What was it all for?

[davem]

I suppose my inspiration for this thread is a certain other one which shall remain nameless. I will only touch on it briefly as it deals with the polar opposite approach to this one.

If I can begin with a post of my own from the 'Tolkien's Literary Executor' thread:

At least CT has in the forefront of his mind his father's own wishes & hopes for the work. I wonder if those who follow him in the role will feel the same need or desire. How far one takes 'respect' for the author's wishes is a vexed question. For instance, Tolkien himself repeatedly attacked the breaking down of literary works in search of 'sources'. He first condemned this approach in the 'Tower' allegory in The Monsters & the Critics essay, & towards the end of his life attacked it in terms of approaching his own work - comparing it to a man who, after eating a meal, uses an emetic & sends the result to a chemist for analysis. Tolkien clearly found such an approach to his work wrongheaded & insulting, & requested it not to be done.

One other example could be added - Gandalf's condemnation of Saruman's boast about breaking the Light. Gandalf says that 'He who breaks a thing to find out what it is made of has left the path of wisdom'

Clearly it is not just Gandalf who dislikes this 'breaking down' approach. Gandalf's words could have been said - & effectively were in the essay & interview I cited - by Tolkien himself.

But what is his problem? What is wrong with looking for the sources & inspirations a writer used? Well, let me give some example?

Why does a man (or woman) build a house? Not, one assumes, because one day he stumbled across a pile of bricks & decided to cement them together to make them tidier, or to stop someone walking off with them. No, its far more likely, & far more logical to assume that what happened was that the man wanted a house to live in & went in search of the bricks & other materials he would need to do the job. So the intended use of the bricks comes first, the bricks come second.

Now, in the Monsters & Critics essay Tolkien took on thos critics who wanted to break down Beowulf into its constituent parts, because they considered those parts more important than what the poet had done with them. They effectively condemned the poet for his use of the 'historical' asides he made use of (the story of Finn, etc) in a poem about a dragon & said what he should have done was tell rather the story of Finn.

Tolkien's response was that the story of Beowulf & Grendel, & the Dragon, was not 'inferior', if only because that was the story the poet wanted to tell. The other stories (including references to Cain & Abel) were in there to give depth, & to point up incidents through analogy, but it is not actually necessary to understand those references to 'get' the story. Pulling Beowulf apart in order to find out more about Finn is a dead end, because the poem is not a collection of sources 'cemented' together, but a work of Art.

Tolkien seems always to have felt this way. M&C came at the 'beginning' of his career, Gandalf's statement in LotR around the 'middle' & the interview towards the end of his life. We can say with certainty that he never liked this breaking down approach. Of course, he himself was interested in the story of Finn, but not to the extent that he would shatter Beowulf to get at it.

Tolkien's attitude seems to have been that the sources a writer used were less important than what he did with them. He may have taken certain things from the Bible - but he didn't take everything from the Bible, nor did he take just anything from it. what he took from it (& what, exactly, he did take) he took for a very specific reason. He took what was useful to him. He took the same approach with elements & aspects of Norse, Finnish, Welsh, Irish & Germanic myth, from legend, folklore, Dunne's theories on time, his childhood & wartime experiences, anything & everything he had to hand & needed for the task in hand.

So, perhaps we are nearer to understanding Tolkien's dislike of source hunting. The Art is more than a simple amalgam of the sources he used - it is not a case of if you programmed a computer with the texts of the Bible, the Eddas, the Kalevala, Beowulf, etc you could get it to produce the Legendarium. You couldn't, because what would be lacking in what you programmed in would be the specific vision that inspired the man. The vision (like the desire to have a house to live in) lead him to use the materials he used - he didn't just take the materials he had to hand & decide to 'stick' them together: he 'stuck them together' in a very specific way.

There is a tendency at the moment among Tolkien scholars to focus on a biographical analysis (his childhood, his wartime experiences) or a source analysis (books he read, or might have read) in an attempt to understand his work, Less attention is focussed on what he actually did, & more importantly why he did it.

Now, John Garth has given us letters & diary entries from Tolkmien & the rest of the TCBS, which give the impression he was part of a movement which desired to bring about a 'moral regeneration' of the English people. In the letter to Milton Waldman written before the publication of LotR he stated that once upon a time he had wanted to create a mythology which he could dedicate to England, but that his crest had long since fallen. In the Foreword to the Second Edition of LotR he effectively tells his readers that the story has no 'inner meaning', it is not an 'allegory' of anything, & that he dislikes alllegory profoundly. Although he says he prefers 'applicability' one almost gets the impression that he isn't too keen on that & would prefer people to treat it as he himself does - as 'feigned history'.

Yet, a man who spends the whole of his adult life working to create a coherent 'Secondary World' is driven by something more than the desire to create a mere 'entertainment'. But what was that?

What we can say, given his statements on 'source hunting', is that he wasn't simply out to amalgamate various ideas & source texts into a coherent 'whole', Those things were the raw materials he used to do something - but what was that 'something'? What did he want to build, & what did he want to build it for?

(Please, no-one say it was to proseletiize, or I'll end up banned from my own thread.....)

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

What did he want to build, & what did he want to build it for?

My immediate reaction, I suppose, is "What does it matter?" My own reaction to Tolkien's works is more important to me than his purpose in writing them. But that may just be me.

But ... and I hesitate to ask this ... but, if you are seeking to establish Tolkien's purpose in writing what he did, does that not inevitably involve a consideration of his experiences, influences and sources - those things that led him to write it? And, quite apart from the difficulty of reaching any definitive conclusions on these issues, does that not therefore involve "breaking the thing down" in order to examine it?

Any other approach would surely simply involve stating one's own personal view, clouded by one's own reactions, beliefs and experiences, of what his purpose was.

[davem]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

My immediate reaction, I suppose, is "What does it matter?" My own reaction to Tolkien's works is more important to me than his purpose in writing them. But that may just be me.

But ... and I hesitate to ask this ... but, if you are seeking to establish Tolkien's purpose in writing what he did, does that not inevitably involve a consideration of his experiences, influences and sources - those things that led him to write it? And, quite apart from the difficulty of reaching any definitive conclusions on these issues, does that not therefore involve "breaking the thing down" in order to examine it?

Well, his experiences obviously provided the raw material - but the Legendarium is not a 'biography'. He srew on various literary sources, yet it is not a re-write of Northern Myth, or of the Bible. It is something else.

In the Beowulf 'allegory' the man built the Tower to be able to 'look out on the Sea' - ie, he built it for a purpose. After his death his friends come along & sdismantle the Tower to find out wher the stones came from.

Now, there are two ways of looking at most things - 'Where did it come from?' & 'What is it for?' Source analysis tells us a great deal in answer to the former question, but almost nothing in answer to the latter. Just because the former question is the easier to answer does not make it the more important, or more interesting, question.

Something drove a human being to spend 60 years of his life in the creation & perfection of something which has transfixed millions of readers for the last two generations & looks likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Leaving aside the Bible, one has to say that the other sources he used have not had such a profound effect. Why not? When we read about Surtr crossing Bifrost we are not as affected as when we read of Gandalf's stand against the Balrog. So, finding sources will not explain the effect the work has on us, nor will it explain why Tolkien chose that particular image out of all the ones Tolkien could have chosen from the Pagan sources he had to hand.

Tolkien spent 60 years doing something, & he must have had a reason for devoting such time & energy to it. He wasn't just using 'sources', he was using them for something.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by davem

he was using them for something.

Presumably it had something to do with telling a story.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien spent 60 years doing something, & he must have had a reason for devoting such time & energy to it. He wasn't just using 'sources', he was using them for something.

How about he was bored and thought he could write a better yarn out of it all. Or how about he just couldn't let go of words, which told him things that he hadn't seen explored before about them.

btw, I really don't think one can generalise about how "we" aren't as moved by Surtr at Bifrost as by Gandalf at Moria. But I guess I'm just old fashioned enough to think that one person using the Royal We is enough.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Presumably it had something to do with telling a story.

What kind of story, & why did he want to tell it? Why was it so important that it be 'perfect'? What did he mean when he stated that he was all the time trying to discover 'what really happened'?

In the form of that 'story' he was trying to communicate some 'fact' which he believed to be 'external' (at least to his conscious mind')

One review of the Silmarillion asked the question 'How, given little over half a century, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people?' I'd also ask why? & 'What for?

Does it not also make you feel both awed & amazed at what a human being can do?

Originally Posted by Bb

How about he was bored and thought he could write a better yarn out of it all. Or how about he just couldn't let go of words, which told him things that he hadn't seen explored before about them.

Possibly. I just think its bigger (& deeper) than that..... He was 'driven', staying up late into the night over a period of many years. Boredom isn't a good enough explanation.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

Those things were the raw materials he used to do something - but what was that 'something'?

Well, if we take into considerations these two refferences:

Originally Posted by "He had been inside his language, Part Four, JRRT Biography, by H. Carpenter

But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver. No, said Tolkien, they are not. And, indicating the great trees of Magdalen Grove as their branches bent in the wind, he struck out a different line of argument.
You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a ‘tree’ until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.
We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic ‘progress’ leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

Originally Posted by Mythopoeia

The heart of man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
man, sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sow the seeds of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

So, I would say the myths represent to him a spiritual path, which redeems us; this may not be the same thing with Christianity, but I doubt that for him, God/Truth was any other than the biblical one.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

So, I would say the myths represent to him a spiritual path, which redeems us; this may not be the same thing with Christianity, but I doubt that for him, God/Truth was any other than the biblical one.

Yeah - like I'm getting into that last one.....

You make two assumptions , though. First that of a 'spiritual path' & second of 'redemption'. Possibly. And yet non-religious folk who don't accept either of those things are affected by the work. He wanted to achieve something, felt driven to do it, as I said.

And back to the 'boredom' explanation, or that it was 'just a story' - the question I'd ask is, if it was all just for a story he wrote to avoid boredom, why has there been such a vociferous debate on his 'sources' - whatever the sources for something 'trivial' are they should not have inspired such ire on all sides. I suspect we all have a very deep sense that it is about something very important & very specific - if only in its effect on us - & we feel very annoyed when someone says its about something else...

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

Possibly. I just think its bigger (& deeper) than that..... He was 'driven', staying up late into the night over a period of many years. Boredom isn't a good enough explanation.

Is there any information about his mental condition? I don't mean that negatively, but was there an addictive nature in any family member? Was there a possible obsessive/compulsive disorder? Was there a need to 'make something' to counter the destruction that he'd witnessed in the war?

Or was he just trying to avoid real life? Why do we post here, as been said, as don't we have better (and more productive/beneficial) things to be doing?

[Raynor]

You make two assumptions , though. First that of a 'spiritual path' & second of 'redemption'.

"Objectively", those are assumptions. For Tolkien, whose motives we are considering here, they represent realities.

Yeah - like I'm getting into that last one

Well, let's agree to disagree (if its' even the case).

[Lalwendë]

I detect two strains to this. What did Tolkien want, and how should we be looking at it.

Why did he write LotR? I don't know. Why do I have an urge to stuff the garden full of plants every year? Why do I suddenly like painting in the brightest colours I can get hold of? Why do I make up stories in my head? I would say its simply the Creative Urge. Scientifically speaking it means he had a highly active frontal lobe (also common in mental illness). Pyschologically speaking that he had secret urges to express. Classically speaking it was his Muse um...fiddling with his head. We've all done it, even cavemen did it. If any of us knew why then we'd be rich.

Yes, he spent a lot of time on this work and you could say he had an obsession with it, but this may be partly to do with his perfectionism. Maybe he had a disorder relating to OCD or somesuch, but we can't possibly say that. Maybe it was simply his form of comfort and escape. He certainly tried to intellectualise his urge over the years, many of his statements showing how he matured with age - high-minded when young about moral regneration and suchlike he grew up after a while and realised he wasn't going to change the world. Which also shows that real wisdom lies in appreciating your own insignificance in the great structure of things.

But it all boils down to a creative urge, a strong one. He didn't just work on the world he created for LotR, he attempted, and even wrote, other stories. He drew complex maps. He fiddled with invented languages all his life. he was a competent and prolific artist. he created the Father Christmas Letters for his kids (what a cool and thoughtful father, better than some plastic from Toys R Us!). He wrote lectures. He taught.

How should we be looking at it? Well since Barthes said the Author is Dead in 1968, you can look at it any ruddy way you like, apparently. In fact most of 20th century critical theory (New Criticism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Reader-response) has pretty much ignored the Author and what he or she intended. Though some Marxist criticism seraches out the hidden political agenda of the writer. When the TS give lots of talks on the life of Tolkien in the hope of illuminating us, they're pretty much living in Victorian times as far as Critical theory goes. However, funnily enough, most readers want a bit of biography, want a bit of contemporary context.

If you want to look at the text in and of itself, without reference to author or source, then you need to use New Criticism. Post Structuralism will look at the readers, and the sources, but not look at the text particularly. Reader Response gets us all in a group and asks us how it makes us feel (and then we have a group hug ). But ultimately Tolkien is a special case, as are some other fantasy writers, as he's not just a novelist but a world builder, and much of what we do is to find our way around in that world he created amongst the mass of information, so maybe no kind of theory at all is more valid than another.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

If any of us knew why then we'd be rich.

It's all biochemical then. (sorry, but just couldn't help that; blame those darn lobes. Will have them removed by popular demand.)

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

"Objectively", those are assumptions. For Tolkien, whose motives we are considering here, they represent realities.

But this is to imply he was writing a work driven by his intention to 'redeem' his readers. Yet in his statements about 'discovering what really happened', & given Carpenter's statement that he was 'writing blind' its almost as if, as I said he was exploring Middle-earth, rather than inventing it. He was like Smith or Niggle in many ways. Yet what he produced has profoundly affected millions of readers. He is saying things that we all respond deeply to, introducing us to a world which is spookily real - few works of fiction have that 'inner consistency of reality'. Its as if (as a friend of mine said) Middle-earth is a real place, the characters & events seem not to be waiting for us to open the book & start reading it - its as if we are observers of another 'reality', another world which exists & goes on even when we are not observing it. Many of us, on some level, feel M-e to be a real, objectively existing place - as Tolkien himself apparently did.

Of course, that could just be his technical skill as a writer, but it may be something more.

What's interesting is that while his motivations change over the years (from 'moral regeneration', to myth creation for England, to 'mere' entertainment) the stories themselves essentially do not change - so its as if the tales & their setting exist independently of Tolkien's intentions for them.

He wants to set something down, actualise it in words on paper, bring it into the Primary world to share it with others - & those others respond to it.

EDIT Yes, I realise I'm possibly contradicting my original point when I say that its almost like the tales remain essentially unchanged even when the author's intention for them changes. But maybe that's an even more interesting line of enquiry...

[Raynor]

But this is to imply he was writing a work driven by his intention to 'redeem' his readers

I don't think this is entirely accurate; he reffers to myth-making, not myths, as being able to bring us back to the state before the Fall.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Of course, that could just be his technical skill as a writer, but it may be something more.

Little green men?

Originally Posted by alatar

It's all biochemical then.

Or family dynamics. Good way to avoid a nagging wife. "Not tonight, dear, I have a story to write."

[narfforc]

Why is there a desire to find such things in a story book, do these same people look for these things in Peter Pan or Tom and Jerry, I first and foremost read The Lord of the Rings because it followed on from The Hobbit, I never wished to see anything else but the story. I admit there are now things that invade my mind from other sources, but if I wanted to read the bible (which I have) it is already there, the same goes for any of the pagan mythologies, and if I really wanted to know about Pink Efelumps I would read Davems thread. I see no reason at all to go hunting for spiritual guidance or hidden meanings in anything else than the given scriptures of any religion when the original has all you need.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Or family dynamics.

Or a small group of children...

Which brings up another point: Did Tolkien create for his kids? I find that, for me, this is a strong motivator. I play at making family DVDs of the kids' pictures and home movies as my children are delighted to see themselves on the TV. Not only does it keep them occupied like nothing else, it makes them smile, which goes straight to my heart, which makes me want to make another. And another.

Did the Professor stay up late to create a world that would make his children, then those of the world, smile?

[davem]

Originally Posted by narfforc

Why is there a desire to find such things in a story book, do these same people look for these things in Peter Pan or Tom and Jerry, I first and foremost read The Lord of the Rings because it followed on from The Hobbit, I never wished to see anything else but the story. I admit there are now things that invade my mind from other sources, but if I wanted to read the bible (which I have) it is already there, the same goes for any of the pagan mythologies, and if I really wanted to know about Pink Efelumps I would read Davems thread. I see no reason at all to go hunting for spiritual guidance or hidden meanings in anything else than the given scriptures of any religion when the original has all you need.

I'm not looking for a 'spiritual' explanation. Just attempting to understand why he did what he did. We can take the approach of looking backward & asking where it came from or forward to where he was trying to go with it. Its really a counter to the other thread which seemed to place all the emphasis on the former approach, arguing over sources, without asking what he did with those sources that he used & what he wanted to achieve - if anything: I haven't ruled out the possibility that he was a bit of an obsessive with a storyteller complex - though as Jung said about complexes - he found the existence of complexes in themselves banal & always wanted to know not where or how they originated, but what they were for.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by davem

I suspect we all have a very deep sense that it is about something very important & very specific - if only in its effect on us - & we feel very annoyed when someone says its about something else...

Self preservation. Literature emotes. If a writer wanted to Say Something, he could just say it. But he doesn't. He covers the barest fact with painted lace, writes in calligraphy, dances with his words. If he wanted us to know, he would tell us. But instead, a literary master shows. He makes us feel.

And when we are told that he didn't mean for us to feel that way, we don't like it.

Given that, think about what he made us feel. Was he writing tragedy, such that in the end, we feel as though we have lost something and can never have it back?

Sure. Elves are gone. Frodo can't be healed. Life goes on, but nothing was as it once was. In the Bible, Job gets new kids, new goats, new whatever, and it's all Better Than Before, but it's not what it was. Tolkien did write a tragedy.

But he also wrote a comedy. And a romance. And a hero quest. He wrote fantasy and history and hope and wonder.

He wrote an epic. He took his readers through as many emotions as he could carefully draw out of them.

I'm less curious about what he was doing, what his final purpose was, than why that was his purpose.

Why would anybody actively manipulate emotion? Seems like a pretty sketchy thing to do. Power trip, anyone? Perhaps he was unpopular in junior high school.

I should be ignored.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

I'm less curious about what he was doing, what his final purpose was, than why that was his purpose.

Me too - among other things. If we agree he intended to get somewhere we can speculate on where that was.

It strikes me that when most of us come across a magnificent stone building - columns, gargolyes, flying butresses, etc, our first, instinctive, question is 'What's it for, why was it built, why is it there?' Not 'I wonder where the stone came from?' And even if we do ask the latter question it usually follows the former, because we assume there is a reason for things to exist.

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

It strikes me that when most of us come across a magnificent stone building - columns, gargolyes, flying butresses, etc, our first, instinctive, question is 'What's it for, why was it built, why is it there?' Not 'I wonder where the stone came from?' And even if we do ask the latter question it usually follows the former, because we assume there is a reason for things to exist.

When I come across such a building, my chief response is not to ask anything - rather, it's to enjoy the sight of the building. I may ask questions about why it's there later, but what I am generally chiefly interested in is the thing in itself (not to sound too much like Kant, I hope) rather than in the circumstances surrounding its creation.

So it is, for me, anyway, with Tolkien's work (or with any literature). My chief interest is in LotR, the Silmarillion, and The Hobbit in themselves, as great and magnificent stories, rather than in the circumstances of Tolkien's life which caused them to be produced.

And does this not suggest another possible answer to the "why" question? I am, as I type, sitting in a dorm room in a great and, I think, magnificent stone building, complete with gargoyles, vaulted ceilings, archways, and towers. Why was it built that way? It is, after all, in the New World, and was built no more than about a hundred years ago - certainly not a 'genuine' piece of Gothic architecture. I rather think that it was built this way because people enjoy Gothic architecture. The arches and gargoyles are there for me and the other inhabitants - to create a certain atmosphere, to give us aesthetic pleasure, etc.

So why can we not say the same about Tolkien's work? Why can he not have written it for us - to read, to enjoy, to be moved by? Why can he not have created his Legendarium because he thought stories are valuable in and of themselves, not merely as means to some other end?

For that matter, why can he not have created it for himself, because he enjoyed writing stories? I myself spend a good deal of time writing fiction and composing music, for no other reason than that I enjoy doing those things. Now, of course, my skill in neither of these fields is even on the same order of magnitude as Tolkien's skill at storytelling; nevertheless, I don't find it hard to imagine that his motivation was the same as mine.

Or, as Feanor of the Peredhil so concisely put it:

Presumably it had something to do with telling a story.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

Now, there are two ways of looking at most things - 'Where did it come from?' & 'What is it for?' Source analysis tells us a great deal in answer to the former question, but almost nothing in answer to the latter. Just because the former question is the easier to answer does not make it the more important, or more interesting, question.

I still find it difficult how you can make any attempt to answer the question "What is it for?" without considering "Where did it come from?"

To take your analogy of the house builder, there are a number of levels at which one can answer the questions: "What is the house for? Why did Tolkien the Master Builder build it?". One can look at it and make a general assessment, namely that he built it as a house for people to live in. This would be analagous to saying that Tolkien wrote LotR as a book for people to read and enjoy. One might look further and notice various features and themes: windows, doors, partition walls, a roof. Just as one may consider LotR and notice particular features and themes: fantasy, friendship, the enoblement of the humble, good and evil etc. But this isn't really telling us anything we didn't know already or couldn't work out for ourselves with a litle thought.

So we have to look more closely if we are to try to understand why Tolkien built this particular house. We need to consider his purpose in selecting that particular style of window, or that precise archway, or those particular tiles for the roof. Perhaps we need to consider his influences - what training he had as a builder, what particular styles caught his eye at builder college, what materials he assessed might be best for his intended construction. And, ultimately, to gain the best understanding possible of Tolkien's purposes with regard to the house, we have to consider just what kind of an environment he intended to provide for those who would occupy it. What kind of protection against the weather, the climate, subsidence etc did he intend it to provide? And so, as I see it, we end up knocking it down to examine its inner workings and its foundations.

Without being there as it was built, I really don't see how you can hope to answer the question "What is it for?" in anything other than the most cursory of ways without at some point asking "What materials did he use to build it and how did he put those materials together?"

That said, like Aiwendil, I am one of those who would rather sit and admire the building for what it is and take what pleasure I find in my own reactions to it, rather than considering what the builder's purpose was in building it, much less what he used to build it. So I really don't see the point of these questions in the first place.

Of course, if you and others are interested in considering and discussing the question, and feel that you may have something to gain in doing so, there's no harm in that at all. You don't need me continually sticking my oar in and telling you how pointless it all is. So, good luck to you. I hope it goes well.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

So why can we not say the same about Tolkien's work? Why can he not have written it for us - to read, to enjoy, to be moved by? Why can he not have created his Legendarium because he thought stories are valuable in and of themselves, not merely as means to some other end?

We can say that. From his words in the Foreword to LotR that was his sole intention. Except is wasn't always his sole intention. At one point he wanted to bring about the moral regeneration of England & saw his mythology as having that purpose. What if he had died after completing the Book of Lost Tales? We could still treat that work as an 'entertainment', but we wouldn't have Tolkien's 'authority' (given us in LotR) to treat it so - if we did treat it so we would be going against his wishes.

Yet, as I said, over the years his intention changed (well, apparently it changed. In the letters we see a writer who is pleased when his readers point up religious parallels, almost feeling he has 'succeeded' in some way) but while his intention changes, his stories essentially don't. At first they are 'moral' tales: not so much tales with specific morals, ie 'parables' as tales which are in conformity with the moral value system Tolkien wished to inculcate in the English. Later as his intention changes & his crest falls, the motivation is merely to entertain, to move, but the stories remain the same.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong to read the stories as 'stories' I do so myself. This thread is asking what Tolkien's motivation was, as opposed to the 'raw materials' he used. In partial answer to SPM's point about considering sources I'd point out that whatever Tolkien drew on his creation, the whole, is far greater than the sum of its parts. So we won't be able to fully account for the whole merely by finding out all the sources. In the analogy the man built a house - not a church, or a tower, or a shop, or a school. He built a specific thing, because he wanted that specific thing & no other thing. In that context, the 'raw materials' are less important than what is made with them. A house can be built of brick, wood, stone, wattle & daub, concrete, plastic or paper.

Tolkien may use imagery, or take inspiration, from say Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, for his descriptions of Minas Tirith, but his purpose is to get the reader to think of Minas Tirith as a Great City, not to make them put down LotR & pick up their Bible or a history of Rome. In the same way, he may use images & language in his account of Gandalf's fall which bring to mind everything from Christ's sacrifice to Ragnarok, but again his intention is not to get you to put down LotR at that point & pick up your Bible or your copy of the Eddas - it is to emphasise the significance of the event within the secondary world, because that event is the point - Gandalf's fall is not a 'parable', or a re-write of something else. Exactly as the Beowulf poet did in bringing in references to Finn or the Bible - those references are meant to point up, intensify, the incidents in the poem for the aid of the reader.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien may use imagery, or take inspiration, from say Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, for his descriptions of Minas Tirith, but his purpose is to get the reader to think of Minas Tirith as a Great City, not to make them put down LotR & pick up their Bible or a history of Rome. In the same way, he may use images & language in his account of Gandalf's fall which bring to mind everything from Christ's sacrifice to Ragnarok, but again his intention is not to get you to put down LotR at that point & pick up your Bible or your copy of the Eddas - it is to emphasise the significance of the event within the secondary world, because that event is the point - Gandalf's fall is not a 'parable', or a re-write of something else. Exactly as the Beowulf poet did in bringing in references to Finn or the Bible - those references are meant to point up, intensify, the incidents in the poem for the aid of the reader.

This is an excellent point.

As we've found out, Tolkien took his influences from far and wide. He was catholic (small c), meaning his influences were diverse. He was also extremely well read and intelligent, knowing that to put all your references in one basket would a. not be satisfactory for all readers, and b. would risk missing out on some wonderful image or icon from another time or culture.

What Tolkien uses are cultural touchstones. So Minas Tirith makes one person think of Jerusalem, it makes me think of something else quite grand (I often think of York or indeed Oxford). Tolkien is subtle, far too subtle to be finding x, y or z in his work and sitting back and saying "ah, so that's what it is" with certainty. I think he does this for a very good reason. He was creating a secondary world. Not our world. Not even our past world. But another one. And how often have we read rubbish fantasy with overly contrived places, names and natural landscapes. Tolkien instead takes things we all recognise (call them universal, archetypal, cultural touchstones, what you will) and weaves them into the fabric of that world to create something we will all recognise.

As an example, the Shire is on one level rural England in 1900, but it might also be rural England now, or in 1700, or it might be New England, or just a village somewhere that we remember from childhood. The point of The Shire is not that it is Sarehole in 1900, but a blue remembered hill as t'were, a place of comfort from deep in our memories.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

It seems to me that if we ask what Tolkien's legendarium was for, we are asking for it to be something it is not. So far a lot of comments appear to assume that there was some sort of common purpose behind The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which seems difficult to support; and if we try to tie in other works, such as Smith of Wootton Major or The Adventures of Tom Bombadil there are even more insurmountable difficulties in our path.

Tolkien began writing the stories that became The Silmarillion during the First World War, one of the earliest being a poem inspired by the Old English word Earendel. At this time he seems to have been writing a personal legend to put a story to the word. He said himself that a good name was often his main inspiration, and Tom Shippey has demonstrated very ably how philological problems often led Tolkien to build up fictional explanations. Later he composed other legends, such as that of Beren and Lúthien, which again seem to have been written for the sake of writing them, with no particular audience or any motive in mind other than to produce the story. This seems to have been his primary motivation until one day he relieved the tedium of marking examination scripts by writing 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit'. Given the word 'hobbit', Tolkien had all the material he needed to write a story about one, and since he had children of his own it became a children's story with which to amuse them. It was only after several years that the question of an audience outside Tolkien's own circle became an issue, when he was persuaded to publish this first tale.

At that point in the late 1930s everything changed. After The Hobbit was published, he began systematically to revise the Silmarillion material with a view to publication. He was now trying to create a finalised and definitive version of his legends for public consumption. Having found that he had an audience, Tolkien wanted to share with them the stories which he had enjoyed creating. This seems to have been his major motivation: to publish the work that was closest to his heart. When Allen and Unwin asked for a sequel to The Hobbit and intimated that the Silmarillion was not what they wanted, Tolkien duly sat down and began to write a sequel; but as his drafts show us the import, structure, themes and connection with the earlier legends arose during composition, not as premeditated aims. Even when, after nearly twenty years, he finally published The Lord of the Rings, he was still looking for a way of getting his legends of the Eldar into print. The Silmarils were in his heart, as he said himself, and he wanted to share what he had created with the world.

The point, which really only echoes Lalwendë's post above, is that in every case other than The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had begun to write with no purpose other than to do just that. The stories were what mattered, not the audience or any sort of agenda, less still a single meaning. Work on The Silmarillion was tied up with his private languages, and all of his stories were involved in some way with his professional interests, but these were inevitable in that Tolkien the philologist, Tolkien the mythmaker, Tolkien the storyteller, Tolkien the father, Tolkien the Roman Catholic and Tolkien the composer of languages were all the same person. To return to the well-worn analogy of the man and the tower, Tolkien didn't know what sort of structure he wanted to build, or what it would look like. He liked building and happened to have a large stock of stone lying around. At first he thought, perhaps, of a shed to house some tools related to his work; then a workshop; then a gallery, perhaps even a cathedral, and finally a tower, so that the structure became all of these things and none. He used the stone that was to hand, but, like the Beowulf poet, he chose each piece and its setting for an aesthetic reason: because he liked its colour or shape, or because its carvings were pleasing to him. It is not profitable to pull Beowulf to pieces to find out more about Finn and Hengest, although coincidentally it contains a lot of what we do know about them; but the selection of that particular story for the particular place it occupies in the narrative has a specific and intentional effect, and unless we know more about the tragedy of Finnsburh we will not entirely understand that effect. In fact we will think, as the critics thought against whom Tolkien set himself , that the story is light, with little value other than what it tells us about other matters.

Similarly, it will profit us nothing to pull Tolkien's work to pieces to find out about Voluspá or The Wanderer, since we will not actually learn any more about those texts by so doing. We may, however, appreciate the effect that Tolkien was trying to achieve by considering a particular borrowing in its narrative setting. Tolkien used the materials that he did in the way that he did because he found the result aesthetically pleasing, and part of that effect for him, just as for the author of Beowulf, was the knowledge of the whole story and his personal appreciation of the borrowed material for its own sake.

So what is it for? Nothing. It all exists for and of itself and the act of creating it, except The Lord of the Rings, which arose out of a specific demand from Tolkien's publishers. Even that work was composed ad hoc, and eventually reflected more what Tolkien wanted to write than what Allen and Unwin wanted to publish. Although he often composed stories to entertain people close to him, particularly his own children, he was mainly writing things which gave him pleasure, and I think that a lot of his motivation in trying to publish the earlier Silmarillion was to share that pleasure with any like-minded people there might be. Once he knew without a shadow of doubt that there were a lot of like-minded people in the world, he began to worry about other issues: the religious orthodoxy of his creations, their internal consistency or simply what on earth was beyond that horizon. The idea that there was a single purpose or aim at all times and for all works is reaching too far.

[davem]

Well, the 'moral agenda' was there at the beginning - we only have to read Garth:

Some quotes from members of the TCBS given in Garth's book: (

(p14)Tolkien once compared the TCBS to the pre-Raphaelites, probably in response to the Brotherhood's preoccupation with restoring Medieval values in Art.

(p56) Tolkien maintained that the society was 'a great idea which has never become quite articulate'. Its two poles, the moral & the aesthetic, could be complemantary if kept in balance...While the Great Twin Brethren (Tolkien & Wiseman) had discussed the fundamentals of existence, neither of them had done so with Gilson or Smith. As a result, Tolkien declared, the potential these four 'amazing' individuals contained in combination remained unbroached.'

(p105) Gilson proposed that feminism would help by banishing the view that 'woman was just an apparatus for man's pleasure'

Smith declared that, through Art, the four would have to leave the world better than they had found it. Their role would be ' to drive from life, letters, the satge & society that dabbling in & hankering after the unpleasant sides & incidents in life & nature which have captured the larger & worser tastes in Oxford, London & the world ... To re-establish sanity, cleanliness, & the love of real & true beauty in everyone's breast.

Gilson told Tolkien that, sitting in Routh Road... 'I suddenly saw the TCBS in a blaze of Light as a great Moral reformer ...Engalnd purified of its loathsome moral disease by the TCBS spirit. It is an enormous task & we shall not see it accomplished in our lifetime.

(p 122) Rob Gilson: I like to say & to hear it said & to feel boldly that the glory of beauty & order & joyful contentment in the universe is the presence of God....GB Smith was closely attentive to Tolkien's vision & in some measure shared it....Smith saw no demarcation between holiness & Faerie.

(p136) TCBSianism had come to mean fortitude & courage & alliance. ...But the TCBS had absorbed patriotic duty into its constitution not simply because its members were all patriots. the war mattered because it was being fought 'so England's self draw breath'; so that the inspirations of 'the real days' of peace might survive'...

Gilson: 'I have faith that the TCBS may for itself - never for the world - than God for this war some day.

Tolkien already believed that the terrros to come might serve him in the visionary work of his life - if he survived.

(p174) Tolkien: 'Regarding, presumably, those same 'idle chatterers', the journalists& their readers whom Smith execrated, he wrote that 'No filter of true sentiment, no ray of feeling for beauty, women, history or their country shall reach them again.'

(p180) Smith (after Rob Gilson's death in battle) 'The group was spiritual in character, 'an influence on the state of being', & as such it transcended mortality; it was 'as permanently inseperable as Thor & his hammer'. the influence, he said, was, 'a tradition, which forty years from now will still be as strong to us (if we are alive, & if we are not) as it is today.

(Tolkien) 'the TCBS may have been all we dreamt - & its work in the end be done by three or two or one survivor ... To this I now pin my hopes..'

(p253) Smith had wanted them to leave the world a better place than when they found it, to 're-establish sanity, cleanliness, & the love of real & true beauty' through art embodying TCBSian principles.

(p308) 'The 24 year old Tolkien had believed just as strongly in the dream shared by the TCBS, & felt that they 'had been granted some spark of fire ... that was destined to kindle a new light, or, what is the same thing, rekindle an old light in the world

(p309) But The Lord of the Rings, the masterpiece that was published a decade & a half later, stands as the fruition of the TCBSian dream, a light drawn from ancient sources to illumnate a darkening world'.

I commented on this in another thread:

So right from the start of the Lost Tales, Tolkien is attempting to cast the TCBSian philosophy into artistic form. It culminates in the publication of LotR - at least during his lifetime. So, its not, or was never intended to be, simply a story. Its not an allegory in the strict sense, but the Legendarium could be seen as a mythologisation of TCBSianism vs the 'world'.

If there is an underlying 'truth' it is perhaps the 'truth' that the TCBS believed in - & so we're back to the question of what 'truth' Tolkien is revealing to us in his works - some kind of 'absolute', archetypal TRUTH, or simply what he felt to be true about the world, & we have to ask ourselves how close the two are.

Wherever we come down, its clear that whatever he was doing, he was attempting to do more than simply 'entertain' readers, because the TCBS was born in the hearts & minds of idealistic young men in peacetime & blasted apart on the Somme. Tolkien's mythology came into being during the horrors of mechanised warfare. But we enter it (or most of us do) as the TCBS would have originally, & it represents for us, as it would have for them, before the war, as a place of escape, of beauty, excitement, sadness, so we simply cannot read it as Tolkien would have read it himself when he came back to it to comment on its meaning for him. For us, it will have no 'meaning' beyond itself, & wahtever meaning we find in it for ourselves & our lives in this world, they will not, cannot, be the same as they were for Tolkien, so, our interpretations of it are as valid as his.

Which is not to say that he didn't intend us to find TCBSian values in it, & to find them more attractive than what was on offer in the 'primary world'. So, I'd say the book certainly contains deliberate 'meaning', that there is an intention on Tolkien's part that we should find in it waht he wants us to find, & also that he wants us to agree with him - but we never really could, because we're our own people, living our own lives, with our own experiences which we take to Middle Earth with us, & bring back out transformed.

Hence, there was a very clear intent for the Legendarium on Tolkien's part - it was to be 'in service' of TCBS-ianism. Later the intent changes (or disapppears). I go back though, to his comments that he 'was trying to discover 'what really happened' in writing LotR. If nothing else his 'intent' for the work could be said to be an accurate represntation of something which he percieved, or at least believed to be, 'external' to himself.

BAck to the point on 'sources' & the way he used them. Clearly, as Lalwende stated, he was using 'cultural touchstones' examples which would be recognisable & easily understood by his potential audience. In the first draft of FoG we find:

Glory dwelt in that City of Seven Names, & its ruin was the most dread of all the sacks of cities on the face of the earth. Nor Bablon, nor Ninwi, nor the Towers of Trui, nor the many takings of Rum that is greatest among men, saw such terror as fell that day upon Amon Gwareth....

So he is using references to Babylon, Nineveh, Troy & Rome, but these stories are not 'sources' but cultural references - & that's the danger in superficial 'source-hunting'.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Whilst I'm not prepared summarily to dismiss the Tea Club and Barrovian Society as a major influence on Tolkien, I feel compelled to ask the obvious question: if he set out to write The Lord of the Rings as part of an over-arching agenda to change the world through art, why did Tolkien wait until he was asked for a sequel to a children's story to write it? Why is it that the earliest part of the Silmarillion concerns a philological problem, and why does a large component of the Book of Lost Tales patently derive from his relationship with the woman he loved? Why did he only publish The Hobbit when a former student asked him to do so, and why was he not more forceful in his insistence that his world-changing works be published?

I don't doubt that the values of the TCBS formed one of the components from which Tolkien built his fiction, but as I should have pointed out above, the whole is greater and more complex than the sum of its parts. One cannot take the private communications of a group of young men to reflect their motivations ten or twenty years later, particularly since an horrific war intervened; and I would need to see Tolkien deliberately pursuing an artistic and moral agenda to be convinced that these were anything other than the fervent declarations of sensitive young men carried away by a sense of brotherhood and like-mindedness. The development of Tolkien's fiction seems too unplanned, too private and too concerned with other issues to be the result of a premeditated strategy devised by Tolkien and his schoolfellows. Now, the values of the TCBS do appear in Tolkien's fiction: the replacement of the corrupt master of Laketown with Bard the Bowman, the Scouring of the Shire and the conclusion of Leaf by Niggle are all instances in which Tolkien ridicules and routs the very sorts of people so vilified in the comments above. However, there is a difference between a deeply held belief being incorporated into a work of art and the work of art being produced for the purpose of communicating that conviction. This is exactly the same argument that I would use against anyone who claimed that The Lord of the Rings is deliberately intended to promulgate a Christian message: Tolkien's own working methods and early drafts, as clarified by HoME, argue against premeditation beyond the events in the next chapter. His declaration that he was trying to find out what really happened (I would say that he was feeling his way through his own stories) argues against there being a single aim behind any of his fiction, let alone all of it.

Since the initial question was 'what was it all for?' and not 'what was it all about?' I have to answer 'nothing'. Tolkien was one of those people who had to write, and he incorporated into his fiction all of the influences and material that were closest to his heart. It is not to denigrate him to point out that aspects of his work derived from his religion, or his professional interests, or his political beliefs; nor is that to suggest that crowing triumphantly each time one finds a parallel with something else is a constructive or valuable way to approach his fiction. If, however, the use of a particular meme (one which can be demonstrated by direct textual reference), leads us to a greater understanding of the story, then the search was valuable. Even cultural touchstones are components in a narrative. Why does Tolkien recast the names of real-life cities instead of using them unaltered? Surely because he means to take possession of those cultural touchstones and incorporate them into his legends. Why does he re-write The Seafarer and put it into the mouth of Ælfwine? Surely to help provide a bridge between his legends and the real world. Those are demonstrable uses of real-world material for specific narrative purposes. I would discount the use of Norse names for the Dwarves of The Hobbit since this looks more like a philological joke: of course Dvergatál is the place to find dwarf-names, since its very title means 'List of the Dwarfs'.

Source-hunting is a valueless and rather silly occupation unless the eventual discoveries add to the understanding of the text which incorporates them; and simply suggesting sources without any solid evidence is an invitation to a list thread. However, Tolkien did not exist in a vacuum, and his use of material gathered from outside his own imagination is neither random nor acritical. For a long time he was consciously and deliberately building links between The Silmarillion and real-world mythologies; and the development of Eriol into Ælfwine the Anglian (significantly from just that part of England for which Tolkien had an especial love), is an example of that development. This puts his use of medieval European myth and literature into the context that source-hunting requires to render it of any use to the reader. However, the aim to tie in his legends with the real world was itself developed over time, and I am not entirely sure whether or not Tolkien ever abandoned it.

I shall conclude by reiterating my main point: Tolkien had no overall literary aim. He wrote because his imagination would not rest unless he did so, and what he produced needs no aim or intent to give it value. In point of fact I value it more because it does not try to force a political, religious or moral agenda down my throat: it incorporates Tolkien's thoughts and opinions on those subjects, but never does he say: 'Thou shalt believe these things I speak'. I think that if a single aim or moral agenda had guided his work it would have read like much of C.S. Lewis' fiction: powerful, but marred by didacticism. I am grateful to Tolkien that he did not write in such a way.

[davem]

I'm not necessarily arguing that his aim was to create anything other than a work of Art. Though I would argue that the desire to inspire a moral regeneration was in his mind at the start. It is clear that he felt he had an obligation to set out the ideals of the TCBS in his fiction.

It also seems clear that in his desire to create a mythology for England (or perhaps we should say a mythology which he could dedicate to England) he was not just inspired by what Lonrot had done in bringing together the legends of Finland into the Kalevala, but in a way hoping to achieve a similar efffect through his art on the English people - a strengthening of English identity.

What we have to say as regards 'source hunting' is that, as you say (& as I've argued myself) the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - ie in writing the Legendarium Tolkien was not simply collating, amalgamating & re-writing his sources & his own life experiences. He was using those things as raw material to fashion something - even if that was 'only' a work of Art.

So, my purpose in this thread is to focus on what, exactly, his intention was. Its interesting to me that even though his motivation changed over time the stories, as I said, essentially didn't - we're talking about The Silmarillion writings here. They were written with a 'moral' intent (to put it crudely), to point up certain moral values. If the intent or desire changes the moral core of the vision doesn't. Essentially, even when Tolkien no longer wishes to bring about the moral regeneration of England, the moral core of the stories remains - which is ineresting in itself. the underlying moral value system remains even when he no longer wishes to 'moralise' through them.

I suppose the point of this thread is my own feeling that rather than looking at what Tolkien drew on to create what he did, there is more to be gained by focussing on what he actually produced. An oak tree may start out as an acorn, but the oak tree is far more than, & far other, than the acorn.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

I'm not necessarily arguing that his aim was to create anything other than a work of Art.
...
So, my purpose in this thread is to focus on what, exactly, his intention was.

I am interested in your definition of this Art; do you see it as something different from the one "presented" in my first post, and if so, how?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

I am interested in your definition of this Art; do you see it as something different from the one "presented" in my first post, and if so, how?

Would you like a quick definition of the meaning of life, too

For myself it seems that the purpose of Art is to give us an experience of a deeper reality - or a deeper experience of reality - if they aren't the same thing. But that is the role of 'religion' too, I suppose. The man built the Tower so he could look out upon the Sea.

I think, at one time, Tolkien had this wish for his 'Art'. He talked of 'passing beyond the veil' or somthing.

Something in his work touches (some of) us in some deep way, opens (some of us) us up to 'something', or at least makes us more 'aware' of the living world around us & invites a response of some kind. One can argue over whether that is a 'religious' response till the cows come home, but we do respond to something.

Great Art exerts a 'pull' on us - like the 'pull' of a distant horizon - we want to know what lies beyond it.

'Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate...'

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by davem

Would you like a quick definition of the meaning of life, too

Yes, pretty please

Or, it seems to me you are answering your own question by not, in a way, answering it. What is the meaning of you opening a thread, what is it for you've done it? Well, answer, I presume, is to find out what Tolkien has been writing his stories for. But beyond? What is it for you want to know it? What is it for I sit deep into the night typing an answer to the thread you've strated, ultimately, you yourself know not what for? What is it for one wakes up each morning to do each day's chores or enjoy each days hobbies (or both) to go to sleep each evening (m-m, with an exeption of yours truly typing into the night not knowing what for, maybe).

If there is a meaning than same meaning applies to anything man does. And thing goodly done (any thing, even if it is a bowling strike masterfully performed) may be appealing, delightful, drawing, 'opening up new horizons'. The more complex the thing, the more impact.

If there is no meaning, than no thing has it, including Tolkien and his writings and us discussing these online and offline.

[davem]

Elves look backward, men look forward.
Elves have been somewhere, Men are going somewhere.
And yet both are aspects of the Human.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

In order to have been somewhere, or to be going somewhere, first somebody or something has to be. Bombadil said it: I am.

He does things, yes, but he does them for delight. Because he can. He does what seems right and he doesn't particularly fret about what he can't do. He is the Master.

Perhaps the secret identity of Bombadil isn't "He's a Maia!" or "He's Eru incarnate!". Perhaps Bombadil is Tolkien. Why write? Because he can, he's gifted with the ability and the fascination, and because it's not hurting anybody, and because he and others take pleasure from it. What does he write? That of which he is capable. He does it. Tolkien was a master, as far as that thing goes, of his play.

Maybe Middle Earth is secretly Taoist in nature.

Or maybe it just is.

What's the point of asking why? After all, why not?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Maybe Middle Earth is secretly Taoist in nature.

Or maybe it just is.

What's the point of asking why? After all, why not?

Well, it certainly is. It exists. Therefore it is something. It was intended (by Tolkien at least) that it exist. He desired that it be. More than that he desired that it be something specific. He was working toward a goal. He wanted to make something.

I suppose there's as much point in asking why as there is in asking how, in asking what did he create as in asking what did he use?

Why do we focus on his sources, on his biography, explore the world he created if it means nothing. We're constantly attempting to understand M-e & how it came to be. If it is entirely without meaning why do we respond so deeply to it?

If we find meaning in it is that meaning just imposed on it by us? Are we actually just seeking to impose a meaning on it, or are we seeking a meaning which we feel, on some level, to be there?

[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem --

I am looking at this differently than you are.

The way that I approach this is by examining those moments in my own life where I made a decision to create something----to invest my time and labor and heart in something that had particular meaning for me. I am not just limiting myself to writing but am speaking of all forms of subcreation: literary, academic, or personal. Certain landmarks stand out in my own life--- my decision to invest years earning a doctorate in medieval history, my interest in social history and a devotion of time and effort to produce studies based on that research, my decision to have a family and to try to impart certain values within the structure of that family. This list could go on. Nothing so grand as Master Tolkien---small commitments that make up a normal lfe. Still, I don't think the process of searching for meaning and commitment was that different for him than it was for the rest of us. He just did a much better job at what he attempted to do.

What strikes me is that I can not give you a single motivation as to why I decided to undertake a particular task on that list. What I can give you for every one of my "subcreations" is a tangled and multi-layered explanation of what attracted me to that endeavor: what it was that made my heart light up so I felt compelled to wander in that direction. The personal, the academic, the literary, and the spiritual are all tangled up.

And for me, at least, that choice of commitment represents a process of wandering---many questions asked, some wrong turns and detours. Where I eventually ended up was never the exact point I had initially envisioned. Things took shape slowly over many years. Could it have been any different for Tolkien? His desire to create languages, his love of stories, his youthful determination to ignite a moral rejuvenation in his contemporaries, his homage to the young Edith---there is no one purpose; there are many.

To try and isolate a "single" key to understand this author is not possible. You are looking for a simplicity that doesn't exist in real life. Indeed it is contrary to everything Tolkien stood for, his very nature and personality. Remember this is the author who couldn't bear to put the finishing touches on the Silmarillion and who was attempting to change some of the underlying philosophy behind Arda right up to the end of his life.

Kilby was right in using the term "contrasistency" to describe Tolkien. JRRT simply couldn't be pinned down, which is why we can endlessly debate how great an influence X or Y had on the finished text. His reasons for subcreating were many: they seem to have changed from one year, one decade, even one minute to the next. There was no one overarching goal that was set in stone from the very beginning. He had many reason for writing, and these shifted and changed over time, helping to redefine Middle-earth.

[davem]

Ok, but is it an important inquiry? When I ask what was it all for I'm attempting to focus on where he ended up, rather than where he started.

Or put aside any conscious intent on Tolkien's part. Let's say he had no 'blueprint' - we can still ask whether he created something with 'value'. Is it an abstract painting, or a Rorshach blot, into which we read meaning, see something which wasn't actually put there by the artist, or did Tolkien create something very specific (even if he didn't intend to, or realise he was actually doing so).

[Aiwendil]

Davem, it seems to me that you are changing the question in mid-argument. Perhaps I simply misunderstood your earlier posts on this thread. But you said:

Tolkien spent 60 years doing something, & he must have had a reason for devoting such time & energy to it. He wasn't just using 'sources', he was using them for something.

And:

Just attempting to understand why he did what he did.

Now you say:

When I ask what was it all for I'm attempting to focus on where he ended up, rather than where he started.

I think it's clear that there are two distinct questions here, but I don't think it's at all clear which you intended to discuss in this thread. Which are we discussing:

1. Why Tolkien wrote - i.e. what his intention was
or
2. What the result was (related to the issue of what value the work has)?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

Davem, it seems to me that you are changing the question in mid-argument.

I think it's clear that there are two distinct questions here, but I don't think it's at all clear which you intended to discuss in this thread. Which are we discussing:

1. Why Tolkien wrote - i.e. what his intention was
or
2. What the result was (related to the issue of what value the work has)?

Its a discussion. It seemed to me that there has been an increasing focus recently on sources & biography in Tolkien discussions - both here & in books & essays, as though those things somehow 'explain' or can account for what he created.

It just seemed to me that the important thing here is what he created - at the risk of repeating myself - which doesn't go down too well with some Downers.

For example, we can find elements of Odin in Gandalf, yet Gandalf is not Odin in another form, he is a character in his own right. For all his 'Odinic' aspects he also has a many more 'Gandalfian' aspects - & they are the most important thing about him.

So, however you want to go with this thread I'm happy.

[littlemanpoet]

Sorry if this has been said already (only scanned the thread so far), but as davem has suggested already, Beowulf was very important to Tolkien. Is it not true that Tolkien considered himself to be, among other things, writing a modern day Beowulf for modern readers? And if so, what does that tell us?

[davem]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Sorry if this has been said already (only scanned the thread so far), but as davem has suggested already, Beowulf was very important to Tolkien. Is it not true that Tolkien considered himself to be, among other things, writing a modern day Beowulf for modern readers? And if so, what does that tell us?

I suppose we could ask whether the Beowulf poet had a 'goal' in mind, or whether he considered his work to be 'meaningless', or at best mere 'entertainment'? It seems to me that he was dealing with some profound themes (this seems to have been Tolkien's view also).

Of course, just because the poet doesn't offer an 'answer' doesn't invalidate the poem. He sets out Man's position in the Universe, standing in a little circle of light amidst endless darkness awaiting, with courage or despair, the coming of the Dragon.

It could be argued that, if we strip away the metaphysics, both Tolkien & the Beowulf poet show us ourselves, our lives & the fate which awaits us. Whether there is anything beyond the Circles of the World is the great unknown, & some of us will face the Dragon with hope that beyond that confrontation there will be something else, some kind of continuation, or with acceptance - there may be nothing afterwards, but we can stand & face it anyway, This is the choice both Beowulf & Frodo are confronted with – not whether to confront the Dragon or live in peace, but whether to look it in the eye when it comes, or to look away.

Tolkien stated LotR was about 'Death, the inevitability of Death' - & so is Beowulf. If its 'only' about that, then its certainly not about 'nothing'. If its 'just a story' then that story is 'our' story. It is the story of our life, & more importantly of our death. Both works, perhaps, are 'meditations' on the coming of the Dragon, & how we must find a way to live while we await it.