

Yes, that's right. The asterisks mark a footnote in the text, a Tolkien footnote presumbably, not a CT footnote.

What I find remarkable about this footnote is that it distinctly erases the difference between our/Tolkien's Primary World and the sub-created world of Middle-earth.

Part apparently of what we Downers have named the "Translator Conceit", it directly links the hobbit nomenclature with that of our world. Perhaps it is one way Tolkien intended to suggest that Middle-earth was but our world in an early age--that is, it is part of his fictional bag of tricks--but what it also does is tie the text to something outside itself.

That is, this footnote clearly suggests that we are to view the story world as our world, and be prepared to see similarities between the two. It would, then, put a nail (just one nail, mind you) in the coffin of davem's insistence that the text must exist independently as a text, without any external references to our world or to our own literatures, that is must best be enjoyed as internally coherent story without any references to things outside it. Yet here is Tolkien directly linking Middle-earth to our own cultural practices of naming the heavens.
It isn't a reader seeing an analogy, as in Mithalwen's link to Tolkien's use of moon phases and stars, but something directly in the text which invites the reader to see hobbits as existing in our universe, but with their own system of naming things.

Fascinating, eh?

[Mithalwen]

The same stars may be viewed from a different planet But I will not presume to argue for davem and since he may not do so for himself....

[Bêthberry]

Still the same point of reference, Mithalwen, and still invites comparison between the hobbits' world and ours, between sub-created world and readers' or Primary world.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Still the same point of reference, Mithalwen, and still invites comparison between the hobbits' world and ours, between sub-created world and readers' or Primary world.

Don't be mean you can't do this to me when I don't have davem to sift what I was trying to say from what I might say and make it sound sensible and coherent.
And while I love the fact that Tolkien created such a detailed mythology for England that it seems plausible I am not going to admit to anything that might encourage the wearing of foot wigs.

Legate - yes was so delighted with it I cannot resist any opportunity to share. I must track back and find the original kind soul who refered me to it. And to save me "Babel fish"-ing - does Velká Medvědice mean Great Bear in Czech?

Yes the quote is familiar

[Lalwendë]

So there's a Sickle above Middle-earth and a Plough above Earth and they look the same? Well if that's evidence that Middle-earth is an earlier version of our own world then I'll happily await the day that archaeologists dig up a Neolithic umbrella or mantel clock. Maybe they will also unearth an express train at Avebury?

Its as likely that he drew a comparison to a constellation everyone aged five years and up knows to signify that The Sickle was a group of stars rather than have readers dumbfounded and wondering why a Druidic blade was hanging mysteriously in the sky.

There are too many anomalies for me to accept that this is anything like our own past, and I know too much about our own past (and have done since I was about seven) for it to be sensible for me to go down that odd path wearing a furry foot wig. It's a nice idea that it was our past, but it wasn't. It's a made up story. I can suspend my knowledge enough to be thoroughly enchanted by it, such is Tolkien's skill unlike many other writers, but when Gandalf says "Fly! You Fools!" I often think "Aye, many a true word..."

Yours, Lal-telling small children the world over that Father Christmas is just their dad-wende.

PS
If that was far too cynical for any faint-hearted readers please accept my warm apologies... I'll kick myself if the missing 17:16 to Doncaster is found at some stage in West Kennett Long Barrow...

EDIT I am now informed I am being sarcastic. I thought I was being satirical and all Impish.

And apparently Pullman said a similar thing and had to eat his words when they dug up 'Hobbit bones' ... that's the price you pay for nailing things to masts...I take it all back.

[davem]

Hmm.

Originally Posted by Bb

That is, this footnote clearly suggests that we are to view the story world as our world, and be prepared to see similarities between the two. It would, then, put a nail (just one nail, mind you) in the coffin of davem's insistence that the text must exist independently as a text, without any external references to our world or to our own literatures, that is must best be enjoyed as internally coherent story without any references to things outside it. Yet here is Tolkien directly linking Middle-earth to our own cultural practices of naming the heavens.

I don't see that this necessarily follows. Clearly the intention is that M-e is our world in the ancient past. Tolkien never changed that intention, & in the earliest writings (pre-BoLT - see Garth Tolkien & the Great War) the link is made between the world of the mythology & our world. It is, in short a mythology of our world. The 'spark' was Cynewulf's Crist (Eala Earendel engla beorhtast, Ofer Middengeard monum sended )

However, the world created is self contained, & the story stops at a certain point in our own history (7-8,000 years ago possibly), therefore, it must be taken on its own terms. To bring in a mention of a particular constellation is not in any way the same thing as bringing in references to cultural artefacts/concepts which did not exist during the mythico-historical period of the story.

Now, of course, it is entirely possible to read the story as 'autobiography' & seek influences in Tolkien's life that may have inspired incidents in the work. Or to read it as an academic excercise in the creation of an 'ur' mythology - or even as (which Tolkien stated) an excercise in linguistic aesthetic. In support of the former I suppose one could propose the Nazgul on their Fell Beasts = german pilots strafing the trenches (though we must remember that Tolkien would have seen aircraft flying over his beloved Oxford even before he left for France - the Air Force took over a meadow on the edge of Oxford for training, & army cadets were billeted in the Universities throughout the early years of WWI.) Beren & Luthien tells a good deal about his feelings for Edith (& possibly even something about her fellings for him) - but we all know that stuff.

However, the Legendarium is more than autobiography or linguistic aesthetic. A central desire on Tolkien's part was to 'enchant' the reader & he does this by enchanting the world - specifically by enchanting the reader's vision of the world he/she inhabits. Once we have passed through Lorien we will (if we still retain an 'undarkened heart') never look on a wood or stand of trees in the same way again, once we have stood at the Gray Havens the sea will forever be the Sea to us (cf 'Recovery' in OFS)

One cannot read LotR & leave our own world out of our thoughts. We can, & I think should, leave aside our culture & its artifacts (of course they are there to some extent in that Tolkien did not exist outside the 20th century world, but we should focus on the world itself, not on what went into its building). Our world is not, in truth, 'outside' the Legendarium - in fact, the Legendarium 'contains' our world (in the sense of the living earth & the stars).

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

And to save me "Babel fish"-ing - does Velká Medvědice mean Great Bear in Czech?

Yes, it does. Actually, it means "Great Bear-female". "Velký vůz" then, if you are interested, means "Great wagon" (as in many other languages).

[Guinevere]

Here is a link to a map of Stars that was given by Piosenniel , about 4 years ago... I thought that it might be on topic here.

I agree very much with Davem's post .

originally postet by Davem
A central desire on Tolkien's part was to 'enchant' the reader & he does this by enchanting the world - specifically by enchanting the reader's vision of the world he/she inhabits. Once we have passed through Lorien we will (if we still retain an 'undarkened heart') never look on a wood or stand of trees in the same way again, once we have stood at the Gray Havens the sea will forever be the Sea to us (cf 'Recovery' in OFS)

So true!!
(btw: Welcome back, Davem!! Very pleased to see you posting again!)

Here is what Tolkien himself wrote in letter 183 (notes on W.H.Auden's Review of RotK):

Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. (.......)
The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary.
The essentials of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of N.W.Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if a little glorified by the enchantment of distance in time.

So of course the stars are essentially the same, they just have different names.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Wow, the article is really interesting, Mith. Anyway, I always liked to think of what the stars (planets) Tolkien mentioned in his works are... and it seemed obvious to me that the Sickle is just a name belonging to that thing in the sky, as much as Plough or Great Bear or Velký Vůz or Velká Medvědice (in my mother language). If someone pointed in the sky and told me "show me the Sickle" or "show me the Wilwarin and Menelmacar", I'll do it. "A man may do both" *

*The acknowledged should know what this quote refers to and where it comes from