Does Eru care?

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

He has an amazing, inspiring, beautiful cosmology and philosophy within those lesser known works, something truly inspired and beautiul. He created more than simply "fantasy" works--He created a universe, which I believe he on some level himself believed in.

.

The big question is what you mean by believe. For myself, what I love about Tolkien and possibly why I am not much interested in other fantasy, is the detail and plausibility about it, but it is necessary to remember that Tolkien was deliberately creating a mythology (for England). Also that he was throughout his life a devoted and devout Catholic and that he commented that some of his fans were involved in his works in a way that he wasn't. I think he loved his world but he knew it was a creation - or subcreation at a fundamental level. However I suppose there could be an argument for "a Velveteen Rabbit" style of reality about it (the kind of reality existing in the relationship between a child and a beloved toy). I will try to post more but am reliant again on library computers and my time for now is up!.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

The big question is what you mean by believe. For myself, what I love about Tolkien and possibly why I am not much interested in other fantasy, is the detail and plausibility about it, but it is necessary to remember that Tolkien was deliberately creating a mythology (for England). Also that he was throughout his life a devoted and devout Catholic and that he commented that some of his fans were involved in his works in a way that he wasn't. I think he loved his world but he knew it was a creation - or subcreation at a fundamental level.

Tolkien's motives in creating the mythos were discussed by him in Letters # 211.

May I say that all this is 'mythical', and not any kind of new religion or vision. As far as I know it is merely an imaginative invention, to express, in the only way I can, some of my (dim) apprehensions of the world.

So Tolkien "believed" in the world he had made only in the sense that it was a reflection of his own thoughts and beliefs. The fact that many of my own ideas seem to fall in line with his is an important factor personally in my affinity for his work.

[Galin]

Whether the belief quoted in Morgoth's Ring is the final say, who knows? Tolkien changed opinions on his cosmos like other men change underwear. But the first section of The Silmarillion is certainly written in an Eldarcentric and not anthropocentric tone and point of view, which is at odds with a retelling with the usual conceits, flaws and historiographical integration of later mannish political and sociological creeds and concerns.

As far as this much is concerned, I do believe Tolkien's final say -- granting that he never published his Silmarillion of course, but let's say 'final say' as in a fair number of late comments from different sources -- was that the Silmarilion was to be imagined as a largely Mannish affair, including a textual migration through Numenor.

In theory. I'm not sure Tolkien necessarily took up all the relevant texts and went through them line by line with this recasting in mind, but I do think such a recasting was his general answer to the problem that he believed existed. In other words, I think he tried a new Silmarillion, illustrated in part in Myths Transformed, but abandoned this in general, realizing that he could retain much of what he had already written if he 'simply' tinkered with the transmission and authorship of the tales rather, despite the older Elfwine model.

I know that somewhere I have listed a fair number (not necessarily all) of the relevant citations that speak to a largely mannish Silmarillion, but who knows where I posted them if I don't. Some of them appear in this thread anyway.

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=4390

Granted, as you say, it's possible that Tolkien might have come around again. He had published that Bilbo had produced his Translations from the Elvish, but I think it's easy enough to imagine that the Elvish language is meant; and JRRT (later) published a reference to the 'Numenorean factor' in connection with The Hoard from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (noting: '... No. 14 also depends on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenorean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Númenorean tale of Turin and Mim the Dwarf.').

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

… but it is necessary to remember that Tolkien was deliberately creating a mythology (for England).

In his letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien writes:

But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story, – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country.

That is not the same thing as “a mythology (for England)”. The phrase “a mythology for England” is repeated again and again by commentators on Tolkien as though it were an expression used by him, but it is never used by Tolkien. It is an invention by commentators, and distorts what Tolkien did say.

Tolkien is obviously referring here to his Book of Lost Tales in which the Lonely Isle was identified with Britain, but Tolkien soon rejected that identification. Quite rightly so. That Britain was the Lonely Isle drawn back to Middle-earth during the days of the Saxon Hengest is historically absurd, as though Roman Britain never existed, or pre-Roman Britain mentioned in Classical Greek texts. Tolkien quite rightly thought better of it. And nowhere in The Book of Lost Tales are the events outside of the Lonely Island made to take place in England.

A “mythology for England” surely should take place mostly in England. But the Eriol material was soon abandoned and the Ælfwine material that was to replace it was mostly never written. The stories of Beren, Túrin, Tuor, and Eärendil were never placed in England, save vaguely where in a few mentions Britain (part of which later became England) is identified as an island among the remains of sunken Beleriand.

The Hobbit takes place in previously unidentified territory. There is not sufficient detail given therein to identify the Hobbit homeland with England. Only in The Lord of the Rings is The Shire supposedly approximately in the area of later England, in days before the English Channel came to be. There indeed the Shire and Buckland and Bree are very English indeed, Edwardian English. But not the rest of Tolkien’s world.

In letter 294 Tolkien complains about the use of the word Nordic in connection to his writing but this rant would almost do as well for the word English:

Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories. Geographically Northern is usually better. But examination will show that even this is inapplicable (geographically or spiritually) to ‘Middle-earth’. This is an old word, not invented by me, as reference to a dictionary such as the Shorter Oxford will show. It meant the habitable lands of our world, set amid the surrounding Ocean. The action of the story takes place in the North-west of ‘Middle-earth’, equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. But this is not a purely ‘Nordic’ area in any sense. If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy.

Auden has asserted that for me ‘the North is a sacred direction’. That is not true. The North-west of Europe, where I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man’s home should. I love its atmosphere, and know more of its histories and languages than I do of other parts; but it is not ‘sacred’, nor does it exhaust my affections. I have, for instance, a particular love for the Latin language, and among its descendants for Spanish. That it is untrue for my story, a mere reading of the synopses should show. The North was the seat of the fortresses of the Devil. The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome than anything that would be devised by a ‘Nordic’.

In Tolkien’s finished conception the Shire is described by him as “more or less a Warwickshire village of about the period of the Diamond Jubilee″. And the language of the Rohirrim is Old English. Esgaroth and Dale are Norse. The rest is more-or-less general medieval European. Neither The Silmarillion as published nor The Hobbit nor The Lord of the Rings as a whole is “a mythology for England”.

[Mithalwen]

My main point which you have perhaps chosen to ignoree is that Tolkien knew that his world was created. I don't agree with your assertion that a mythology for Ngland must be set there. We are a nation of Empire builders and Tolkien was colonial born even if at heart a Warwickshre lad. Perhaps because I have roots several centuries deep in Warwickshire soil it's Englishness seems self evident.

[Galin]

It's interesting that, as late as the Etymologies ('late' when compared to The Book of Lost Tales anyway)

'Q Ingolonde Land of the Gnomes (Beleriand, but before applied to parts of Valinor). N Angolonn or Geleidhien.

And in the Silmarillion of the mid to later 1930s, the Land of Leithian survives the breaking of Beleriand. The character of Elfwine lived even longer (externally), granted he became a figure of transmission more than an active player, but he was an Englishman and was supposed to render all these legends into Old English, and (I would argue) would still make connections between the Valar and the Norse gods.

Anyway, in 1956 Tolkien wrote a draft letter, which included:

'Having set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at: being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own: it is a wonderful thing to be told that I have succeeded, at least with those who have still the undarkened heart and mind.'

'It has been a considerable labour, beginning really as soon as I was able to begin anything, but effectively beginning when I was an undergraduate and began to explore my own linguistic aesthetic in language composition. It was just as the 1914 War burst on me that I made the discovery that 'legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition. (...)'

So while 'a mythology for England' has turned out to be a misquote, the Waldman letter isn't the only source behind the general notion.

I happen to like the Eriol story myself, the question of the Romans aside. It seems a bold move to play England as not yet in the geographical position of England; but as noted Tolkien certainly abandoned this.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

My main point which you have perhaps chosen to ignoree is that Tolkien knew that his world was created.

I ignored your main point because I agree with it totally and completely. I ought to have mentioned this agreement.

I picked up only on a statement commonly made by Tolkien commentators as though it were by Tolkien when it is not actually by Tolkien. I find that annoying, but understandable, when this statement is wrongly attributed to Tolkien so often, because people blindly accept what they are told. I was disappointed as I would have thought you would have known better. All the more reason to indicate a slovenly error when someone as generally as intelligent as you is making it.

Some claim that it doesn’t matter that Tolkien didn’t say it, because he certainly would have agreed with it. I disagree. Truth matters. And I don’t believe that he would have agreed with it.

Here is an entire thread on the matter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/17214 .

I don't agree with your assertion that a mythology for Ngland must be set there.

I did not quite say that a mythology for England must be set there. I suggested:

A “mythology for England” surely should take place mostly in England.

Tolkien’s tales of the first three ages of Middle-earth are, in their finished versions, set in a fictional era before England (or Britain) even existed. Tolkien’s early idea was to connect his legendarium with historic England through the identification of the Lonely Isle with Britain (including England) and by identifying his Eriol with the father of Hengest, Horsa, and Heorrenda (a younger brother of Hengest and Horsa invented by Tolkien).

Tolkien rejected those ideas.

Instead Tolkien connected his legendarium analogically with England in The Lord of the Rings by making the Shire parallel to the English countryside of his youth and giving to the Rohirrim the Old English language and Germanic heroic ideals also found in Old English writings.

What most people would call the mythology of Tolkien’s legendarium (Manwë, Varda, Ulmo and all that) is not particularly English. The Elvish history is not especially English and Tolkien was later quite insistent that his Elves were his own invention, not owing much to the Elves of folklore. The history of Númenor is largely the Platonic story of Atlantis. Arnor and Gondor is largely a calc of the western and eastern Roman empires. Aragorn is more Dietrich von Bern than identical to any English figure. I think he also owes something to the fictional Natty Bumppo (Hawkeye) of the American author James Fenimore Cooper.

We are a nation of Empire builders and Tolkien was colonial born even if at heart a Warwickshre lad. Perhaps because I have roots several centuries deep in Warwickshire soil it's Englishness seems self evident.

Empire builders? Colonial? Tolkien in letter 53:

For I love England (not Great Britain and certainly not the British Commonwealth (grr!)), and if I was of military age, I should, I fancy, be grousing away in a fighting service, and willing to go on to the bitter end – always hoping that things may turn out better for England than they look like doing.

From letter 77:

I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day (as I do), and remained a patriotic Roman citizen, while preferring a free Gaul and seeing good in Carthaginians. Delenda est Carthago. We hear rather a lot of that nowadays. I was actually taught at school that that was a fine saying; and I ‘reacted’ (as they say, in this case with less than the usual misapplication) at once.

From letter 100:

Though in this case, as I know nothing about British or American imperialism in the Far East that does not fill me with regret and disgust, I am afraid I am not even supported by a glimmer of patriotism in this remaining war.

Tolkien clearly and carefully distinguished his personal feelings for England from his personal feelings for Imperial Britain.

The Englishness of the Shire is of course evident to me. It is surely evident to almost all readers. You don’t need to be born in Warwickshire to feel that. Indeed I know at least one person who was not able to read The Lord of the Rings because the early chapters were too English for her.

If you wish to disagree with me, disagree with what I am saying, not with opinions I don’t hold. I am unaware that I have posted anything that would suggest ignorance of the analogical Englishness of the Shire. You rightly blamed me for ignoring most of what you were saying. But you are doing the same, inventing the ignorance that you impute to me.

Tolkien did not say he had ever wished to create a mythology for England. Disagree? Then point out where he said it. He said something like it in the Waldman letter. But he did not say it, and I believe he did not intend to create a fictional mythology that would be believed by Englishmen in place of what he saw as the true religion. Nor did he intend a poetic mythology to be referred to by poets as classical mythology was by custom.

Originally Posted by Galin

I happen to like the Eriol story myself, the question of the Romans aside. It seems a bold move to play England as not yet in the geographical position of England; but as noted Tolkien certainly abandoned this.

Yes, it was a bold move, but one that seems very nationalistic and even racist.

[Galin]

Yes, it was a bold move, but one that seems very nationalistic and even racist.

One reason I like the Eriol tale is because it lends a 'faery' presence to specific places like Warwick -- and more generally (same sense of an ancient faery presence) in that we have an Elvish Isle before it actually becomes 'Britain' in a geographical sense.

I also like the 'impossibility' of the idea of dragging the entire Isle to a new geographical position, including how Ireland became separated -- which goes well enough in hand, I guess, with my liking of Tolkien's 'less scientific' cosmology.

There are other things I find charming or interesting in the Eriol tale, things that seem to have eventually dropped out or fallen away, like the drinking of limpe for example, or the Path of Dreams.

That much noted, I'm not interested in any of the 'was Tolkien a racist?' threads out there, including any discussion of what seems racist to someone.

[Lotrelf]

I was thinking the same. When I read: "The Ainur are the offspring of Eru's thought." I felt does that make Eru a flawed "character"? He is the creator of Arda. Melkor being the the offspring of his thoughts, means He also belonged to Eru. Or Eru created him purposefully, perhaps. The purpose of creation of The Dark Lord meant, that to exist good, there should be evil. Otherwise all the words we use to express goodness will have no meaning.
Eru cared for Arda, and so did Valar. They did not have to directly come and do the favor to the Children of Iluvatar.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

Melkor being the the offspring of his thoughts, means He also belonged to Eru. Or Eru created him purposefully, perhaps. The purpose of creation of The Dark Lord meant, that to exist good, there should be evil. Otherwise all the words we use to express goodness will have no meaning.

Ah yes. This sticky topic. For what it's worth, I think Ilúvatar's admonition in response to Melkor's alteration of the Music speaks much.

'And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the Music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'

The Silmarillion Ainulindalë

Evil was no aberration, but a known quantity to the One, made for his own purpose, dark though it may often be to his creations.