"Do You Hate Women?"

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I disagree with this. Tolkien may have been heavily inspired by medieval sources, but he lived for almost his entire life in the twentieth century and was influenced by his context. Tolkien was not a "Modernist" but I believe he was "Modern".

Depends on what you define as "modern", Zig. For a writer in the 1930s, Tolkien's style certainly wasn't modern in the sense of contemporaries like Steinbeck, Hammett, Huxley and Orwell, and is on a different planet entirely, comparatively-speaking, from Wm. Faulkner, F.S. Fitzgerald, Viriginia Woolf, James Joyce, etc.

Tolkien's wording and even his grammar is old-fashioned, more Edwardian than modern from a comparative standpoint to his peers, but I suppose Robert Graves, writing-wise, would be more his peer than someone like Faulkner or Joyce. And this decided conservative, dare I say, archaic, style is evident in Lord of the Rings (and even more so in The Silmarillion).

Follow along with T.H. White, who wrote sections of The Once and Future King nearly contemporaneously with Tolkien from 1938 (The Sword in the Stone) through 1958 (A Candle in the Wind), and the difference in tone and phraseology is dramatically different, even though both were writing stories of distant events.

Tolkien was conservative in the old-fashioned sense (and not at all what we view absurd conservatives today in the U.S.). He dressed conservatively, despised motors and engines, was an arch-Catholic (pre-Vatican II), and his prose fits his Oxonic (Oxfordian?) linguistic predilections. From strictly a prose-style he is not 20th century.

[Faramir Jones]

My own view is that you can call J. R. R. Tolkien 'Modern' in terms of dealing with, not just the issues of industrialisation and urbanisation, which he was familiar with, having grown up close to and in the city of Birmingham, but also the impact of the two World Wars of the twentieth century, in particular the First. He did so, however, in a different way from those who have been called 'Modernists'.

I think of him as 'modern' in his treatment of at least the following three things:

1. Bilbo and Frodo looking after themselves: It appears that Bilbo, and later Frodo Baggins, do their own cooking, baking, cleaning and washing up. The only people shown as employees are the gardeners, including the Gamgees. While it was presumably intended not to show them as heartless employers, who went off leaving the status of their employees so uncertain, the effect is to show them as quite 'modern', not needing the help of even a single manservant. (Sam does look after Frodo in terms of the Fellowship, but this is in the context of the War of the Ring, and like an officer's batman.)
2. Aragorn II and Faramir: Both are looking to save their own people, even at the cost of their own lives, not looking for personal glory, and are fully aware of the devastation of war, even when fought in a just cause.
3. How Sam and Rose are treated: After Sam returns with Frodo, not only are he and his wife Rose allowed to live in Bag-end with their increasing family; Frodo makes Sam his heir. Sam and Rose also appear to inherit his social position, he being Master Samwise, and his wife Mistress Rose. There appears to be not the slightest criticism of their new status by other hobbits, including perhaps how 'vulgar' and 'jumped up' they are. Indeed, one of their daughters, Goldilocks, marries into the Took family, Pippin's son Faramir.

[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

My own view is that you can call J. R. R. Tolkien 'Modern' in terms of dealing with, not just the issues of industrialisation and urbanisation, which he was familiar with, having grown up close to and in the city of Birmingham, but also the impact of the two World Wars of the twentieth century, in particular the First. He did so, however, in a different way from those who have been called 'Modernists'.

I think of him as 'modern' in his treatment of at least the following three things:

1. Bilbo and Frodo looking after themselves: It appears that Bilbo, and later Frodo Baggins, do their own cooking, baking, cleaning and washing up. The only people shown as employees are the gardeners, including the Gamgees. While it was presumably intended not to show them as heartless employers, who went off leaving the status of their employees so uncertain, the effect is to show them as quite 'modern', not needing the help of even a single manservant. (Sam does look after Frodo in terms of the Fellowship, but this is in the context of the War of the Ring, and like an officer's batman.)
2. Aragorn II and Faramir: Both are looking to save their own people, even at the cost of their own lives, not looking for personal glory, and are fully aware of the devastation of war, even when fought in a just cause.
3. How Sam and Rose are treated: After Sam returns with Frodo, not only are he and his wife Rose allowed to live in Bag-end with their increasing family; Frodo makes Sam his heir. Sam and Rose also appear to inherit his social position, he being Master Samwise, and his wife Mistress Rose. There appears to be not the slightest criticism of their new status by other hobbits, including perhaps how 'vulgar' and 'jumped up' they are. Indeed, one of their daughters, Goldilocks, marries into the Took family, Pippin's son Faramir.

With the exception of 2 (which I think is equally archaic, as that is a common theme of the Chivalric Romance), this is what Tom Shippey means when he points out that the Hobbits, and The Shire are a link between an Archaic World, and our Modern World (which Tolkien arrests at an idealized Pastoral Victorian England).

But outside The Shire, Middle-earth is a pre-industrial, Feudal, Pagan world.

MB

[Zigûr]

I would recommend a couple of "modern" takes on Professor Tolkien's work if anyone is interested.

One is "Tolkien and Modernism" by Patchen Mortimer, published in Tolkien Studies volume 2 in 2005, pages 113 to 129.

Another is Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon by Brian Rosebury, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2003.

Rosebury argues "The modernity of Tolkien's work, from the point of view of its content, lies not in coded references to specific contemporary events or phenomena, but in the absorption into the invented world – no doubt a partly unconscious absorption – of experiences and attitudes which Tolkien would scarcely have acquired had he not been a man of the twentieth century."

Neither Mortimer or Rosebury argue that Professor Tolkien is a modernist, mind you, just that his work is "modern" (and has some crossover with modernism).

I also don't mean to dogmatically argue that Professor Tolkien is "modern" in some very hard, specific sense. I'm probably being too binary, and imagining that an argument saying Tolkien is not modern means he must be medieval, which I don't agree with, but which I realise no one is actually proposing. I'm getting ahead of myself.

There are chapters in Stuart D. Lee's 2014 A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien which also discuss modernity in his works, particularly the 24th chapter, "Modernity: Tolkien and his Contemporaries" by Anna Vaninskaya.

I might argue that a useful comparison would be with one of Professor Tolkien's most clear non-medieval influences, William Morris, who drew heavily on medieval ideas and forms, but engaged with modernity through them; Morris's work is much more political and much less "spiritual" than Professor Tolkien's, but operates in a very comparable "modern through the medieval" kind of approach.

Peter Jackson's Hobbit films, of course, are "modern" in a different sense, as they have been produced according to the consumerist concerns of the modern Hollywood film industry with the primary motive of making money, which explains things like the invention of the character Evangeline Lily plays – a character not even used in a very "modern" or progressive way, even, because she largely exists to be a love interest to motivate male characters.

[Marwhini]

I have read the Stuart Lee work.

And I have notes to read the others you have listed (I tend to shy away from such types of criticism and analysis of Tolkien as often verging on the Post-Modernist; a feature I detest - Post-Modernism. Post-Modernism is a pathology that often becomes toxic).

But, yes... I get the point that it is not a binary issue, where the choices are absolutes.

Literary Analysis of Tolkien's work is something that I have not delved too deeply into, being concerned primarily with the investigation into the Archetypes used (something that it is a great Pity Campbell did not take Tolkien's works more seriously - Campbell tended to look down on Tolkien as a Religious Reactionary, and his works as not being "serious" Myth), and in sorting out a coherent Metaphysics for Middle-earth that would explain it (which, as I have pointed out elsewhere, I think I have done... I would just need to formalize it to a greater degree).

But the whole issue of Tolkien "Hating women" or being a "Racist" (because of his use of Early/Mid-20th Century Tropes and Stereotypes of non-Europeans tends to be claimed to be "racist" by modern Identity Politics and Theorists) is one I find to be overblown and tiring.

While I suspect that he was not an explicit racist, or Misogynist, I understand he was a product of his time, and that this presents attitudes that do not align with a Modern, Progressive Values we find in Liberal Western Democracies.

But Middle-earth ISN'T supposed to be reflective of a Modern, Liberal, Western Democracy.

So why would we hold it to those standards?

This reminds me of the outrage caused over people wanting to remove the a certain word for Blacks used by Mark Twain in his works Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. I.e. the word "Nigger" (pardon my explicit use of the term. It isn't reflective of any attitude, merely pointing out that Mark Twain intentionally used the word to call attention to the pervasive racism that remained in society, even among those who considered themselves the "Friends" of Black Americans). Removing that aspect of Twain's work would diminish it.

The same is true of Tolkien's works. Trying to make them conform to our present attitudes regarding Women, or the Non-Christian World would diminish them. And this does not make one a misogynist, bigot, or racist to wish to preserve his works as they were intended.



MB

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Marwhini

I tend to shy away from such types of criticism and analysis of Tolkien as often verging on the Post-Modernist; a feature I detest - Post-Modernism.

I've gained that impression, yes.
Personally, literary analysis is my area. I'm no advocate of or expert in postmodernism but I don't especially object to it either. I'm not fond of postmodernism as a conscious element in texts as I find that, in the hands of some authors or writers, the whole thing tends to devolve into self-referential self-parody and meaninglessness.

Originally Posted by Marwhini

While I suspect that he was not an explicit racist, or Misogynist, I understand he was a product of his time, and that this presents attitudes that do not align with a Modern, Progressive Values we find in Liberal Western Democracies.

But Middle-earth ISN'T supposed to be reflective of a Modern, Liberal, Western Democracy.

Personally on reflection I find the lack of female characters in The Hobbit a little odd, I suppose, but nothing else. But that's purely my position; I don't have a particularly strong opinion either way.

Originally Posted by Marwhini

The same is true of Tolkien's works. Trying to make them conform to our present attitudes regarding Women, or the Non-Christian World would diminish them. And this does not make one a misogynist, bigot, or racist to wish to preserve his works as they were intended.

I would be more concerned if anyone was seriously advocating censoring Professor Tolkien's works or something to that effect. I fear that many people who may have gained a mistaken impression of The Hobbit by watching the film adaptations would be unlikely to read the book in any case. In the other thread you mentioned "rewriting the canon". This bothers me as well, but at least we can take some solace in the fact that, unlike the films of The Lord of the Rings, the adaptations of The Hobbit do not appear to have achieved very much, if any, purchase in the popular consciousness apart from a common sentiment that they weren't very good.

My primary issue with the addition of the character is that they didn't do it well. Even if they were trying to make the story more in-tune with "modern values" or what have you (which I don't think they actually really were), they did it very incompetently. But the whole project was a bit of a mess.

[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

My primary issue with the addition of the character is that they didn't do it well. Even if they were trying to make the story more in-tune with "modern values" or what have you (which I don't think they actually really were), they did it very incompetently. But the whole project was a bit of a mess.

That is essentially my attitude with any "additions" to Tolkien's canon.

I did have a philosophical objection to a Woman being the Captain of Thranduil's Guard, as I think that she is as out of place as Thranduil's "Captain" as is Thranduil's Moose (Irish Elk)... For whatever that Moose was supposed to be (Wrong Mythology - mixing Celtic Mythology in the wrong place within Tolkien's Cosmology).

But the character ultimately did not alter the Canon, as she was effectively non-existent in that regard, being a clumsy Love-Interest for a Dwarf.

Tuariel would be an example of a Post-Modernist alteration of Tolkien's works. She is a forced character that pretends that Tolkien's defined female roles simply do not exist.

While Éowyn was seen as having martial capabilities, she is not represented as an officer in the Riddermark. She has a role that is separate from that of the official Military Establishment, even if she can take-up Arms.

We see the same thing in the First Age, with the Bëornings and Haladim. We see Women taking up Arms in defense of Dor-Lomin, Mithrim, Dorthonion, and Brethil, but it is not as a structural part of a military apparatus for those communities; rather it is in response to a direct and final need.

And I don't think we have any examples of female Elves taking up arms. This doesn't mean they do not exist, but the Archetypes for the Elves in Earthly Myths don't tend to match up with having Elven Women as officials within the Elves' Militaries.

It was egregious pandering to Commercialism.

There could have been any number of strong female characters they could have included that would not have disturbed the Canon, yet would have lent something to the story for commercial interests (even as a Love Interest).

Anyway.... I think "Egregious Pandering" about sums up the character of Tauriel (and the many other changes in those train-wrecks).

MB