Is LOTR 'Round World From the Beginning'?

[scirocco]

[Note: By the authority vested in me by ... me ... I split these posts off from the thread on Tolkien's Physical Universe - VtF]

It is worth mentioning here, I think, that the concept of switching to a round world theory was not something that JRRT first came up with at the end of his life, only to not get to it. As I mentioned in the thread about creating the published Silmarillion, he actually wrote a "round world version" of the Ainulindulë some time before 1948, before LOTR was even finished, and he then superceded that with a new, "flat world version."

You could argue (as I frequently do ) that LOTR is both "Round World from the beginning" and "Sun and Moon from the beginning". Worthy of a separate thread I think. Maybe I should start one. We tried to discuss it recently on TORC but the thread seemed to get bogged down in some deliberate misunderstanding, apparent anger and bad feeling, not sure why, doesn't usually happen in TORC Books...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

scirocco, I would be thrilled if you started such a thread here.

[Athrabeth]

You could argue (as I frequently do ) that LOTR is both "Round World from the beginning" and "Sun and Moon from the beginning".

Then Bombadil's words have even more mystery to them:

When they caught his words again they found that he had now wandered into strange regions beyond their memory and beyond their waking thought, into times when the world was wider, and the seas flowed straight to the western Shore.

<snip>

"When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent."

[scirocco]

Yes, those words of Tom's are the main counter-arguments to the proposal that the world was round "from the beginning". Most other references (e.g. to the Downfall of Númenor, "no stain yet on the Moon was seen", "darkness under the stars before the Dark Lord came from Outside", etc.) can bear an interpretation which would support "Round World from the beginning" (and "Sun and Moon from the beginning")

In fact, Tom's published words are the main stumbling-block to any kind of retro-fitting of a "Mannish mythology" framework to the creation stories which Tolkien may have wished to do after the publication of LOTR.

I'll collect my thoughts and be along later...:

[superwizard]

Before this post I had never even known there had been a controversy! Please scirocco could you explain the 2 theories? Thank you.

[scirocco]

I'll try. Just to summarise the background, some quotes. Sorry about the length, but it's all important. At the time Tolkien started to write LOTR, the largely 1930's Silmarillion myths were "true" and "real". The world was flat to begin with, and the Sun and the Moon were "second-best" things created from the Light of the Trees. (Apologies to many who will have seen this all before):

It will be seen that at the time when my father began The Lord of the Rings the conceptions of the Ambarkanta were still fully in being, and that the story of the making of the Sun and Moon from the last fruit and the last flower of the dying Trees was still quite unshadowed by doubt of its propriety in the whole structure of the mythology...

Christopher Tolkien, The Lost Road (HoME V),Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor

So, a Flat World originally with the Sun and Moon made from the Trees. But, some time in the 1940's, well into the writing of LOTR, JRRT started to have doubts about the creation myths. He composed several versions of the Ainulindalë, and one (which CT calls version C*) is the Round World version. It contains the following:

But Manwë was the brother of Melkor, and he was the chief instrument of the second Theme that Ilúvatar had raised up against the discord of Melkor. And he called unto himself others of his brethren and many spirits both greater and less, and he said to them: 'Let us go to the Halls of Anar, where the Sun of the Little World is kindled, and watch that Melkor bring it not all to ruin!

Ainulindalë C*, Morgoth's Ring (HoME X), Myths Transformed

Christopher Tolkien says of this work:

Ainulindalë C* was thus an experiment, conceived and composed, as it appears, before the writing of The Return of the King, and certainly before The Lord of the Rings was finished...

Ainulindalë C*, Morgoth's Ring (HoME X), Myths Transformed,

So clearly the idea had entered JRRT's thinking at that relatively early stage. Tolkien sent drafts of the Flat World and Round World versions of the Ainulindalë to a Mrs. Katherine Farrar for discussion and comment. The draft of the accompanying letter says:

The Elvish myths are 'Flat World'. A pity really but it is too integral to change it...

From a draft of a pre-1949 letter, probably to Katherine Farrar, Ainulindalë C*,Morgoth's Ring (HoME X), Myths Transformed

More the a decade later in 1958, the doubts had become certainties:

The making of the Sun after the Death of the Trees is not only impossible 'mythology' now — especially since the Valar must be supposed to know the truth about the structure of Eä (and not make mythical guesses like Men) and to have communicated this to the Eldar (and so to Numenoreans!) - it is also impossible chronologically in the Narrative...

"Sun The Trees Silmarils" in Morgoths Ring (HoME X), Myths Transformed

At that point (in reconsideration of the early cosmogonic parts) I was inclined to adhere to the Flat Earth and the astronomically absurd business of the making of the Sun and Moon. But you can make up stories of that kind when you live I among people who have the same general background of imagination, when the Sun 'really' rises in the East and goes down in the West, etc. When however (no matter how little most people know or think about astronomy) it is the general belief that we live upon a 'spherical' island in 'Space' you cannot do this any more...

Morgoths Ring (HoME X), Myths Transformed

So if the creation stories were no longer correct, and yet they were "too integral to change", how could all this be resolved? Only by presenting them as myths of ignorant and superstitious Men:

It is now clear to me that in any case the Mythology must actually be a 'Mannish' affair. (Men are really only interested in Men and in Men's ideas and visions.) The High Eldar living and being tutored by the demiurgic beings must have known, or at least their writers and loremasters must have known, the 'truth' (according to their measure of understanding). What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions (especially personalized, and centred upon actors, such as Fëanor) handed on by Men in Númenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor)...

Morgoths Ring (HoME X), Myths Transformed

So why does the published Silmarillion not state this? Because of Christopher Tolkien's acknowleged mistake:

...it is certainly debatable whether it was wise to publish in 1977 a version of the primary 'legendarium' standing on its own and claiming, as it were, to be self-explanatory. The published work has no 'framework', no suggestion of what it is and how (within the imagined world) it came to be. This I now think to have been an error...

Book of Lost Tales 1, Foreword

All this is pretty well known and understood. The real question is: how are we to interpret The Lord of the Rings in the light of all this? I think it's a question of viewpoint. For me, my overriding interest is to understand how Tolkien would have wanted us to view Middle-earth's history. Looking down on us in 2006, what would he want us to think? What was his latest, final and most carefully considered viewpoint? Thus, what I or anyone else would like to believe as "true" is of secondary importance to me.

From that viewpoint, therefore, Middle-earth, LOTR, Silmarillion and all is indisputably "Round World from the Beginning" and "Sun and Moon from the beginning" - because Tolkien would have wanted us to view it that way. So, how well does LOTR fit the bill? Well, it benefits from being focussed on the Third Age - in fact you could read the book and not even suspect that anything but a Round World and original Sun and Moon was intended. But there are a few references to the older world. Bombadil's comments about the seas are the mutterings of an odd character anyway and can't be taken too seriously (okay, that's a weak argument. ). All the other comments about the "circles of the world" are explainable in a Round World framework. Bombadil knowing the dark under the stars when it was fearless is just referring to night-time. "The world was young, the mountains green/No stain yet on the Moon was seen/No words were laid on stream or stone/When Durin woke and walked alone" supports the "Sun and Moon from the beginning" theory anyway as Durin is supposed to have awoken before the Moon was created if you take the creation myths as "true". The Downfall of Númenor in Appendix A can simply be viewed as a tsunami, and the removal of the Undying Lands is perfectly consistent with a Round World. There is no mention whatsoever of a Straight Road to fit with a Flat Earth scheme.

If you don't take the same viewpoint as me, you'll probably arrive at a different conclusion. But there it is anyway.

Fire away....

[superwizard]

Thx a lot scirocco! You totally changed my opnion about Middle Earth. Before I had only read The Sil so I had never even considered a 'round world' from the begging. In light of what you have just posted however I believe that Tolkien would -I think- want people to view the world as round from the first. However if you assume that the earth was round from the beggining and the sun and moon existed from the beginning than much of The Sil would be considered untrue right?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Not surprisingly, I have a different point of view.

You've left a few details out, scirocco my friend. First of all, while it is true that Tolkien dabbled with a "round world version" of the Ainulindalë while still working on the text of LOTR, what you conveniently do not mention is that he firmly rejected that version and returned to the flat world version soon after. After completing the version C* that you mention, Tolkien then apparently went back to the old version B and did a new "Flat World Version". That is is version C, which is given in full in Morgoth's Ring. He then revised version C and created "a manuscript of unusual splendour, with illuminated capitals and a beautiful script ... ." (MR pp. 29-30; I sure would like to see that manuscript.) That is version D, which is what appears in the published Silmarillion, partly as the Ainulindalë and partly in sections of Chapter One - Of the Beginning of Days (as I am learning now).

Moreover, when he returned to the tales of the Elder Days after completing and publishing LOTR, he was still firmly rooted in the flat world in the beginning mode. As Christopher Tolkien wrote:

Amid all the ambiguities (most especially, in the use of the word 'World'), the testimony seems to be that in these texts the Ambarkanta world image survived at least in the conception of the Outer Sea extending to the Wall of the World, now called the Walls of the Night -- thought the Walls have come to be differently conceived (see also p. 135, § 168). Now in the revision of 'The Silmarillion' made in 1951 the phrase in QS § 12 (V.209) 'the Walls of the World fence out the Void and the Eldest Dark' -- a phrase in perfect agreement of course with the Ambarkanta was retained ... . (Morgoth's Ring, p. 68.)

It seems abundantly clear to me that at the time the Lord of the Rings was written and published, it was intended to be part of a "flat world in the beginning" mythology. I think that the words of Tom Bombadil that Athrabeth cited are clearly evidence that that was his intention. Nor did Tolkien himself ever change that mythology, despite his second thoughts well documented in "Myths Transformed". It is nothing more then speculation to suppose that had Tolkien had the opportunity he would have actually gone through with the radical changes that he discussed in those musings. It is my belief that once he sat down with the intention of actually doing so, he would have come to the conclusion that indeed these myths were integral and that it would not have sufficed to relegate them to mere myths of ignorant and superstitious Men.

I believe the flat world in the beginning conception is utterly integral to the main theme of LOTR.

The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete. But if you have new read Vol III and the story of Aragorn, you will have perceived that. (This story is placed in an appendix ... .)
(Letter 186, April 1956)

I believe that the flat world conception is completely necessary to the development of this theme, and its corollary - in which those of the "immortal" race (and a few select chosen mortals) are able to take "the straight path" back to the Undying Lands. Both the resolution of Frodo's story, and Arwen's Doom (the two most important parts of LOTR, in my oh so humble opinion) would be nonsensical without the conception of the flat world in the beginning.

At least that's how I see it.

[Alatar]

Ah, but V, if that were so, why would the Professor have spent so much time ensuring that the cycles of the moon were correct and cognisant with modern lunar activity. Surely any alterations sould have been explained by Tilions waywardness and his attraction to Arien. Why the need to tie them so accurately to established lunar activity, that of an orbiting moon?

The answer must be that Tolkien wished the reader to accept the moon as "Our Moon" and Middle-earth as "Our Earth". This is why he revised the books so many times to correct the lunar cycle and to ensure that each character in the books, at whatever time looked up and saw th "correct" moon.

It's clear to me that the Middle-earth of Lord of the Rings has a real moon, not a chariot bearing the light of Telperion. I can only assume that the Silmarillion as completed by Tolkien would have presented the Tale of the Sun and Moon as a Myth of the unenlightened. Thus, we mus assume that the Flat Earth concept could have been treated in a similar fashion.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Good point, Al.

[Sassafras]

Sense is what you make of it.

Gain the realism of a round world and lose the poetry and the metaphysical truth of myth.

I’m of two minds:

The ‘round world’ makes more realistic sense but I am loathe to part with the starlight of Cuiviénen or the Lamps of the Valar. And where does the sun and the moon from the beginning leave the Two Trees and the Silmarils?

Surely it makes them superfluous?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Turning back to Al's good point for a second. If in fact "the Middle-earth of Lord of the Rings has a real moon" how does one explain the fact that when the fellowship entered Lórien the cycles of the Moon ceased to exist for them? Indeed, the Moon itself ceased to exist for them. It is clear that when the Fellowship entered Lórien, the entered into a different dimension, similar in a small way to the Straight Path to the Undying Lands. Such would not be possible with the strict realism of "Round World From the Beginning."

[Sassafras]

It is clear that when the Fellowship entered Lórien, the entered into a different dimension, similar in a small way to the Straight Path to the Undying Lands. Such would not be possible with the strict realism of "Round World From the Beginning."

Yes it is. Assuming that you accept the possibility of a different dimension existing within the same general space/time as our own.

Lórien is a portal to the Straight Path, as is the house of Tom Bombadil.

At least, that's how I see it.

[Athrabeth]

Faramir speaks of the moon in a distinctly metaphysical way:

"Fair Ithil, as he goes from Middle-earth, glances upon the white locks of old Mindolluin."

He also knows something of the Straight Path:

Before they ate, Faramir and all his men turned and faced west in a moment of silence....'So we always do,' he said, as they sat down: 'we look towards Númenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.'



There are also quite a few times when both the moon and sun are referred to as masculine and feminine, and are distinguished by the capitalization of their names (although definitely not with discernable consistency).

I think Tolkien was more concerned about the passage of time when he was obsessing over the details of the moon's cycle. IMO, it's not really about the moon at all, it's more about connecting the experiences of Frodo and Sam with those of Merry and Pippin so that the reader maintains the awareness that the separate storylines are not separate timelines.

He (Pippin) wondered where Frodo was, and if he was already in Mordor, or if he was dead; and he did not know that Frodo from far away looked on that same moon as it set beyond Gondor ere the coming of the day.

[scirocco]

However if you assume that the earth was round from the beggining and the sun and moon existed from the beginning than much of The Sil would be considered untrue right?

Well, perhaps it would be more polite to say that the creation myths should be seen as just that, myths. (There's no reason to question all the First Age superhero stories and all that.) The whole issue of myths being "untrue" and "lies" was one which Tolkien gave much thought to, and I recommend reading his essay "On Fairy-Stories" for some insights on that subject.

Personally, I don't find the "untruthfulness" of the myths a problem. I can suspend my disbelief and "play the game" of assuming for a moment that they are true, and enjoy their beauty and structure, in the same way that I might do with the Maori myth of my native New Zealand, where Kupe the Hawaiikan demi-god and his brothers pull the country out of the sea with their fishing-line. But I think it's a kind of inevitable consequence, if you accept that Middle-earth is really our world, that you have to accept the reality of its creation or risk being lumped in with the modern-day Flat World Society crackpots.

But I emphasise again that the whole thing is an issue of viewpoint. You can retreat into Tolkien's early-1940's mindset as you read the stories, and treat them literally. Alternatively, you can pull back to the point of view of an author who had a decade following publication to reflect on the framework of his world, and lived in a world where jet transport around the globe was becoming commonplace.

Given Tolkien's doubts about the myths, he must have breathed a later sigh of relief that the Sil was not, after all, accepted for publication at the same time as LOTR. How ironic, then, that CT eventually erred as he did thirty years later, publishing the Sil without the necessary framework, and thus bringing about the very mistake that Allen and Unwin Publishing unwittingly saved JRRT from by refusing to publish the Sil at the end of the 1940's.

Faramir speaks of the moon in a distinctly metaphysical way:

"Fair Ithil, as he goes from Middle-earth, glances upon the white locks of old Mindolluin."

He also knows something of the Straight Path:

Before they ate, Faramir and all his men turned and faced west in a moment of silence....'So we always do,' he said, as they sat down: 'we look towards Númenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.'

Athrabeth, they're beautiful passages, and I love them as dearly as I'm sure you do, but there's nothing incompatible there with a Round World/Sun and Moon from the Beginning interpretation. Naming the Moon and Sun as masculine and feminine can easily be taken as a cultural choice - there are probably instances in indigenous mythology around our own world. And the most natural interpretation of the Undying Lands being removed from the Circles of the World is that they were physically removed off the surface of the globe and taken off at a tangent into some other time or space. You could even bring in the concept of the Straight Road (along the tangent) without ever having to have had the World as flat in the first place.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Given Tolkien's doubts about the myths, he must have breathed a later sigh of relief that the Sil was not, after all, accepted for publication at the same time as LOTR.

I don't believe this for second. It was Tolkien's greatest wish that the Tales of the Jewels and the Ring be published together. He believed that they were one story, and that the latter was not really intelligible without the former. Despite his idle musings about his mythology as reported in Myths Transformed I have never read anything that led me to believe that he changed his mind about that. I think that had they been published together as he wanted, his would have believed that his life's ambition had been fulfilled, and he would have been content (and would not have gone on to question the mythological framework. But that is, of course, idle speculation on my part.

How ironic, then, that CT eventually erred as he did thirty years later, publishing the Sil without the necessary framework, and thus bringing about the very mistake that Allen and Unwin Publishing unwittingly saved JRRT from by refusing to publish the Sil at the end of the 1940's.

I believe that it would have been a far greater error for CT to have attempted to create some kind of framework that diluted the power and grandeur of his father's work. In my opinion, if CT were to place the Silmarillion into some kind of framework, the proper framework would have been to present the work as part of the three volumes of translations from the Elvish that Bilbo presented to Frodo along with the Red Book. I would have been very satisfied with that.

Of course, the very worst scenario from both Tolkien's perspective (even posthumously) and from our perspective would have been had CT decided that since the Silmarillion was in such an unfinished form, and his father had left so many question marks about the form that it should take, it should not be published at all. Oh what a travesty that would have been!

(I think we can all agree with that. )

[scirocco]

Given Tolkien's doubts about the myths, he must have breathed a later sigh of relief that the Sil was not, after all, accepted for publication at the same time as LOTR.

I don't believe this for second. It was Tolkien's greatest wish that the Tales of the Jewels and the Ring be published together. He believed that they were one story, and that the latter was not really intelligible without the former. Despite his idle musings about his mythology as reported in Myths Transformed I have never read anything that led me to believe that he changed his mind about that. I think that had they been published together as he wanted, his would have believed that his life's ambition had been fulfilled, and he would have been content (and would not have gone on to question the mythological framework. But that is, of course, idle speculation on my part.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, then, Voronwë, Once the first flush of excitement had worn off, Tolkien would have become increasingly dissatisfied with what he had produced. How could he not? The stories were incomplete, chaotic and inconsistent. Tolkien, the inveterate perfectionist and seeker of consistency, who wrote and re-wrote virtually every sentence in LOTR, a work far less dear to him than the Silmarillion myths, would have come to feel that he had let himself down. And it would not have happened, of course; A&U would have insisted that he provide a more unified structure before they would have published. You can feel the bafflement of the A&U reader describing his reaction to 'The Geste of Beren and Lúthien' with his confusion as to source, authenticity and authorship. The publication of LOTR would have had to be substantially delayed if it were to be done at a time where the Silmarillion had been re-written to a degree that would have satisfied Tolkien.

But I agree that this applies not so much to the mythological framework as to the literary one. And you may well be right, that if Tolkien had published a Silmarillion in a form that satisfied him, that he would not have had the later misgivings that he did.

I believe that it would have been a far greater error for CT to have attempted to create some kind of framework that diluted the power and grandeur of his father's work.

Back to viewpoint again. If you would want the published work to represent Tolkien's "final" views and opinions, then that's precisely what CT should have done (presented the framework, that is, and I don't think that it would neccesarily have diluted the work). (Of course, it would have been much preferable if JRRT had done it himself, and I'm quite glad that CT did not attempt it, because that would have been acting Aulë to JRRT's Ilúvatar.)

Of course, the very worst scenario from both Tolkien's perspective (even posthumously) and from our perspective would have been had CT decided that since the Silmarillion was in such an unfinished form, and his father had left so many question marks about the form that it should take, it should not be published at all. Oh what a travesty that would have been!

(I think we can all agree with that. )

Sure can! I'll quite happily be criticised for trying to gild the lily here!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

because that would have been acting Aulë to JRRT's Ilúvatar

Well said! (Too tired to think about the rest of your post right now. )

[Athrabeth]

Personally, I don't find the "untruthfulness" of the myths a problem. I can suspend my disbelief and "play the game" of assuming for a moment that they are true, and enjoy their beauty and structure, in the same way that I might do with the Maori myth of my native New Zealand, where Kupe the Hawaiikan demi-god and his brothers pull the country out of the sea with their fishing-line. But I think it's a kind of inevitable consequence, if you accept that Middle-earth is really our world, that you have to accept the reality of its creation or risk being lumped in with the modern-day Flat World Society crackpots.

I guess I just have an extremely difficult time imagining how one would accept that Middle-earth is really our world. I just don't understand what that means. Whether it is during the Years of the Trees or the Third Age, it is clearly NOT our physical world. It doesn't fit our geological or historical past in any sense. It only fits within a mythological context. Middle-earth is not a place in the world, and it's not a place in time: it's a place in our consciousness, and in our hearts.

Well, perhaps it would be more polite to say that the creation myths should be seen as just that, myths

But where does one draw the line? Where do the myths end and "history" begin? How does one reconcile characters that were born in the realm of myth still walking the earth at the end of the Third Age? Does Elrond's father steer Vingilot through the great Encircling Sea of the heavens with the Silmaril upon his brow, or does he not? Did Galadriel's grandfather awake beside Cuiviénen under the stars or not?

And why is it somehow more reasonable to accept that Finwë "awoke" under a sun orbiting a round world than under the constant stars that were perched over a "flat world" (although I really don't think that term adequately describes Tolkien's construct at all). To my mind, there's nothing reasonable about either scenario. There doesn't have to be. That's the beauty of myth.

Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts - but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive. Myth tells you what the experience is.

Myth opens the world to the dimension of mystery, to the realization of the mystery that underlies all forms. If you lost that, you don't have a mythology. If mystery is manifest through all things, the universe becomes, as it were, a holy picture. You are always addressing the transcendent mystery through the conditions of your actual world.

Faramir speaks of the moon in a distinctly metaphysical way:

"Fair Ithil, as he goes from Middle-earth, glances upon the white locks of old Mindolluin."

He also knows something of the Straight Path:

Before they ate, Faramir and all his men turned and faced west in a moment of silence....'So we always do,' he said, as they sat down: 'we look towards Númenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.'

Athrabeth, they're beautiful passages, and I love them as dearly as I'm sure you do, but there's nothing incompatible there with a Round World/Sun and Moon from the Beginning interpretation.

I didn't say they were incompatible.

But I think that Faramir definitely understood the power of myth.

[Alatar]

And I think Tolkien understood the power of a poetic, "unexplained vista". The Prof was not above saying something "just cause it sounded cool", although I doubt he would have used those words to describe it.

Ath, of course Middle-earth can't be accurately tied to our history, but that is nonetheless what Tolkien set out to do. To write a Mythic pre-history for England. That thread winds through all his works and even when he strays from it, we find ourselves pulled back to the concept. I don't claim that we should accept the Mythology as a true past history of Earth. That would be farcical. I do claim that Tolkien intended us to feel that connection, however tenuous, and that Middle-earth, in his mind, was our Earth in another imaginary time and place. A Mythic time.

The Silmarillion is Tolkiens "Epic of Gilgamesh". It was written as a Myth. Yet when he was asked for a sequel to the Hobbit, he wrote a more modern fable using that Mythic background. The world of the Silmarillion is one of Myth, but the world of "Lord of the Rings" is not. The fact that they share characters is an accident after the fact.