Sorrow and Consolation: Grief in Tolkien's Created World

This week we brought out the Kleenex and talked about the depiction of grief and consolation in Tolkien’s fiction, thinking in particular about the Middle English poem Pearl.

Our first port of call was The Silmarillion’s Nienna, the Goddess who grieves for the sorrows of the world, as Tolkien relates:

"Nienna looked at the pale Moon under the shadow of her distant halls. She remembered the glory of the Two Trees and all the pain that Melkor caused by his greed and envy. But in silence she evoked the Music of The Ainur and how Melkor's actions were present even there, as a terrible melody in the middle of unfolding mysteries. And as she revived the Music in her thoughts, her sorrow grew but so did her compassion. For Nienna is the mighty one who cries for all the unjust and terrible things that happen in the world, but she is also the one that teaches endurance and wisdom through adversity. And by her tears, everything is purified and hallowed so that the mysteries can dance with the Music as it unfolds." (From The Silmarillion)

I asked what Nienna’s role tells us about Tolkien’s concept of his created world and the role of grief within it, and it was suggested that Tolkien sees grief as a primary component of Middle-Earth, one that is interwoven from the beginning. Whilst Greek mythology has a God of love and a God of war, Tolkien has a Goddess of sorrow. It was thought interesting that Nienna is assigned to grieve for the world’s sorrows, as if this in some way means that she will bear grief and cares so that others don’t have this burden. One member compared Nienna to Christ and Christ’s sorrow for man’s sins and the sufferings of the world.

From this meditation on Nienna’s grief, we moved on to study Pearl, using Tolkien’s translation of the Middle English dream-vision poem. In this poem, the narrator grieves for the death of his young daughter and weeps over her grave. There, he falls into a dream and comes to a beautiful land. The land has a cathartic quality that makes him forget his sorrow. He comes to a river and sees his daughter over the other side, all dressed in white. To cut a long (but very beautiful) poem short, she shows her father the kingdom of Heaven, which he has requested to see. But this is not enough for her father and he tries to cross the river to reach his child. He is forbidden by God, however, and wakes suddenly to find himself lying on his daughter’s grave once more.

The group compared the land and its cathartic quality to Lothlorien. We compared the river in Pearl to the river in Lothlorien, which cannot be crossed without permission. We thought about the sorrow the fellowship experienced after Gandalf’s fall and how the Golden Woods lifted their grief for a while. Such is the way Legolas describes it, when asked by Celeborn why they did not inform the Elves of Gandalf’s death sooner:

We have not spoken to Haldir of our deeds or our purpose,’ said Legolas. ‘At first we were weary and danger was too close behind; and afterwards we almost forgot our grief for a time, as we walked in gladness on the fair paths of Lorien.’ Frodo’s reply suggests grief can only be suspended for a short time, not forever: ‘yet our grief is great and our loss cannot be mended.’

We thought about how Pearl offers the narrator consolation, consolation because he knows his daughter has passed into a new life in Heaven. There is an interesting article, well worth reading, which discusses Pearl, the Ring and the theme of consolation.[1] The idea of consolation led us on to Boromir’s death and its promise of salvation. We considered the notion, put forward by Lynn Forest-Hill, that in The Lord of the Rings, ‘grief can be a response to change as well as to death, and while in either case it may express a profound sense of loss, it can also signal transition of a positive kind’.[2] In his article, Forest-Hill says:

[Tolkien’s] treatment of Boromir also marks his  rendering  of  the  cultural  and  stylistic  shift  from  the  Anglo-Saxon “doomed man” to the later fully Christian hero-knight for whom death is a transition or departure from mortality to salvation – the redeemed Christian hero whose errors can be forgiven.[3]

We debated this notion for some time, comparing Boromir’s death to that of Scyld Scefing in Beowulf, and also considering the ways in which he might have received forgiveness for his previous acts towards Frodo. We ended by thinking about consolation and need for closure through the creation of song, considering not only the 'Lament for Boromir' but also Frodo’s 'Lament for Gandalf'. For Frodo, being in Lothlorien stirs in him the desire to compose, and it is said that ‘his thought took shape in a song that seemed fair to him’; however, when he tried to tell the song to Sam, ‘only snatches remained, faded as a handful of withered leaves’.

Lastly, taking an very different approach to grief, we considered an article by Brent D. Johnson which considered Eowyn to be ‘a portrait of many soldiers’ family members who remained in England during World War I’.[4] We debated the extent to which we could or, indeed, should read Tolkien’s own experiences of war and grief into his work and whether or not Eowyn’s experience of grief was something more universal, not necessarily governed by the aftermath of World War One.

- Corinne

---

[1] Noah Koubenec, ‘The Precious and the Pearl: The Influence of Pearl on the Nature of the Ring’, Mythlore, 29 (2011), 119-131 Note, in particular: ‘The Ring and the Pearl are united in that both prove unable to provide peace or consolation for their respective admirers. It could be argued that Pearl contains an ultimately comforting 

message of salvation or at least a final note of consolation for the Jeweler that runs counter to the 

overwhelmingly negative depiction of the Ring and its power, yet in both Pearl and Tolkien’s works, consolation comes only when the object of obsession is abandoned (voluntarily or otherwise).’ (p. 125)

[2] Lynn Forest-Hill, ‘Boromir, Byrhtnoth, and Bayard: Finding a Language for Grief in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings’, Tolkien Studies, 5 (2008) 73-97 (p. 86).

[3] Ibid., p. 87.

[4] Brent D. Johnson, ‘Éowyn's grief’, Mythlore, 27 (2009), 117-27 (p. 118).

Men and Angels: Christianity and The Depiction of Tolkien's Elves

This week in Thinklings we turned our attention to Elves and talked in particular about the influence of Christianity and the Genesis story on their depiction.

We began first by thinking about The Silmarillion and the Creation myth that Tolkien builds in this book. We compared the creation of Eä to the creation of Earth and Arda to Eden, finding many similarities. We thought about how Eru is and is not like the Christian God. We considered the fact that ‘Ilúvatar, who retains omnipotence and all the attributes normally associated with the Christian God, does not rule through domination but rather through a delegation of power’.[1] Rather than create the world himself, he sends the Valar to create it; the Ainulindalë (music of the Ainur) was only an idea, or vision, of what the world could be, not a creation process in itself. The Valar, we noted, had to enter Eä and realise their vision with their own hands.

From this contemplation of the world’s creation, we went on to think about where the Elves fit into Tolkien’s Creation myth. Are they angels, or more like men, or something in between? We considered their angelic and their human qualities and then considered the following notion, which situates the Elves within the narrative of the Fall:

[Tolkien’s] elves are essentially humans who did not suffer the fate that, in Tolkien’s Christian belief, human suffered when Adam sinned and was expelled from the Garden of Eden. One punishment for that sin was that humans became mortal. Because Tolkien’s Elves did not Fall, they were immortal. Tolkien also believed that humans’ creative and intellectual powers declined as a result of the Fall. Elves did not, so their poetry, music, and art must be indescribably beautiful.[2]

The group generally agreed that Elves are somewhere between angel and human; like humans they a capable of causing sorrow in the world, but they also have gifts of artistry and immortality that set them apart from humans. From this, we took a brief diversion to discuss how immortality might be seen as a ‘curse’ and mortality as a ‘gift’. It was noted how the Elves envy men their mortality and how, bound to the world by their immortality, they cannot move on to the Other world. We also had a think about the following notion:

Tolkien did regard death (as the end of  biological life, not as painful experience) not only as a part of human life but even as necessary for eschatological perfection of  Men. [...] The cases of Aragorn and Théoden thus represent the theological position that with death a man’s life achieves its perfection and definitiveness by and through death.[3]

We talked about how this idea of death giving definitiveness to a man’s life. Some members mentioned Anglo-Saxon ideas of a ‘good’ death and the importance of a good death. Death concludes a man’s life and thus the manner of it is very important. Elves, we discussed, lack this sense of conclusion or completion.

To round off our discussion, we talked about the depiction of the Elves in Jackson’s trilogy. A number of members were somewhat dissatisfied with how they were depicted and we lamented the fact that some of their humour and light-heartedness was lacking from the films, although others liked their depiction. We also thought it a shame that people unfamiliar with the novels would not come to know the Elves’ culture and sorrow through their songs – however, it was agreed that it was best to not have Orlando Bloom break into a rendition of ‘The Song of Nimrodel’ in the woods of Lothlorien.

Finally, the group was treated to a magnificent Elf joke, and it seems only fair to share it with everyone else:

Q: How many Elves does it take to change a light bulb?

A: They don't change it; they just sit around in the dark singing sad songs about the glory of the light that was.

- Corinne

 

---

[1] Benjamin Saxton, ‘J. R. R. Tolkien, Sub-creation, and Theories of Authorship’, Mythlore, 31 (2013), 47-59 (pp. 55-56).

[2] Edward Willett, J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Imaginary Worlds (New Jersey, Enslow Publishers, 2004), p. 49.

[3] Thomas Fornet-Ponse, ‘Strange and free"—On Some Aspects of the Nature of Elves and Men’, Tolkien Studies, 7 (2010), 67-89 (p. 76).

Renown and Responsibility: Tolkien and the Heroic Ideal

This week in Thinklings we thought about the question ‘Did Aragorn “die at the Somme”?’ in a response to an article about the heroic ideal by Steven Brett Carter.[1]

 In his article, Carter argues:

Through  the  character  of  Faramir,  as  well  as  the  implementation  of other,  more  subtle  elements,  Tolkien  shows  the  impossibility  of  the  ancient heroic  model  in  twentieth-century  warfare.  Faramir  embodies a  redefined  form of  the  heroic  model  that  is  more  representative  of  the  modern  warrior  by accepting  war  as  a  necessary  part  of  western  civilization,  but preferring  peace. Instead of longing for combat and the possibility of gaining honor and glory like his  brother  and  others,  Faramir  does  his  duty  to  his  state  without  becoming absorbed  by  these  ancient  ideals.  Though  characters  such  as  Aragorn  and Boromir  are  not  necessarily  as  glory-driven  as  their  classical  counterparts, Aragorn’s  eagerness  to  reclaim  the  throne  of  Gondor  and  Boromir’s  desire  to take the fight to the enemy set their heroic figures apart from the distinctly more reserved Faramir.[2]

We thought about World War One and how attitudes towards honour and battle have changed since Anglo-Saxon times. We discussed how ancient heroes were ‘inadequate representations of the hardships faced by the modern solider’.[3] We tended to agree with Carter that Faramir did seem to be a way for Tolkien to represent the modern soldier, especially in the way he put the safety of his men, or the success of an attack, above the opportunity for glory.

Carter also argues that the colours worn by Faramir’s rangers ‘align them with more modern military forces’, being similar to khaki.[4] Some members were less certain of this idea, suggesting that Tolkien might not have been necessarily drawing a direct parallel between Faramir’s soldiers and WW1 soldiers through clothing. We discussed how camouflage is used elsewhere in the novels, such as in the cloaks provided by Galadriel to the fellowship. Some members did agree though that camouflage would certainly make Faramir appear more interested in stealth than in hand-to-hand combat.

One of the main aspects of Carter’s article that we questioned was whether you could say that Aragorn ‘died at the Somme’. We questioned whether Tolkien’s interest in modern attitudes to warfare made him reject the old attitudes of honour and glory in battle. We wondered whether Tolkien was accommodating both types of warfare in his novels. As in Tolkien’s ‘homecoming’, we get two sides to the debate.  When discussing this, we also considered the following suggestion by Roger Sale:

[The hobbits’ journey] forces one to ask why the heroism of Frodo and Sam should strike such resonant chords in Tolkien while that of the others, gravely and firmly though Tolkien believes in it, should remain so unable to stir his genius...Frodo Baggins, the real hero in this book where all must be heroic, is Tolkien’s affirmation of possibility in a world where all old and other heroic types are by themselves inadequate. [...] It turns out that Tolkien is no more interested in the old heroism than we are.[5]

We questioned whether it was a fair comment to say that the old heroism did not ‘stir [Tolkien’s] genius’. Some members seemed to be of the opinion that Sale was mistaken in saying that Tolkien was ‘no more interested in the old heroism than we are’. Tolkien is interested in the old heroism; he may seem to be the old, disenchanted retainer Tidwald of ‘Homecoming’, but this does not necessarily mean that he depicts glory in battle wholly negatively. The Ride of the Rohirrim, with its depiction of the ‘joy of battle’, still allows readers to revel in the ancient ideals. This takes us back to what we discussed in the first week: The Lord of the Rings is a ‘chameleon’ that can be interpreted in many different ways, thus ‘If you want an epic; it is an epic, with battles galore, banners flying and swords flashing’.[6]

 

---

[1], Steven Brett Carter, ‘Faramir and the Heroic Ideal of the Twentieth Century; or, How Aragorn died at the Somme’, Mythlore, 30 (2012), 89-103.

[2] Ibid., p. 101.

[3] Ibid., p. 101.

[4] Ibid., p. 93.

[5] Roger Sale, ‘Tolkien and Frodo Baggins’, in Tolkien and the Critics: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, ed. Neil D. Isaacs & Rose A. Zimbardo (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), pp. 247-288 (p. 288).

[6] Verlyn Flieger, 'A Postmodern Medievalist?', in Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages, ed. by Jane Chance and Alfred K. Siewers (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 17-28 (pp.17-18).

Autonomy and Control: Tolkien's Novels and the Freedom of the Reader

To what extent do The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit invite audience participation?

 

This was one of the questions we addressed in our first Thinklings meeting of 2014. In a recent article Nils Ivar Agøy argues that ‘The Lord of the Rings is a book to make ones own’,[1] whilst Verlyn Flieger has called the novel ‘something of a chameleon’, a novel that will ‘take on whatever literary hue best blends with its readers assumptions’.[2] We discussed to what extent we believed these notions to be true and what the implications were for how we read Tolkien, as individuals, in the furture. The following quote from Agøy’s article, which we considered in some detail, received a mixed response:

 

 

The Lord of the Rings...invites participation, in many subtle ways. Then, too, we simply have to contribute something of our own if we are to visualize what happens in it. Tolkien’s descriptions are rarely very detailed. People, buildings and objects are usually described more or less as the scenery or weather is described, quite vaguely, that is; as seen from a distance...The  book  encourages,  almost  forces  the reader to make her own, more detailed pictures of people and settings—which many do so thoroughly as to become quite annoyed when they discover, in illustrations or films, for instance, that others see things differently.[3]

 

The group was very much interested in the idea that The Lord of the Rings could be in some way ‘personalised’ and generally agreed that it did require readers to participate in the creation of the story. Some members, however, did question the extent to which Tolkien’s writing is ‘rarely very detailed’. After all, there are many examples of Tolkien entering into in depth descriptions of places and characters. The wasteland-esque description of Mordor is one example and Treebeard another (although this character has been visually depicted in various ways in artwork). There were clearly some aspects of Middle Earth and its inhabitants that Tolkien did not want to relinquish authorial control over.

 

Tolkien’s reluctance to give his readers imaginative freedom in all areas of his created world led us on to consider Roland Barthes’ ‘Death of the Author’ theory, which suggests that ‘to give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text’.[4] We compared this theory with the following quote from Tolkien’s ‘On Fairy Stories’:

 

However good in themselves, illustrations do little good to fairy-stories. The radical distinction between all art (including drama) that offers a visible presentation and true literature is that it imposes one visible form. Literature works from mind  to mind  and  is  thus  more  progenitive. It is at once more universal and more poignantly particular. If it speaks of bread or wine or stone or tree, it appeals to the whole of these things, to their ideas; yet each hearer will give to them a peculiar personal embodiment  in his imagination.[5]

 

Most members were unaware that Tolkien held such an opinion of art and drama. Was Tolkien, like Bartes, against the imposing nature of an author on a text? Did he want to give some of the sub-creation process over to his readers? We considered the work of Benjamin Saxton which considers the extent to which Tolkien allowed his characters agency and to which he, himself, relinquished authorial control. Says Saxton, ‘Tolkien spoke explicitly against the notion of an author controlling a text’.[6] This part of his article particularly interested us:

 

As  his  Letters  demonstrate  most  forcibly,  Tolkien  often defended  his  writing  against [...] perceived  misreadings  of  his  work.  For example,  in  response  to  Morton  Zimmermann’s  screenplay  of  The  Lord  of  the Rings, Tolkien complained that he frequently found his work treated ‘carelessly in general, in places recklessly...’  (Letters  270).  On  the  one  hand  Tolkien’s  displeasure  is understandable  especially  for  any  of  us  who  feels  that  his  creative  work  has been  misinterpreted  or  overlooked. But  how  do  these  comments  square  with Tolkien’s  insistence  on  the  ‘freedom  of  the  reader’  instead  of  ‘the  purposed domination of the author?’[7]

 

The group contemplated whether or not Tolkien was being hypocritical, whether he was actually reluctant to give up ‘control’ of his work. Did Tolkien want the best of both worlds? Some members considered this might be the case, and wondered how Tolkien would have reacted to the cartoon depiction of Thranduil as an ugly toad-like creature in a loin cloth. Yet one member took this example of artistic interpretation to argue that Tolkien was right to criticise interpretations of his work if they were, as he said, ‘reckless’. Perhaps he would simply have had to suffer the depiction of Thranduil thus, if he does not describe elves in much detail in his work? After all, people have many ideas of what elves look like based on various examples they have come across in childhood stories and fairytales. Flieger seems right to say the novel is a ‘chameleon’ based on the readers’ assumptions – was the cartoon version of Thranduil ‘reckless’ or inaccurate or simply a product of what the director thought he knew of elves from other cultural sources?

---

[1]Nils Ivar Agøy, ‘Vague or Vivid?: Descriptions in The Lord of the Rings’, Tolkien Studies, 10 (2013), 49-67 (p. 49).

[2] Verlyn Flieger, 'A Postmodern Medievalist?', in Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages, ed. by Jane Chance and Alfred K. Siewers (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 17-28 (pp.17-18).

[3] Agøy, p. 49.

[4] Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author,’ in Image, Music, Text (New York: Hill, 1977), pp 142-148 (p. 147).

[5] J. R. R. Tolkien, ‘On Fairy Stories’, in The Monsters and the Critics (__), p. 60.

[6] Benjamin Saxton, ‘J. R. R. Tolkien, Sub-creation, and Theories of Authorship’, Mythlore, 31 (2013), 47-59 (pp. 56-7).

[7] Saxton, p. 57.

 

 

Apples and Ideas: The Roots of Thinklings

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." - George Bernard Shaw

As this is the first post of the Thinklings blog, it seems only right to say a little about the Tolkien Ideas Group and the purpose behind the blog itself.

Thinklings (or TIG) was set up by myself in 2012 with the aim of bringing together students of Royal Holloway who had an interest in Tolkien’s work.

‘Inklings’, you are no doubt aware, was the name of an informal literary discussion group of which Tolkien was a key member. This name was the inspiration for RHUL ‘Thinklings’ and gave birth to an informal discussion group where ideas about Tolkien’s work could be shared and explored. In the beginning, Thinklings was called an 'ideas' group as opposed to a 'reading' group simply because TIG was deemed a better acronym than TRG; but, now I think on it, I am pleased with this decision as I have come to understand and appreciate the very nature and implication of ideas themselves.

The exchange of ideas is always progressive. As Victor Hugo once said, Ideas can no more flow backward than can a river.And all ideas are valuable. It’s ok if your idea does not sound all that great to you: A half-baked idea is okay as long as it's in the oven (author unknown). I could imagine a hobbit coming up with this humorous, homely quote - although an everyday hobbit would probably frown upon such talk of 'ideas' and 'progression'. Hobbits, after all, prefer to talk about Shire gossip, especially if it involves their neighbours. Perhaps Tolkien had a similar thought in mind to Tobias S. Gibson when he invented the nature of hobbits: Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people. For hobbits, of course, 'small' would take on a double meaning, denoting both stature and small-mindedness![1]

One of my favourite quotes, and one which I think I will use to motivate myself in future, is: A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one (Mary Kay Ash). The main aim of Thinklings is to generate and harvest enthusiasm for Tolkien’s work through the exchange ideas. By exchanging ideas, we multiply them, as George Bernard Shaw suggests with his apple-idea comparison. Whether you consider yourself to be a wise wizard, a learned elf, or a humble hobbit when it comes to Tolkien lore, your opinion always matters.

By sharing our discussions with you via weekly posts on this blog, I hope ideas about Tolkien’s work will continue to be exchanged and multiplied.

- C. Dale

 

---

[1] Since writing this entry I have discovered a lovely quote from an interview with Tolkien that explains why he chose to make the hobbits small in size: 'Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects (in general) the small reach of their imagination - not the small reach of their courage or latent power.' (Broadcast Jan 1971 on BBC Radio 4's 'Now Read On ...'). I'm glad I found this; 'small-mindedness' felt like an inadeqaute way to describe the nature of hobbits!