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#1 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,307
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You think you've read drivel? You haven't read drivel until you've read this
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,857
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Oh boy.
For my own entertainment as much as anything, my thoughts and comments: Quote:
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The statement that Tolkien is responsible goes back to the question of how influential 'The Monsters & the Critics' was. I still don't know. Quote:
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Tolkien didn't write the films. Quote:
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Okay: this appears to be broadly correct. Tolkien's argument is that, because Sigelwara means both Ethiopia and Hell, it must mean 'black people living in a hot region', and therefore the unknown elements that make it up must form that meaning. He goes to great lengths to draw a link to 'sigel' as a word for the sun. Quote:
The connection from Ham to Cain is, uh, I'm gonna go with 'unsupported at this time'. I think I've heard it occasionally, but assuming that Tolkien thought it is a huge leap. Assuming that Tolkien even thought about the ways Americans had justified their virulent racism is an even bigger one (slavery had been outlawed in Britain a long time earlier). I... have no idea why the etymology not mentioning slavery is relevant. It also doesn't mention the purported presence of the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia. (Weren't slaves mostly taken from the west coast of Africa, rather than Ethiopia in the east?) Quote:
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There follow a few paragraphs discussing Toni Morrison's essay as a keystone in black discussion of Beowulf. There's no Tolkien so I'm not commenting. ^_^ Then we get this: Quote:
Or at least, that is a valid stance to take in discussing the poem. It seems Ms. Morrison has a different stance, which she develops in her essay, and that's fantastic! But Ms. Kim does not explain that stance: she just asserts that Tolkien was wrong to not take it, and implies that it's the only correct stance to take. --- In conclusion? Painting Tolkien as racist fails here as it has so many other times, and in particular, the pile of assumptions and leaps that have to be taken to get there is extraordinary. But I'm very pleased that Toni Morrison has found a new angle to consider Beowulf under - I just hope she hasn't built her article around the concept that Tolkien Must Be Wrong. hS |
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#3 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 785
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The article isn't terribly well-supported, as Huinseron has said, and I think it's couched in rather sensationalist terms, but I don't think the point it makes is entirely unreasonable – or rather, to again agree with Huinseron, whatever Morrison is saying in the essay about which this article was written sounds rather more substantial than this article itself.
I do think the implication that "The Monsters and the Critics" still dominates Beowulf isn't right, though; I haven't studied it for a long time, but I consistently get the impression that most contemporary scholars of Beowulf consider Professor Tolkien's reading to be very idiosyncratic and rather outdated. There have been decades and decades of scholarship since "The Monsters and the Critics" came out. In my university studies it was only read as one among many interpretations, and not one which was afforded much attention in particular.
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"Since the evening of that day we have journeyed from the shadow of Tol Brandir." "On foot?" cried Éomer. |
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#4 | ||
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,307
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(Just for anyone who isn't conversant with one of the fundamental cultural texts of Western civilization, the Book of Genesis, here's what it says about Cain (after he murdered his brother and was exiled): Quote:
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#5 | |
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,035
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It seems pretty obvious that one bent on seeing hidden meanings and colorings in anything will tend to find them, regardless of whether they are actually there.
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Music alone proves the existence of God. |
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#6 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,307
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Lewis had a great term for it: "chronological snobbery." And he was referring to that sort of thing when it had some whiff of actual merit, not counterfactual codswallop like this piece.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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