I'm trying to decide if I would know the difference between truth and softened edges in a story. I'm not sure ... but maybe not.
A shadow cast by the future --- this is obviously a crucial concept, and I am trying to understand how this works. Resolution would seem to close off the possibilities of shadows, so I suppose, resolving things in a story which are never resolved in real life would be a way of softening the edges, perhaps.
The resolution often comes about by way of a choice, unmistakeably great and earth-rumbling choice. But there are choices every day, every hour, along the way, before and after. Small happinesses and sorrows, I guess.
The moment in LoTR with greatest emotional resonance to me is Faramir's choice with the ring. He could take the ring or let it go. That's the decision, right? And he lets it go, with a noble speech. Resolution. He never faces this choice again. Or, a third way, an even harder choice ... he could leave the ring to Frodo, but go with Frodo. Replace Gandalf as much as he could. Replace Aragorn as much as he could. Guide Frodo, give his strength directly to the fight against Sauron. This would be a brave, terrible choice. Every day, every hour, he would face the choice of the ring again. To take it or let it go. There would have been no resolution for Faramir and the ring. Only a constant torment, the torment of life magnified. It would have been a foolish choice, I am sure. The wrong one, but I think there was a diminishment in Faramir because he did not take it. And he had to live with that for the rest of his life, too.
Tolkien's Emotional Universe
Exactly. The conflict was not between a girl in love and the father who disapproves of her boyfriend!!!Jnyusa wrote: Specifically, the conflict is resolved by the end of the movie, whereas at the end of the book the conflict has only begun.
Death is hard enough for us, who know we will die. But for Arwen and Elrond!!! Eternity without the daughter he loved!! And Arwen, knowing all the time that she could, if she wished, leave Middle Earth after Aragorn died . . . the anguish of that knowledge must have been nearly impossible to bear. But she bore it.
Dig deeper.
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axordil
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Could she have? I have always assumed the opposite, that by wedding a mortal she had given up her Eldarin heritage altogether. When she lays herself down on Cerin Amroth to die, it is the Gift of Men, not the Eldalie, that she is returning to its gifter, as her husband did, as the Númenórean kings did before the darkness fell there.And Arwen, knowing all the time that she could, if she wished, leave Middle Earth after Aragorn died . . .
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Voronwë the Faithful
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Yes, that is correct, Ax.
I mostly came in here to say how gratified I am to see that this thread had so many excellent posts while I was gone. I particularly liked Impy's post (as always!
). And I really appreciated the point that solicitr made about Túrin's befriending lame Sador as a child, and then slaying lame Brandir in his madness in his last hours. I'm amazed that I have never made that connection before. But I have said elsewhere that the Túrin of the Narn (particularly the completed Children of Húrin version) is Tolkien's most developed character (and probably his most complex, as well).
One of the most moving and important lines in the book, even if it is in the appendix."Nay, dear lord," she said,"that choiceislong over. There is now no ship that would bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence."
I mostly came in here to say how gratified I am to see that this thread had so many excellent posts while I was gone. I particularly liked Impy's post (as always!
). And I really appreciated the point that solicitr made about Túrin's befriending lame Sador as a child, and then slaying lame Brandir in his madness in his last hours. I'm amazed that I have never made that connection before. But I have said elsewhere that the Túrin of the Narn (particularly the completed Children of Húrin version) is Tolkien's most developed character (and probably his most complex, as well)."Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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Sassafras
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(Preface: Dear friends, I have not read any of the posts in this thread yet, not wanting to be influenced by what are bound to be insightful musings -- I need to sort out my own thoughts and feelings first.)
Tolkien's Emotional Universe.
Seeing this thread title set off fireworks in me because for years now, I have been attempting to grapple with exactly what is it about Tolkien's writings that affect me so profoundly. After all, there are a great many authors who have the power to make me think, to move me, to pull me into the matrix of their created worlds ..... but none, none, (not even Shakespeare) penetrate the very marrow of my bones in quite the same fashion, and by doing so, affirm something so deep, so ineffably 'right', so immediately cognizant of the themes contained within the stories.
I’m still not at all certain I can be lucid about this sixth sense of the rightness of his vision …… but …. plunging ahead ….. here goes with the caveat I keep getting the image of a huge tree with many tangled branches and although I know that the trunk must be there …. I can’t seem to find it. I know, I know, I’m making excuses as though I expect this post to meander hopelessly, aimlessly about.
And I do.
Even so,
“I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I heard tell of. I feel as if I were inside a song, if you take my meaning.”
Sam’s words to Frodo in Lothlórien are as good a place to start as any, I think.
The entire world of Arda, Tolkien’s created universe, sets up this thrumming vibration which is intuitively, instantly, recognizable as Truth by some part of the psyche which lurks ever just beneath the surface of consciousness, and is, at once, both difficult to explain and yet easy to acknowledge …. A truth resonating beyond even the self of imagination which seemingly has little to do with the everyday mundane world (and yet has everything to do with it) It plunges the abyss and soars the heights and the chord strikes must finally, I suppose, tap into the mythical world of human, planetary, cosmic collective unconscious ….. And finally, it makes explicable the response that so many of us have to Lord of the Rings, to the Silmarillion ….. For it is my belief that these works are an imaginative philosophical treatise expressed through art, through myth; the expressing and explaining of fundamental truths which resonate for us, for me, far more profoundly than any (imo) abstruse tract on the nature of metaphysical reality ever can.
On Fairy-stories:
Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker's art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called "willing suspension of disbelief." But this does not seem to me to be a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful "sub-creator". He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is "true": it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were,inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken, the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled) otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtues we can in the work of art that has for us failed.
This emotional world, and the truths contained within it, sometimes so real to me that even now in the seventh decade of my life, I believe in it still, and stranger still would not be at all surprised to discover Middle Earth were just barely out of sigh around the next corner. As though if I could just crest the top of that hill, trudge to the summit of that mountain, or peer keenly enough through that purple twilight I could actually find myself transported into the physical reality of Arda.
I’m not on very solid ground here, am I?
However, I hasten to assure you that I do not actually believe that I can find the physical Arda. But I do think it might be possible to reach the ideals contained within spiritual Arda.
Or.
Myth as a conduit for truth.
Tolkien himself proposed that LotR was essentially a catholic work, a Christian work........
But I think he sold himself short: I think it is so much more than that. We do know the depth of our responses and we do know why we respond to the great hearts written of in the books, they are idealized versions of what many of us would wish to be and we mostly know why we admire their virtues ( Gandalf,Faramir, Finrod) and tolerate, even understand, their faults (Fëanor, Túrin, Boromir, even Denethor) but do we fully comprehend the transcendent power of the ideas? An impartial Transcendent power which fairly grips believers and non-believers alike and although it does not ‘force’ itself upon one; there is no dogma here, nevertheless, it is recognized and permeates the landscape and becomes inextricably woven into the very material of the self.
The sum of the work is greater than its parts!
There are layers upon layers and each layer is true. And the legends can be read, interpreted in so many different ways. And although Tolkien called Lord of the Rings ‘fundamentally catholic’ I consider it catholic in the universality of its appeal and in the fact that the genius of it allows us to absorb and embrace quintessential universal values without really being aware that we are doing so.
On the surface the books are all about light versus dark and the quest for redemption but I think that the vision of the author is really all about the art of mining reality in its purest form.
Letter 328:
<snip> Suddenly he said: “Of course, you don’t suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?”
Pure Gandalf! I was too well acquainted with G. to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: “No, I don’t suppose so any longer.” I have never been able to suppose so <snip>. But not that one should puff up anyone who considers the imperfections of ‘chosen instruments’, and indeed what sometimes seems their lamentable unfitness for that purpose.
It doesn’t matter whether Tolkien truly believed that the hand of Eru guided his pen. The fact is that in some unfathomable way he was able to tap into the well of the human spirit and mine the depths of what is best in all of us and show that best to us in literary form. He was able to show us in Galadriel’s mirror what might be if we hold true to hope in its purest form. He was able to show us ‘Estel’ and to make it utterly convincing.
And that, for yours truly, is the greatest gift he could bestow.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the “turn” comes. A catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.
And then there are the Elves ......
<to be continued>
Tolkien's Emotional Universe.
Seeing this thread title set off fireworks in me because for years now, I have been attempting to grapple with exactly what is it about Tolkien's writings that affect me so profoundly. After all, there are a great many authors who have the power to make me think, to move me, to pull me into the matrix of their created worlds ..... but none, none, (not even Shakespeare) penetrate the very marrow of my bones in quite the same fashion, and by doing so, affirm something so deep, so ineffably 'right', so immediately cognizant of the themes contained within the stories.
I’m still not at all certain I can be lucid about this sixth sense of the rightness of his vision …… but …. plunging ahead ….. here goes with the caveat I keep getting the image of a huge tree with many tangled branches and although I know that the trunk must be there …. I can’t seem to find it. I know, I know, I’m making excuses as though I expect this post to meander hopelessly, aimlessly about.
And I do.
Even so,
“I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I heard tell of. I feel as if I were inside a song, if you take my meaning.”
Sam’s words to Frodo in Lothlórien are as good a place to start as any, I think.
The entire world of Arda, Tolkien’s created universe, sets up this thrumming vibration which is intuitively, instantly, recognizable as Truth by some part of the psyche which lurks ever just beneath the surface of consciousness, and is, at once, both difficult to explain and yet easy to acknowledge …. A truth resonating beyond even the self of imagination which seemingly has little to do with the everyday mundane world (and yet has everything to do with it) It plunges the abyss and soars the heights and the chord strikes must finally, I suppose, tap into the mythical world of human, planetary, cosmic collective unconscious ….. And finally, it makes explicable the response that so many of us have to Lord of the Rings, to the Silmarillion ….. For it is my belief that these works are an imaginative philosophical treatise expressed through art, through myth; the expressing and explaining of fundamental truths which resonate for us, for me, far more profoundly than any (imo) abstruse tract on the nature of metaphysical reality ever can.
On Fairy-stories:
Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker's art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called "willing suspension of disbelief." But this does not seem to me to be a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful "sub-creator". He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is "true": it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were,inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken, the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled) otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtues we can in the work of art that has for us failed.
This emotional world, and the truths contained within it, sometimes so real to me that even now in the seventh decade of my life, I believe in it still, and stranger still would not be at all surprised to discover Middle Earth were just barely out of sigh around the next corner. As though if I could just crest the top of that hill, trudge to the summit of that mountain, or peer keenly enough through that purple twilight I could actually find myself transported into the physical reality of Arda.
I’m not on very solid ground here, am I?
However, I hasten to assure you that I do not actually believe that I can find the physical Arda. But I do think it might be possible to reach the ideals contained within spiritual Arda.
Or.
Myth as a conduit for truth.
Tolkien himself proposed that LotR was essentially a catholic work, a Christian work........
But I think he sold himself short: I think it is so much more than that. We do know the depth of our responses and we do know why we respond to the great hearts written of in the books, they are idealized versions of what many of us would wish to be and we mostly know why we admire their virtues ( Gandalf,Faramir, Finrod) and tolerate, even understand, their faults (Fëanor, Túrin, Boromir, even Denethor) but do we fully comprehend the transcendent power of the ideas? An impartial Transcendent power which fairly grips believers and non-believers alike and although it does not ‘force’ itself upon one; there is no dogma here, nevertheless, it is recognized and permeates the landscape and becomes inextricably woven into the very material of the self.
The sum of the work is greater than its parts!
There are layers upon layers and each layer is true. And the legends can be read, interpreted in so many different ways. And although Tolkien called Lord of the Rings ‘fundamentally catholic’ I consider it catholic in the universality of its appeal and in the fact that the genius of it allows us to absorb and embrace quintessential universal values without really being aware that we are doing so.
On the surface the books are all about light versus dark and the quest for redemption but I think that the vision of the author is really all about the art of mining reality in its purest form.
Letter 328:
<snip> Suddenly he said: “Of course, you don’t suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?”
Pure Gandalf! I was too well acquainted with G. to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: “No, I don’t suppose so any longer.” I have never been able to suppose so <snip>. But not that one should puff up anyone who considers the imperfections of ‘chosen instruments’, and indeed what sometimes seems their lamentable unfitness for that purpose.
It doesn’t matter whether Tolkien truly believed that the hand of Eru guided his pen. The fact is that in some unfathomable way he was able to tap into the well of the human spirit and mine the depths of what is best in all of us and show that best to us in literary form. He was able to show us in Galadriel’s mirror what might be if we hold true to hope in its purest form. He was able to show us ‘Estel’ and to make it utterly convincing.
And that, for yours truly, is the greatest gift he could bestow.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the “turn” comes. A catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.
And then there are the Elves ......
<to be continued>
Ever mindful of the maxim that brevity is the soul of wit, axordil sums up the Sil:
"Too many Fingolfins, not enough Sams."
Yes.
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WampusCat
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Wonderful post, Sass.
At a conference about 25 years ago, Robert Johnson, who writes about myth, psychology and the subconscious, told me that "Lord of the Rings" is THE myth of our time. Like the ancient myths, it taps into the universal subconscious and mines meaning for our own time. Its themes give shape to modern anxieties and temptations -- and point the way to redemption.
When I told him that I had been immersed in this myth from my early youth, he said I was lucky -- that it gave me wisdom that many in my generation hadn't yet attained. I'm not sure if that was quite right, but I do know that I had a fairly rare depth in my youth. Perhaps some of that was from being shaped by the myth. In fact, I would say that much of it was.
At a conference about 25 years ago, Robert Johnson, who writes about myth, psychology and the subconscious, told me that "Lord of the Rings" is THE myth of our time. Like the ancient myths, it taps into the universal subconscious and mines meaning for our own time. Its themes give shape to modern anxieties and temptations -- and point the way to redemption.
When I told him that I had been immersed in this myth from my early youth, he said I was lucky -- that it gave me wisdom that many in my generation hadn't yet attained. I'm not sure if that was quite right, but I do know that I had a fairly rare depth in my youth. Perhaps some of that was from being shaped by the myth. In fact, I would say that much of it was.
Take my hand, my friend. We are here to walk one another home.
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axordil
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There is often an idealization process that goes on in myth, true--it's a mirror that shows how a culture would like to look as often as not. But it's a funhouse mirror at times as well; think about the whole notion of faerie kingdoms in medieval British romance, neither an exact replica of the chivalric ideal nor a repudiation of it, but a re-imagining.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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I think that was wise, Sass. But do go back and read the posts that were made before. There definitely were some insightful musings.Sassafras wrote:(Preface: Dear friends, I have not read any of the posts in this thread yet, not wanting to be influenced by what are bound to be insightful musings -- I need to sort out my own thoughts and feelings first.)
I thought about these words of Sam's as soon as I read the first paragraph of yours quoted above. More than any other writer, I feel like I am inside the stories that Tolkien writes. Which is say that Tolkien is - more than any other author - writing about MY reality (despite writing "fantasy").but none, none, (not even Shakespeare) penetrate the very marrow of my bones in quite the same fashion, and by doing so, affirm something so deep, so ineffably 'right', so immediately cognizant of the themes contained within the stories. ...
“I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I heard tell of. I feel as if I were inside a song, if you take my meaning.”
Sam’s words to Frodo in Lothlórien are as good a place to start as any, I think.
I don't really have anything to add to this paragraph, or even to say in response to it. But I felt that I needed to quote, if only to give myself (and possibly others) the opportunity to read it again. It says so much.The entire world of Arda, Tolkien’s created universe, sets up this thrumming vibration which is intuitively, instantly, recognizable as Truth by some part of the psyche which lurks ever just beneath the surface of consciousness, and is, at once, both difficult to explain and yet easy to acknowledge …. A truth resonating beyond even the self of imagination which seemingly has little to do with the everyday mundane world (and yet has everything to do with it) It plunges the abyss and soars the heights and the chord strikes must finally, I suppose, tap into the mythical world of human, planetary, cosmic collective unconscious ….. And finally, it makes explicable the response that so many of us have to Lord of the Rings, to the Silmarillion ….. For it is my belief that these works are an imaginative philosophical treatise expressed through art, through myth; the expressing and explaining of fundamental truths which resonate for us, for me, far more profoundly than any (imo) abstruse tract on the nature of metaphysical reality ever can.
Yes, exactly. We actually touched on this some in a discussion in the Lasto forum, about as solictr pointed out, quoting T.A. Shippey "the virtues to which moderns no longer dare aspire" being one of the chords, which Tolkien strikes.[A lot more good stuff snipped]
However, I hasten to assure you that I do not actually believe that I can find the physical Arda. But I do think it might be possible to reach the ideals contained within spiritual Arda.
Tolkien himself proposed that LotR was essentially a catholic work, a Christian work........
But I think he sold himself short: I think it is so much more than that. We do know the depth of our responses and we do know why we respond to the great hearts written of in the books, they are idealized versions of what many of us would wish to be and we mostly know why we admire their virtues ( Gandalf,Faramir, Finrod) and tolerate, even understand, their faults (Fëanor, Túrin, Boromir, even Denethor) but do we fully comprehend the transcendent power of the ideas? An impartial Transcendent power which fairly grips believers and non-believers alike and although it does not ‘force’ itself upon one; there is no dogma here, nevertheless, it is recognized and permeates the landscape and becomes inextricably woven into the very material of the self.
The sum of the work is greater than its parts!
There are layers upon layers and each layer is true. And the legends can be read, interpreted in so many different ways. And although Tolkien called Lord of the Rings ‘fundamentally catholic’ I consider it catholic in the universality of its appeal and in the fact that the genius of it allows us to absorb and embrace quintessential universal values without really being aware that we are doing so.
I think that Tolkien well understood this, really, which is why he was so careful to keep virtually explicit reference to Christianity out of his mythology. In that discussion I referenced, solictr also pointed out that in Tolkien's world "Duty" (one of those "old-fashioned" virtues that Tolkien embodied) is owed in the first instance to "the highest Authority". It was then argued (by Prim and Griffy) that Tolkien's view was not tenable in a multicultural society. However, I pointed out that even though I am not a Christian, I try (with varying degrees of success) to adhere to all of those old-fashioned virtues that Tolkien championed, including duty to a higher authority. But that that higher authority need not be the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God (or any God).
The gift of hope. And the knowledge "That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fightin' for."It doesn’t matter whether Tolkien truly believed that the hand of Eru guided his pen. The fact is that in some unfathomable way he was able to tap into the well of the human spirit and mine the depths of what is best in all of us and show that best to us in literary form. He was able to show us in Galadriel’s mirror what might be if we hold true to hope in its purest form. He was able to show us ‘Estel’ and to make it utterly convincing.
And that, for yours truly, is the greatest gift he could bestow.
<ahem>
I wait with baited breath.And then there are the Elves ......
<to be continued>
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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Sassafras
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Wampus wrote:
Voronwë wrote:
MY reality, too. I would just briefly say that Tolkien's chosen medium of "fantasy" is merely the bright covering, the outer layer, his chosen conduit for Truth.
The gift of hope. That was difficult for me to receive. Oh, I understood the intellectual concept all right -- but the emotional reality of it, of Estel, took a long time and was not easily assimilated.
although I am working on it ....
It's amazing how much of the body of the myth we have unknowingly absorbed, I think. Somewhat like water slowly, every so slowly, seeping into rock, and over time changing it into another form.When I told him that I had been immersed in this myth from my early youth, he said I was lucky -- that it gave me wisdom that many in my generation hadn't yet attained. I'm not sure if that was quite right, but I do know that I had a fairly rare depth in my youth. Perhaps some of that was from being shaped by the myth. In fact, I would say that much of it was.
Voronwë wrote:
I thought about these words of Sam's as soon as I read the first paragraph of yours quoted above. More than any other writer, I feel like I am inside the stories that Tolkien writes. Which is say that Tolkien is - more than any other author - writing about MY reality (despite writing "fantasy").
MY reality, too. I would just briefly say that Tolkien's chosen medium of "fantasy" is merely the bright covering, the outer layer, his chosen conduit for Truth.
Yes!The gift of hope. And the knowledge "That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fightin' for."
The gift of hope. That was difficult for me to receive. Oh, I understood the intellectual concept all right -- but the emotional reality of it, of Estel, took a long time and was not easily assimilated.
I'm growing very Entish these days,I wait with baited breath.
although I am working on it .... Ever mindful of the maxim that brevity is the soul of wit, axordil sums up the Sil:
"Too many Fingolfins, not enough Sams."
Yes.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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I think that may be because the whole concept of Estel is tied up with the single stark reality that all humans must face: the reality that we are going to die. That reality permeates all of Tolkien's writings, and I think that is big part of why it resonates as Truth so deeply.Sassafras wrote:Yes!
The gift of hope. That was difficult for me to receive. Oh, I understood the intellectual concept all right -- but the emotional reality of it, of Estel, took a long time and was not easily assimilated.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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Voronwë the Faithful
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I'm returning to the discussion, because of some thoughts that were generated by an article that I just read, by one Gary Kamiya about the new Beowulf film in Salon, talking about Tolkien's essay "The Monsters and the Critics":
What made Tolkien's work so successful, I think, is that he was able to capture that juxtaposition between a pagan and Christian worldviews in a modern myth. As Kamiya goes on to say:Tolkien's point is that the fantastic elements in "Beowulf" are ancient archetypes that have deep roots in human beliefs, fears and wishes -- myths, in other words. And in "Beowulf," he argues, these myths are an essential part of a tragic tale whose theme is "man at war with the hostile world, and his inevitable overthrow in Time." The greatness of Beowulf derives from the fact that it is a poem created in "a pregnant moment of poise": It is balanced between a Christian worldview, in which death and defeat are ultimately themselves defeated by Christ, and a Germanic, pagan one, in which fate rules all and man's courage alone confers nobility.
It was his ability to find the intersection between these two different world views that allows his work to resonate as Truth for both those who share his Christian beliefs, and those who do not.Tolkien's brilliant essay can be seen as a ringing defense not just of "Beowulf," but of the work he was soon to embark on, another great tower composed of ancient stones. And the themes of lateness, of heroic loss, being caught between one age and another (his world is not called "Middle-earth" for nothing), are the deepest and most sublime parts of his own epic: They are the haunted metaphysical atmosphere through which his characters -- men, elves and hobbits alike -- must make their way. The coming disappearance of the elves, the hard dawning of the age of men, represent a disenchantment of the world identical to the disenchantment Tolkien found so unbearably moving in "Beowulf." By introducing this dark note, Tolkien gave artistic expression to the doubts that he himself may have felt about the myth he had created -- and so transcended them.
Tolkien was able to use the ancient stones in "Beowulf" to build a modern masterpiece because he recognized that the enduring power of myths derives from their deeper truth. This does not mean he believed that orcs and goblins and elves really existed; rather it derives from his belief that the world was enchanted, illuminated by a sacred light, and that the human sub-creations we call myths -- "living shapes that move from mind to mind," he called them in a poem he wrote for C.S. Lewis -- were splinters of that primordial light. For Tolkien, the ultimate source of enchantment was the Christian God, but it is not necessary to share that faith to feel the power of his creation.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
Thank-you, Sass, for bringing this thread back to mind. So much of what you say about "layers of truth" within Tolkien's works speaks right to my heart (as well as my head, and that's a rare convergence!) You have inspired me to crack the knuckles of my brain cells, and put together a post that has been in bits and pieces on my hard drive for ever so long. I can only hope that a coherent whole has been achieved.
Like Sass says, “And then there are the Elves….”
The more I have reflected upon and discussed Tolkien’s works with such estimable company, the more I have come to understand my own relationship with the tales of Arda, and most especially with LOTR. That relationship is, I think, rather like a long established love affair, one that has evolved from something akin to head-over-heels infatuation to a deeper and quieter understanding. It’s like knowing someone so well for so long that their faults and inconsistencies, and even some rather odd habits, become part of the package, so to speak. The heart accepts and makes room, and embraces what logic might question or perhaps even scorn. I have always trusted heart over head, and I trusted my heart long ago as I turned the pages for the first time, and walked under mallorn trees, and stood on fields of battle, and clutched a friend’s hand in utter darkness, and watched a white ship sail into the West. It was love…..no doubt about it. The thoughts and the theories would follow. I knew that too, in a way, because I really had no idea why this story touched me so profoundly. And now, after nearly forty years, I think I have the beginnings of an answer.
But this condition Ilúvatar made, or it is the necessity of their love, that their power should thenceforward be contained and bounded in the World, to be within it for ever, until it is complete, so that they are its life and it is theirs.
And so the Valar, too, must watch as the things they love change and fade and pass away. They lose their first home within Arda, they lose the Two Trees and their blessed Light, and at the end of the Second Age, they even lose the world that they originally envisioned and formed. It is important to Tolkien’s entire construct, I think, that the Valar should bear the elemental burden of losing what they love, for this is probably the most fundamental truth of a world contained within time and space – and they are the world, and the world is them.
Was sorrow originally inflicted upon the world by Melkor? I don’t think so. He may have corrupted Men’s hearts so that the gift of Death seems a punishment to be loathed and feared, but Death, even willingly accepted and embraced as originally intended, means leaving behind those who loved and were loved, and this truth is the source of sorrow . Aragon knows this: “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair,” he tells Arwen before he leaves her. And for all the remoteness of Arwen’s character, somehow, in those final passages of her tale, I know her, because I have known both love and loss and my heart has whispered the same plea “to stay yet for a while”.
I agree with Jny about the wonderful ambiguity of Arwen’s end. How masterful of Tolkien not to reveal her heart to us as she dies upon Cerin Amroth. Is she afraid? Is she bitter? Does she finally succumb to despair, or does she willingly accept her mortality and embrace death in a state of estel? It’s strange, but because we cannot know the answers to these questions, Arwen is far more like “us” than Aragon can ever be. His may be the ideal death, the ending that I would wish for myself and those I love, but Arwen’s death…….I know that is what I truly face – the inevitable and yet the unknowable.
In our Sil discussion (and other discussions as well), we have often come back to the mysteries and meanings of the First Music, and it now seems to me that the third and final theme, Ilúvatar’s own, in which his Children are essentially created, echoes some of my deepest emotional bonds to Tolkien’s universe.
For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came.
So sorrow, it seems, originates in Ilúvatar’s own theme, the creation music of his Children, Elves and Men. How can this be so? To my mind, it must be so, because the Children of Ilúvatar are born to love, as parents, lovers, siblings, friends, creators – and, not least of all, as stewards of a world gifted to them. But not one of them, not even the greatest and most blissful of the Eldar in Aman itself, can escape the inevitability of losing something, or someone, or some time or place that was loved.
Washington Irving wrote:
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.
‘nuff said.
“One was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came.” For me, this is so close to the mark! From the Ainulindalë to the Grey Havens, the tales of Arda are just that for me – deep and wide and beautiful. And that “immeasurable sorrow”? Oh, it is there, always there, because Tolkien seems to dress his deepest themes in the trappings of love, from the intimate to the grand: the “love of the world” in all its variations. After many years, I’ve now come to think of LOTR especially as one great love story, with (as Sassy put it so beautifully) “layers upon layers, and each layer is true.” Yes. Each layer of this love story that I love so much is true, and into each one is woven the repeated designs of loss and leaving, sometimes grand and bold, sometimes delicate and subtle. The voices of the story– Elf, Ent, Hobbit, Woman – they can break my heart and lift it at the same time. They speak to me of that special kind of hope, of estel. Recently, a quote, or part of a quote, by Joseph Campbell came to mind as this post was emerging from the shadows, perhaps my way of finding words to describe the essence of my own concept of estel. I am quite unable to conjur suitable words myself.
Life isn't meant to be happy. That's not what it's all about. Ah, the damage that is caused by that attitude. All life is sorrowful. Sorrow is the essence of life. But can you handle it? Are you affirmative enough with your relationship to life to say "yea," no matter what?
No other moments in any of Tolkien’s works, no other images, no other words, so deeply and achingly touch me. It is a wonder to me. Losing and leaving, the immeasurable beauty and sorrow of love, all narrowed to one singular point on a distant horizon, fading into shadow. Perfect.
And perfectly true.
I think, perhaps, that the concept of Estel is bound to an even greater truth than the inevitability of death. It is, rather, the inevitability of that greatest and most profound and most mysterious of human experiences –the need to love – and the terrible assurance that we must lose what we love, we must leave that which we cherish most, and we must be left behind by those dearest to us.Voronwë wrote:I think that may be because the whole concept of Estel is tied up with the single stark reality that all humans must face: the reality that we are going to die. That reality permeates all of Tolkien's writings, and I think that is big part of why it resonates as Truth so deeply.
Like Sass says, “And then there are the Elves….”
The more I have reflected upon and discussed Tolkien’s works with such estimable company, the more I have come to understand my own relationship with the tales of Arda, and most especially with LOTR. That relationship is, I think, rather like a long established love affair, one that has evolved from something akin to head-over-heels infatuation to a deeper and quieter understanding. It’s like knowing someone so well for so long that their faults and inconsistencies, and even some rather odd habits, become part of the package, so to speak. The heart accepts and makes room, and embraces what logic might question or perhaps even scorn. I have always trusted heart over head, and I trusted my heart long ago as I turned the pages for the first time, and walked under mallorn trees, and stood on fields of battle, and clutched a friend’s hand in utter darkness, and watched a white ship sail into the West. It was love…..no doubt about it. The thoughts and the theories would follow. I knew that too, in a way, because I really had no idea why this story touched me so profoundly. And now, after nearly forty years, I think I have the beginnings of an answer.
“The love of the world”…….it’s interesting that Tolkien places this central idea within both these passages. The Children of Ilúvatar, it seems, are hard-wired to cherish the elements of Arda – people, places, time itself. They are programmed to love. And they are not alone. The Valar themselves enter Arda because in essence, they fall in love with the vision shaped by their Music, and right away, the price for that love is set:In his Letters, Tolkien wrote: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.
<and>
The doom of the Elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of the world, to bring it to full flower with their gifts of delicacy and perfection, to last while it lasts, never leaving it even when ‘slain’, but returning – and yet, when the Followers come, to teach them, and make way for them, to ‘fade’ as the Followers grow and absorb the life from which both proceed.
But this condition Ilúvatar made, or it is the necessity of their love, that their power should thenceforward be contained and bounded in the World, to be within it for ever, until it is complete, so that they are its life and it is theirs.
And so the Valar, too, must watch as the things they love change and fade and pass away. They lose their first home within Arda, they lose the Two Trees and their blessed Light, and at the end of the Second Age, they even lose the world that they originally envisioned and formed. It is important to Tolkien’s entire construct, I think, that the Valar should bear the elemental burden of losing what they love, for this is probably the most fundamental truth of a world contained within time and space – and they are the world, and the world is them.
Was sorrow originally inflicted upon the world by Melkor? I don’t think so. He may have corrupted Men’s hearts so that the gift of Death seems a punishment to be loathed and feared, but Death, even willingly accepted and embraced as originally intended, means leaving behind those who loved and were loved, and this truth is the source of sorrow . Aragon knows this: “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair,” he tells Arwen before he leaves her. And for all the remoteness of Arwen’s character, somehow, in those final passages of her tale, I know her, because I have known both love and loss and my heart has whispered the same plea “to stay yet for a while”.
I agree with Jny about the wonderful ambiguity of Arwen’s end. How masterful of Tolkien not to reveal her heart to us as she dies upon Cerin Amroth. Is she afraid? Is she bitter? Does she finally succumb to despair, or does she willingly accept her mortality and embrace death in a state of estel? It’s strange, but because we cannot know the answers to these questions, Arwen is far more like “us” than Aragon can ever be. His may be the ideal death, the ending that I would wish for myself and those I love, but Arwen’s death…….I know that is what I truly face – the inevitable and yet the unknowable.
In our Sil discussion (and other discussions as well), we have often come back to the mysteries and meanings of the First Music, and it now seems to me that the third and final theme, Ilúvatar’s own, in which his Children are essentially created, echoes some of my deepest emotional bonds to Tolkien’s universe.
For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came.
So sorrow, it seems, originates in Ilúvatar’s own theme, the creation music of his Children, Elves and Men. How can this be so? To my mind, it must be so, because the Children of Ilúvatar are born to love, as parents, lovers, siblings, friends, creators – and, not least of all, as stewards of a world gifted to them. But not one of them, not even the greatest and most blissful of the Eldar in Aman itself, can escape the inevitability of losing something, or someone, or some time or place that was loved.
Washington Irving wrote:
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.
‘nuff said.
“One was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came.” For me, this is so close to the mark! From the Ainulindalë to the Grey Havens, the tales of Arda are just that for me – deep and wide and beautiful. And that “immeasurable sorrow”? Oh, it is there, always there, because Tolkien seems to dress his deepest themes in the trappings of love, from the intimate to the grand: the “love of the world” in all its variations. After many years, I’ve now come to think of LOTR especially as one great love story, with (as Sassy put it so beautifully) “layers upon layers, and each layer is true.” Yes. Each layer of this love story that I love so much is true, and into each one is woven the repeated designs of loss and leaving, sometimes grand and bold, sometimes delicate and subtle. The voices of the story– Elf, Ent, Hobbit, Woman – they can break my heart and lift it at the same time. They speak to me of that special kind of hope, of estel. Recently, a quote, or part of a quote, by Joseph Campbell came to mind as this post was emerging from the shadows, perhaps my way of finding words to describe the essence of my own concept of estel. I am quite unable to conjur suitable words myself.
Life isn't meant to be happy. That's not what it's all about. Ah, the damage that is caused by that attitude. All life is sorrowful. Sorrow is the essence of life. But can you handle it? Are you affirmative enough with your relationship to life to say "yea," no matter what?
My head is nodding in agreement with these very reasonable and knowledgeable statements……..but I must admit, my heart is shivering just a little. Fading, passing, ending, beginning – familiar themes, but for me, these concepts at such a grand and remote level are not why I’ve read LOTR countless times. They are not the truths that speak to me. They are not why I cherish this tale. “Heroic loss” means little to my heart, but the sigh and murmer of the waves on the shores of Middle-earth……well, they sink deep into my heart each time I stand at the Havens. And each time, I weep for Sam, and for the Sam that is me.Voronwë wrote that Gary Kamiya wrote:Tolkien's brilliant essay can be seen as a ringing defense not just of "Beowulf," but of the work he was soon to embark on, another great tower composed of ancient stones. And the themes of lateness, of heroic loss, being caught between one age and another (his world is not called "Middle-earth" for nothing), are the deepest and most sublime parts of his own epic: They are the haunted metaphysical atmosphere through which his characters -- men, elves and hobbits alike -- must make their way. The coming disappearance of the elves, the hard dawning of the age of men, represent a disenchantment of the world identical to the disenchantment Tolkien found so unbearably moving in "Beowulf."
Oh Di……..Pearly Di wrote:But so many things in Tolkien haunt me. They really haunt me.
Possibly, Frodo sailing West haunts me most of all.
No other moments in any of Tolkien’s works, no other images, no other words, so deeply and achingly touch me. It is a wonder to me. Losing and leaving, the immeasurable beauty and sorrow of love, all narrowed to one singular point on a distant horizon, fading into shadow. Perfect.
And perfectly true.
Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of moon.
Jalal ad-Din Rumi
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WampusCat
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A perfectly true post, Athrabeth.
Love and loss, beauty woven with sorrow ... those are themes that cut deep into my soul. Those are themes that sustain me. They do not support the common delusion that sorrow can be avoided; instead, they raise the hope that loss, inevitable and unstoppable, is not the destroyer of love but an essential element of it. Love's song is more glorious because of, not in spite of, the somber, minor chords that support the lilting melody.
Love and loss, beauty woven with sorrow ... those are themes that cut deep into my soul. Those are themes that sustain me. They do not support the common delusion that sorrow can be avoided; instead, they raise the hope that loss, inevitable and unstoppable, is not the destroyer of love but an essential element of it. Love's song is more glorious because of, not in spite of, the somber, minor chords that support the lilting melody.
Take my hand, my friend. We are here to walk one another home.
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axordil
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One can make a compelling argument that all literature--indeed every story--that is worthwhile, is about loss, because loss IS change, and dealing with change is the point of storytelling. When we change, we lose something. Sometimes we gain something in return, but the loss is guaranteed. It can even be something we're kind of happy about losing, but it's still loss.