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Interesting read. This caught my attention: > Middle Earth is framed, explicitly, as an account of the history of our world. That is, the world of the Lord of
by peeters 4y ago
Interesting read. This caught my attention:
> Middle Earth is framed, explicitly, as an account of the history of our world. That is, the world of the Lord of the Rings is one and the same as our world, just at a very different point in its history. Thus, while Middle Earth may possess resources that we do not, such as Mithril, unless the resources of our world were deposited later, they must have been available to the people of Middle Earth.
I think this is a common mistake when analyzing Tolkien's work. His universe isn't meant to be the history of Earth, it's supposed to be an origin myth of England. With all the caveats that go with similar origin myths. To quote the letter that prefaces The Silmarillion:
> I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands.
Why hasn't the world of LoTR had an industrial revolution? Well for the same reason Troy didn't. Because if it did, it wouldn't be an origin myth. It's no more reasonable to discount the worldbuilding of Tolkien for incongruences with history than it is to discount the "worldbuilding" of Homer.
- sircastor 4y ago> I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. My immediate thought was “What about King Arthur?!” But then I begin to wonder how much Arthurian legend has been enriched purely in the 20th century. “The once and future king” -where a lot of the modern take on Arthur came from - was punished in 1958, 4 years after the Lord of the Rings. According to Wikipedia, Arthurian legend was popular in the Middle Ages, but kind of fell out of favor.
- Hemospectrum 4y agoThere's one other problem with Arthurian legend, and it's a doozy. Arthur's alleged subjects were the Celtic peoples who lived in Britain before the invasion of the Anglo-Saxon tribes speaking proto-English. If you use this as the origin story of England, you're making English people the bad guys. Tolkien must have realized this.
- hither_shores 4y agoArthurian literature is Celtic myth seen through the eyes of medieval Frenchmen: it's British, but not English.
- peeters 4y agoTolkien actually addressed Arthurian legend immediately after that quote I posted: > Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. For one thing its 'faerie' is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion.
- kqr 4y agoOh! The more I learn about Tolkien and LotR the more it all fits together. In hindsight, obviously it's an origin myth! Ticks all the boxes.
- chx 4y agoFunnily enough, this is also a myth. You are quoting Letter #131. But you are likely quoting secondary or tertiary sources and forgot the rest. Here's what you quote: > Also – and here I hope I shall not sound absurd – I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished chap-book stuff. Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. For one thing its 'faerie' is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion And here's what you missed: > Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. (…) I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd. Indeed it was long ago when that attempt was aborted: it was the Book Of Lost Tales which would have been the missing Anglo-Saxon mythology but that has been abandoned around 1920. Christopher Tolkien clearly stated most elements defining and peculiar to BOLT are not present in later works. There are many versions of the Silmarillion but there's only one version of BOLT.
- samus 4y agoTolkien's work is a solution in search of a problem though. It's unsurprising to conclude that English has so few stories if he discards all its Germanic and Skandinavian heritage!
- pm90 4y agoBut clearly thats not strictly “English” or “British”. The mythos of Nationalism was strong in Tolkiens time (which sorta continue to this day). Every “Nation” needed a homogeneous population with a shared culture and strong bonds that bind them together; one way of doing this was to appeal to an origin myth.