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09-25-2006, 08:28 AM | #1 |
Cryptic Aura
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"Genuine fairy-story" ?
I take this thread's title from Tolkien's phrase in his essay, "On Fairy-Stories" because it is that essay I wish to use to provide a way to consider his fictional tales.
Tolkien's essay offers some very specific characteristics of "genuine fairy-story". He goes to some length to distinquish his meaning from a variety of "lesser" (his term) forms of fantasy. Would his fiction fit his definition and the characteristics he provides? To what extent do The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion satisfy those qualities? We can throw the Minor Works in, too, for good measure, for those who wish. We might even consider if some of his favourite books satisfy his meaning, such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, if anyone has read those. So, does Tokien take his own advice?
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09-26-2006, 07:58 AM | #2 | ||
Spectre of Decay
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Keeping to the Manifesto
This is an interesting idea for a thread, which has prompted me to go back to On Fairy-stories. I read through it last night, and was taken aback at just how open Tolkien was about his views. This was an academic lecture at a prestigious university, and Tolkien used it to set out what amounts to a literary manifesto, even quoting Mythopoeia at one point. He is, of course, quite right: what we call 'fairy-stories' were not composed in or for nurseries, although the facts of their composition are invariably difficult to unravel. That being said, Tolkien is quite right to point to essentially oral organic processes governing the changes of story over time. He is also right, in my opinion, to point to the essential internal reality of the ideal fairy-story and its direct connection to the real world.
The point at which Tolkien most notably deviates from his views as expressed in this lecture is in the depiction of evil. In the section entitled Fantasy, Escape, Consolation he wrote: Quote:
When it comes to buildings or locations that have been or are in the process of being corrupted, Tolkien's fiction is much closer to this stated preference. He follows the comments above, which seem more descriptive of characters, with specifically architectural comments. Quote:
The rest of the comments in this lecture look like a blueprint for Tolkien's fiction. Faërie should be perilous, and the protagonist of Smith of Wootton Major certainly finds it so. It should be internally consistent and convincing on its own terms: the sheer number of people who learn Sindarin or argue Middle-earth's history is proof of that, although where the consistency fails is often where the most fervent debate may be found. There should be a definite but barely described connection with the real world: in Tolkien's fiction this arises from using the constellations of the world we know, and in earlier drafts of the Silmarillion from deliberately connecting his works and the genuine myths of the North. I leave till last the obvious fact that most of Tolkien's fiction is either about elves or involves them in some way. That being said, most of Tolkien's work isn't actually written as fairy-story. The Silmarillion is a collection of high myths completely founded in the sub-created world. There is no connection with the primary world unless we allow Ćlfwine, a character who is conspicuous by his absence in the 1977 publication. The Lord of the Rings is also only very tenuously connected with primary reality, relying on the description of a familiar world around the very unfamiliar events and characters of the story. Leaf by Niggle is more an allegorical exploration of the sub-creative act, and Farmer Giles of Ham is mock history. Whilst none of his works are actually beast-fables, travellers' tales or other forms of the fantastic, Tolkien's works of fiction are not exactly fairy-stories either. When we compare a sophisticated fairy-story like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with The Lord of the Rings it's easier to see what I mean. Sir Gawain's adventures begin in reality, at a painstakingly described Christmas feast at the court of Camelot. The festivities are described in terms that are intended to evoke a contemporary court setting, and this detailed realism is carried on throughout the poem, both inside and outside Faërie. The story really begins with the arrival in this real-world setting of the Green Knight, whose outlandish appearance alone announces him as an emissary of the perilous realm. From this point of contact onwards, Gawain is drawn into a shadowy world of conflicting duties, strange magical events and misleading impressions that reach a climax in the second part of the beheading game. After this he returns to the primary world, having learned much about himself and the practice of chivalry. The missing element in LotR is the journey into Faërie: the hobbits are already citizens of Middle-earth; they do not arrive there from our primary reality. The Shire is contained within the secondary reality, in which wizards can arrive bearing fireworks without arousing more than excitement. I have to ask at this point whether Tolkien was really trying to write fairy-stories at all. Much of what he says in his lecture applies to fantasy as well as his official theme, but I'm by no means sure that we can see his own fiction as a representation of Faërie. However, as an expression of Tolkien's ideas about what fantasy ought to be, this best-known academic foray is as explicit as he allows himself to be. In my opinion he certainly succeeded in describing a world in which a metaphorical green sun could exist, and in most respects he follows the rules he has identified for invented worlds to the letter. Naturally I've missed a lot of ground, and I may even have misconstrued what Tolkien meant by 'fairy-stories', but hopefully others will find the time to correct me so that this thread can come to better conclusions than mine.
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09-26-2006, 10:18 AM | #3 | ||
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09-26-2006, 10:40 AM | #4 |
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It's a point that has been touched on before, but it's relevant here, and so I raise it for discussion. It seems to me that there is one aspect of "traditional" Faerie that is conspicuously absent from Tolkien's works - moral ambiguity/amorality.
There are shades of grey in Tolkien's world - characters who, when we meet them are neither wholly on the side of good nor wholly on the side of evil. Gollum would be a prime example, as would Saruman, Denethor and Boromir (at the point of his corruption). But their "greyness" arises from the fact that they have been corrupted, or otherwise tainted by evil. There are no characters who are, by their very nature, morally ambiguous or amoral. Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are perhaps the closest we get although, despite references to Tom's ambivalence about the Ring, they are still firmly portrayed as being on the side of good. They are very different characters to one such as as, for example, the thistle-haired gentleman in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. He is certainly not a sympathetic character, but can he be regarded as evil in the same way as, say, Sauron? Are there equivalents within Tolkien's works? The Barrow-Wight or Old Man Willow, perhaps? Again, I suspect not, as they are again characters arising from, or tainted by, evil. I suppose that the main difference is that, in Tolkien's world, good and evil are very real concepts. And all of his creatures are touched by one or the other - or (more likely) both. Can the same be said of traditional Faerie?
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09-26-2006, 12:48 PM | #5 |
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Good points all, and SpM brings up the important point that there needs to be amorality in Fairy tales, as Faerie is itself amoral. That's not to say immoral, as that's quite a different thing.
Some good threads on relevant stuff: The Trickster in LotR, Faeries or Fairies? and finally, Spiders. The last one is there as inside, you will find a fair bit of evidence and argument to suggest that there is actaully one very odd and ambiguous character in Tolkien's world and that's Ungoliant.
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09-26-2006, 02:03 PM | #6 | ||
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09-26-2006, 03:08 PM | #7 | |
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Actually, yes, I was interested in seeing if Tolkien followed his own understanding of fairie. Did his left brain do what his right brain said? Did Tolkien the creative writer actually do what Tolkien the scholar said happened in the Perilous Realm? In this, I greatly admire Squatter, thorough-going analysis. It is something I will return to in later posts, for the question of whether one begins in the primary world and walks into Fairie is an important one, as lmp asks. And yes, I also think that not all of Tolkien's work works the way he says fairy does. Raynor points out how Sauce and Lal take this a different way, to consider what aspects of Fairie Tolkien did not cover. This question can be related both to the essay OFS and to his fiction, but it was not the main thrust that inspired this thread. So, we have two questions: "Did Tolkien get it right about Fairie? Does he cover all the aspects of it?" and "Does OFS provide a way in which we can understand what Tolkien was doing in his fiction?" Both are equally valid approaches, but they are different and we should keep that difference in mind. A thread, of course, belongs to those who post on it and develop its ideas. If people wish to compare Tolkien's fiction to other fairie tales (something which we have covered in many other threads, as Lal's helpful links demonstrate, why, then, they are free to take that tack. (I would really like to see a thead which compares Johanna Clarke's fairie with Tolkien's, as Spm suggests here.) Yet that does squew the topic. I rather like Squatter's observation that fairie must start in the real world, as Gawain does. Yet I think Tolkien was striving to distinguish primary world from sub-created world. I think he wanted, above all, to make story the primary quality of discussion and not reduce fairie to sociology or history or anthropology. It might be incidental that LotR begins already in the perilous realm with hobbits because that in itself is the nature of fairie, the sustained wonder at things we wish for. The important point about Sir Gawain is that the realism of the medieval world does not dismiss the fantasy elements.
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09-26-2006, 06:33 PM | #8 | ||
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Perhaps, however, I should investigate those links that Lal has helpfully provided. I see from a brief scan that one of them does consider Tolkien's conception of Faerie in comparison with that depicted by Susanna Clarke. Having recently read an thoroughly enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, it is a thread which I really ought to have a look at. And now back to your scheduled discussion ...
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09-26-2006, 07:27 PM | #9 |
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Fascinating discussion with many good points...
Moving into Faerie from reality: I'll side with lmp here. Tolkien states, regarding hobbits, that there is little or no magic about them, except the kind that lets them disappear quickly and quietly when large stupid folk like you and me come bungling along. I think the Shire is Mundane. Mind you, I didn't say I don't like it-- just that it's mannishly realistic. Faerie is woven into LOTR in various ways. One way is that the hobbits physically move from 'perilous realms'-- Old Forest, Rivendell, Lorien, Fangorn, Moria-- back into standard non-magical territory (Shire, Bree, The Road, The Anduin, Rohan, Gondor....) The mannish areas are surprised when the Fae shows up, even in the form of good old Legolas. For example, Eomer doesn't know quite what to do with 'the three hunters.' He considers Aragorn a 'legend' that springs out of the grass, magic sword and all. Eomer is suprised by Aragorn's Faerie-like invasion of his mundanely mannish realm. If Frodo hadn't been carrying the Ring, then the Ringwraiths wouldn't have bothered with him, nor would wizards, except for Ganda;f's chumminess with Bagginses. Frodo's trip east (had he taken it) would have been uneventful and mannish-- he'd have evaded The Old Forest, Bombadil, and the Barrow Downs. But in essence, the Ring drags or drives him to all these faerie places. Which brings us to, the Beautifully Evil Ring. But (isn't it odd, now) we knew it as evil only now that Gandalf has done his research. To Bilbo, it was simpy beautiful and useful. Moral ambivalence? Perhaps Bilbo thought of it that way. Once we know Isildur's story we know better, so Frodo is haunted and frightened by the evil that Bilbo was blissfully ignorant of. It was the Ring (from Faerie) entering into Frodo's mundane life, that drives him into Faerie (Old Forest, Bombadil, The Downs, Rivendell, Lorien). If the Ring were not a threat to 'Faerie', he would not have gone to those places. [hopefully a clarifying Edit:]I do think LOTR is a faery story-- actually, lots of them, substories, in an overall narrative. Eucatastrophes are there too, for mowst if not all of the forays (out of the mundane into the Fae.) For instance, Bombadil is the eucatastrophe for both Old Man Willow, and The Barrow Wight. The white-horse-flood is a mini-eucatastrophe for the journey to Rivendell. Galadriel's testing, and her own test, is Peril in Lothlorien. It's not uber-consistent or iron-clad-- the narrative would end up predicatable and boring if it were-- but I think the pieces are there in enough abundance to satisfy. (Well, to satisfy me anyway.)
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09-27-2006, 07:56 PM | #10 | ||
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However, Tolkien's Middle Earth, with all of its Fairies (Elves) is not in the least amoral. It seems to me that a rather important question, along with those that have been raised already, is NOT "Was Tolkien wrong?", but "Why did Tolkien make his Fairy Realm moral?" Quote:
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09-28-2006, 10:06 AM | #11 | |||
Cryptic Aura
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There’s some neat stuff developing here, so I hope what I have to say in this post won’t derail it. I have been fascinated by OFS since I first read it. It was courageous stuff, giving a formal academic lecture about fantasy and fairy tales in 1938. And if that wasn’t enough to whet my interest, Tolkien in the original introduction says it was written at the same time as LotR was started. So, whatever went into OFS was rattling around up there along with the beginnings of the Ring saga. This reason in itself suggests it might be interesting to apply the essay to Tolkien’s fiction. It certainly suggests that The Hobbit and the Legendarium were not initially conceived under the auspices of his thoughts about fairie, and so leads quite directly to consideration of how LotR might differ from those two earlier works. Maybe his thought was inchoate in the earlier works but finally born out in the latter? (And, of course, I suppose we would have to consider how CT may have shaped The Silm as it was eventually published.) There are many things intriguing about OFS. Tolkien’s insistence that there are misguided notions about fairie tales for one. And his insistence that there are higher and lesser forms of fantastical literature, to say nothing of his defense of fairy tales as adult rather than children’s literature. As I read OFS, I keep in mind two of his comments from elsewhere: that it was WWI which made him a serious reader of fairie, although he was heading over to the Perilous Realm already before the War took him there directly; and that the War made others readers of fairie as well. I’ve always thought that there was more to these comments than mere escapism, “Run away! Run away!” in Python terms. These comments must, I think, relate to what Tolkien suggests is the essential nature of fairie, not magic, nor elves, nor darkness nor travel, nor wild imagining, but “Recovery, Escape, and Consolation” . Yet why is this? Is it Tolkien’s religious sense being imposed upon fairy tales? Does he force eucatastrophe on the stories? It may be—and here I have to say that I don’t share Helen’s reading of eucatastrophe in every fortunate turn of events in LotR, for I think there is a particular state of mind which must accompany the fortuitous redirection. There is not just unexpected deliverance in Tolkien’s theory, but an accompanying recognition of imperfection of the world, of evil, of doom. Frodo accepts his defeat before Gollem becomes the agent of the deliverance, just as Gawin submits to his fate, not expecting reprieve at the hands of the Green Knight. It is not simply that something redeems the sorry or perilous state of the hero, but that the hero must come to accept his final defeat, this tragedy or catastrophe, before he will be for the time being delivered from it. And in any case, he carries with him a token of that tragedy, the scar on Gawin's neck from the third strike, barely averted, and the loss of a finger in Frodo's case. What is this that requires such doom in fairy for Tolkien? What made Tolkien create this special kind of fantasy he insisted was the higher order of fairie? I don’t think it was his religion. I think it was his philology. And last night, I was finally able to put the last piece together in this puzzle (for me at least), due to an important tip from Rune, Son of Bjarne, who alerted me to a particular meaning of fey. The Old English word fey had a different meaning than the Middle English word fay. Quote:
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Yet whether other fantasy—or even The Hobbit and The Silmarillion-- must conform to this sense of the Perilous Realm is for others to discuss. I'm sure it will be possible to work evil and amorality and travel to and from into the Cauldron!
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09-28-2006, 03:54 PM | #12 |
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An interesting thread topic indeed. But first:
Squatter are you sure you are apprehending the citation about beauty and evil correctly? You quote Tolkien as writing “to us evil and ugliness seem indissolubly allied. We find it difficult to conceive of evil and beauty together.” To me, this would appear as though he is arguing that to modern readers “us/we” evil and ugliness only “seem” to be “indissolubly allied” with the implication being that in true fairy-story this limitation of the modern imagination is overcome by a different, “older” view in which beauty and evil are not divorced but all too often commensurate. I wonder how much of the Apocryphal tradition concerning the deluding beauty of Lucifer lies behind this view? Or do I misunderstand you? But as to the Professor’s ability to write stories as he claims fairy-stories are properly written… I have always been struck by how clearly LotR works toward the sense of “Recovery” outlined in OFS. Again, away from my books so I am unable to provide specific citations, but I do know that the definitive idea of Recovery is that fairy-story uses the Secondary World as a means whereby we can see the Primary World from which it is built not so much in a new way, but in a “recovered” manner. That is, we can see the world and humanity “anew” in a light that is richer and fuller than we now possess. In this regard I think we see that throughout insofar as he shows us models of kingship, kinship, friendship, oath-taking, loyalty and even religious faith that are now absent from the world, but which perhaps we could benefit from. The primary example I would choose for this is the manner in which Tolkien is able to Recover a sense of caritas, of divine love of the other, for the sake of the other, which puts the self at the service of the other. In the end, it’s caritas that saves the day with all the heroes giving over their selves for the love of other people, or simply of people. The modern and shabby remnant we have of this concept is simply “charity” – not nearly what the theologians ans story-tellers of the Middle Ages meant, and what Tolkien is having us remember. It’s in this recovery of words that Tolkien really shines. “Charity” is recovered in its fullest and richest sense; so are other words like “fellowship”, “power” and “kingly”. None of the words are used in the story as we use them today, but in a manner that evokes older and richer histories – demonstrating that these simple words which we take so much for granted offer us much more capacity than we give them credit for. Kind of like the hobbits! I suppose in the end the single more important act of Recovery accomplished by his tales is an appreciation of language and of its importance and power that is lamentably absent today. With characters like Gandalf, Galadriel, Bombadil and Treebeard insisting on the importance of words and language, it’s pretty clear that words are not just a vehicle for communication but whole worlds of meaning in their own right. If I might be permitted a rather elaborate and self-conscious metaphor: he reminds a world now committed to the idea that words are coal-carts of a time when they were seen as rich mines. |
09-29-2006, 04:02 AM | #13 | |
Spectre of Decay
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If the deluding beauty of Lucifer were not in some way involved in Tolkien's vision of evil I should be extremely surprised. Morgoth and Sauron both share qualities with the Great Adversary, who is the inevitable model for evil in the Christian mind. Lucifer was once the brightest of angels, and in at least one Anglo-Saxon poem both he and his rebel angels are portrayed as retaining the ability to appear in the angelic form that once they possessed. In fact this is central to the temptation of Eve in Genesis B, a poem both several hundred years older and quite a lot better than Paradise Lost. For Tolkien not to be influenced by an element of his own religion's philosophy which he would encounter regularly in his philological studies he would need to be more difficult to influence than even C.S. Lewis thought. I suspect that the same motif had influenced medieval fantastic fiction, whence come many of Tolkien's theories about fairy-stories. Unfortunately time is short, so I must break off here. Really I only wanted to clarify my point above, and I hope that I've managed to do so.
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09-29-2006, 05:31 AM | #14 | ||||||
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This of course is without considering the purpose of the tale. Are we talking about Hansel and Gretel, which serves the purpose of teaching children not to stray from the path and end up in strangers' houses? Or are we talking about Bluebeard which teaches young women about predatory men and how to bring them to heel? Or are we talking about Tam Lin which simply relates a juicy tale of a pair of lovers and how the pregnant girl extricates her lover from the clutches of the Faerie Queen? The last type of tale does not really have a specific moral message (you could find one but then you'd have to smash up the story so much it would lose it's sense of Faerie magic), and is probably there to satisfy the human urge for narrative. Adventure, peril, love and sex. A lot of Faerie Tale is there to entertain simply, like an old fashioned version of the mdoern soap opera. Quote:
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For me the sense of Recovery is in the sense that Tolkien created his mythology to dedicate to England. He did indeed gather up a sense of Englishness, encapsulating so much of what our language means to us, our tales and most of all, our land, redolent with history and the people who walked it before us. As Tolkien's narrative unfolds (and lets's be frank, the narrative is the most important factor, lets not damn the poor professor into Pseud's Corner, he was above all an exceptionally gifted storyteller, of the most magical kind, and that gift is an intangible one) we are taken along and see the things we'd not noticed before. We see the trees, the foxes, the barrows, the ruined forts, the elusive Elves, we see what was all around us all along and we hadn't bothered opening our eyes to really seeing before. There's the Recovery for me. And it worked in a very real sense as after reading his work, I Recovered all the stories about this country that had slipped form my notice and might well have remained that way. Quote:
davem didn't make the claim about Death, Tolkien did. That's what it's about, and what as I said on davem's thread, I suspect all fantasy is ultimately about. What's interesting is the way that the different writers deal with it. Tolkien deals with it by trying to take us outside time, but he also tells us that whatever we think, one day we will all be dead and in the ground with the worms. Pullman deals with it by telling us to do things with our lives and not wish them away, to have true tales to tell the Harpies when we die.
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09-29-2006, 08:32 AM | #15 | ||
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The current dominant attitude in poetry is that language is an object in and of itself that can be played with, worked upon, abused and generally "used". Words are themselves the things that poets play with, resulting in such extraordinarily wonderful works like Eunoia by Canada's own Christian Bok. This book is composed of five chapters, with each chapter devoted to a single vowel -- meaning, in each chapter there is a series of poems in which only one vowel may be used. To cite just one example: Quote:
The "meaning" of words is contained by the play and craft of the poet -- words are rendered meaningful through the process of poetic articulation. The other example of speechwriters is akin to this. There are superb speech writers and I do not look down upon their ability, but the sense of language there is that there is a "message" which needs to be appropriately "packaged" and "delivered" to an audience. The coal-car metaphor is entirely apt -- the speech writer finds the perfect words with which to bear meaning from the hidden mine to the light of audience understanding. The purpose of said communication is not to unlock the intrinsic meanings of the words themselves but, like the poets, to use the words for some other purpose. With Tolkien, the attitude could not be more different. He does not simply see language as important, he sees words themselves as harbingers and bearers of meaning that is to be unlocked (recovered) by story. This is the reverse of the modern way of thinking: now, we use words to tell stories; Tolkien used stories to recover for words their full meaning. Remember Treebeard's discourse upon the world "hill" -- for him, language, history and story are one and the same. To speak the word of something is to tell you all about that something. Gandalf is much the same on a moral plane: he tells Frodo at the beginning of their journey that "pity" is important, and then there is a 1200 page novel to elaborate upon (recover) a much richer and fuller sense of the word than exists today ("pity" from pieta, the divine grace which comes to humans for their suffering; the reflection in the temporal realm in relations between self and other of the beneficent nature of the universe in which God's grace and revelation is manifest in His Pity for the world when he sent himself/his son to die for our sins -- I do not sermonise, I merely elaborate upon what pity "really" means in the fullest etymological and philological sense, not as we have it today). For the contemporary poet, "pity" is an interesting object-formation that can be organised and played with and deployed in an imaginative process of meaning-creation; for the speech-writer, "pity" is a useful word that can be appropriately used to convey a particular meaning with specific polemical and rhetorical effect. For Tolkien, "pity" is a word that unlocks and reveals an entire history of struggle, sacrifice and redemption -- a story that he finds necessary to recover a sense of the word utterly lost by the first two modes. Last edited by Fordim Hedgethistle; 09-29-2006 at 08:37 AM. |
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09-29-2006, 09:04 AM | #16 |
A Mere Boggart
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I'm afraid this all makes Tolkien sound like an out and out pretentious Pseud! He did not construct the whole LotR around his conception of the meaning of the word Pity. It's an interesting reading, but is far too reductive. It might in fact be the kind of clever literary trick employed by one of the modern 'literary/Booker-seeking' novelists, but it entirely bypasses all notion of story, which for Tolkien was the driver, certainly as he got older and settled down to writing The Hobbit and LotR. That's how his notion of Eucatastrophe works, as a shocking turn of narrative, not via trickery with language.
Nobody would disagree that Tolkien explores language and works with multiple meanings, but the danger of reading too much into this is to bypass narrative drive. Had LotR lacked this then it wouldn't have been popular except amongst those who maybe wished to impress their tutors with all the 'clever books' they'd read. If you want to find a writer who really does do what you say, go directly to James Joyce and do not pass Go. Words are objects, and writing is a craft. Tolkien uses words in the same way as any other good writer, recovers older meanings, constructs new ones, plays with them to put together something of his own. Yes, plays, as what Tolkien does is only another way of playing, trying to find layers of old meaning much as a modern writer might play with the multitudes of meaning associated with the word 'black'. That's how the writer uses the creative process and his/her craft, to sweat over pulling together narrative, tone, style, character and meaning. Tolkien does this to no lesser or greater a degree than any other writer. Ultimately it doesn't really matter what modern or ancient micro-theories we apply to his work, its all done in the hope that we can somehow crack the formula and produce something similar, but we won't. We can't just generalise and say that x, y or z modern writer does not work with words in the same way that we think Tolkien did. On the contrary, modern fiction has far more of this than Tolkien's work has! Possibly why his work is derided so much is that he does not resort to the trickery of the Pseuds, his work with words is subtle and embedded. And it takes a reductive reading to bring that out. On the surface LotR is nowt but a great story, quite different to modern fiction. And poetry does not 'contain' or limit the meaning and importance of words. If anything it allows them to go free, and these words are more open to exploration and the possibility of recovery.
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09-29-2006, 09:24 AM | #17 | ||||||
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What a great idea for a thread! I wish I had time for the kind of thoughtful post this topic deserves. Anyway, a few miscellaneous points have occurred to me while reading the discussion.
Squatter wrote: Quote:
It occurs to me that it might be an interesting exercise, and might teach us something about the distinctions that ought and ought not to be made here, to see if we can classify various works as "fairy story", "fantasy", "fairy tale", "myth", or whatever other possible categories we might be interested in. Where would Beowulf go? What about Grimm's fairy tales? The Silmarillion? The Book of Lost Tales? Which belong to which category? I think that what we would find is that it is hard, if not impossible, to distinguish fairy-story from fantasy, and those again from myth. Quote:
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I also feel I should point out that the Silmarillion cannot be thought of as an "early work" simpliciter (not that you necessarily were suggesting this). Lalwende wrote: Quote:
Faerie is, after all, not a real place that can be accurately or inaccurately described (I fear I'm straying in the direction of the dreaded C-thread, but I shall boldly press on). Faerie may, in a sense, be "real" insofar as it refers to a massive complex of cultural and psychological facts; but to speak of representing Faerie itself as distinct from human perception and interpretation thereof (i.e. as something "out of most people's comprehension") seems to me to be meaningless. Of course, without resorting to talk about Faerie itself, we can ask about amorality in existing fairy-stories. There are two important questions we ought to ask. First, does Tolkien's definition of a 'fairy-story' say anything about amorality? Second, do existing specimens of fairy-story uniformly exhibit amorality? The answer to the first question is clearly "no". Tolkien doesn't even use the word "amoral" or "amorality" in the essay, and he certainly doesn't posit this as a criterion for fairy-story. Insofar, then, as we are investigating whether Tolkien's fiction conforms to his views on fairy-stories, the matter of amorality is irrelevant. The second question is more interesting. Certainly there are a great many amoral fairy-stories; and I would agree that Tolkien's work is unusual in this regard. But I think that the amorality of fairy-stories has been somewhat overstated. There are, after all, important examples of fairy stories that are not amoral, and even some that are highly moral. Look at "Beowulf" or, even better, "Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight". Quote:
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09-29-2006, 10:04 AM | #18 | |||
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09-29-2006, 10:55 AM | #19 | |||
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Lalwende wrote:
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But are we to disqualify stories written by Christians from classification as "fairy-stories"? Aren't Beowulf and Gawaine just as valid as such? And, what's more important, didn't Tolkien consider them valid as fairy-story? Quote:
I do agree that Ungoliant is a strange and, in many ways, ambiguous character. I just don't agree that she is morally ambiguous. At least, I certainly wouldn't expect Tolkien to agree have agreed that she is. |
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09-29-2006, 11:25 AM | #20 | |||||
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And indeed, a debunking of those who know about Faerie, who have experienced it, applying knowledge to what they read could likewise be applied to those who apply Christianity or other formalised religious beliefs or theories to what they read. Steady. Now from my own knowledge, of course, I can recognise all the signs in Tolkien's work that he might well have seen Faerie himself. That motif of the Star on Smith's head is an interesting one to me, as it symbolises the 'signs' that we can recognise in others who may have seen Faerie. And remember: Quote:
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There are lots of 'moral' tales from all around the world. One of the several functions of folktale and fairy tale is to 'teach' - you will read many moral tales from the African tradition for example, you might not agree with the morals therein, but they are morals nevertheless. Quote:
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09-29-2006, 12:03 PM | #21 | |||
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Lalwende wrote:
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In a rational discussion among people who do not necessarily share the same religious/supernatural beliefs, we cannot take any of those beliefs as premises. Christians will read and evaluate Faerie stories in the context of their Christianity. You read and evaluate them in the context of your belief that Faerie is real. There's nothing wrong with that. But unless you are talking to other people who share your beliefs, you cannot expect those beliefs to be taken as given. Of course you can try to convince others that your beliefs are true, but I fear that would take us rather off-topic. Which I seem to be accomplishing anyway . . . Quote:
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09-29-2006, 12:55 PM | #22 | ||
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Freebie at end of Post! Please skip if you want a gift!
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Like I've said earlier, I do find that Tolkien's work lacks an essential of Faerie, the amorality, the chaos. But it does reflect Tolkien's experience, which he articulated in the light of his earthly world understanding, which included for him Catholicism amongst other things (noting that he did not exist in a Catholic vacuum, he was a lot of things, like all of us). OFS in some ways is his attempt to tie up all of the things he was and all the things he had seen; it is not in any way the Law on Faerie. Nor on Faerie Tale. Quote:
But in terms of texts like Beowulf, inevitable. Old tales of Faerie were naturally in opposition to the new religion and so were altered, not always drastically so, as indeed shown in Beowulf. Tolkien actually made a good choice in choosing to refer to that text as it retains enough of the 'old ways' while including the modern morality to fit with his theory. Does it fit his idea of 'high, purged of the gross'? It would certainly be an exciting and seemingly true tale for kids (particularly boys, English teachers take note), which is one of the points Tolkien wants Faerie tales to have. Anyway, has everyone read OFS? 'Cause I think some Downers might be excluded from this by not having the text. If they've not got it, it's available for free on the link on this thread.. It's an easy read, don't be put off.
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09-29-2006, 07:06 PM | #23 | ||
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Genuflexions on the genuine ?
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I also hasten to point out that the thread title is offered in quotation marks as befits its genesis as a phrase used by Tolkien. The question mark is wholly mine, though, and as such it does provide a prophylactic against automatic acceptance of Tolkien's ideas--an invitation to consider them if you will. As an aside, would anyone have any links to some authentic online versions of the Beowulf tale before it became codified in the Old English poem? I'm not aware of any myself.
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09-29-2006, 08:43 PM | #24 | |||
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Second, regarding the underlined section, I think you are right that Tolkien wrote a moral fairy tale in because he wanted to create a myth that was "purged of the gross"; but why did he want it 'purged of the gross'? To make it moral? That would be circular reasoning, so there has to be a separate reason outside either of them. Is it, perhaps, to have made LotR 'consciously Catholic in the revision'? Quote:
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09-29-2006, 09:02 PM | #25 | |
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LMP wrote:
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I might propose another alternative, though it's one that certain literary critics wouldn't react well with: the work of art is better that way. Perhaps a less controversial way of putting it would be to say that Tolkien liked it better that way (so do I, as it happens, and I imagine so do a great many others). If Tolkien found certain elements of many fairy-stories distasteful or uninteresting, why shouldn't he write stories purged of such elements? We need not follow the likes of Edwin Muir and Edmund Wilson in claiming that any story that isn't about sex is juvenile. Last edited by Aiwendil; 01-25-2007 at 11:31 PM. |
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09-29-2006, 09:22 PM | #26 | |
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09-30-2006, 04:30 AM | #27 | |||
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Some sources, AKA more free stuff: Andrew Lang's Fairy Books here. Tolkien liked these, but he disapproved that they were geared towards kids only and had in some cases been Bowdlerised and had the sinister magic taken out of them. Joseph Campbells' Popular Tales of the West Highlands here. Joseph Jacobs' tales here. Grimm's Tales here. In German and Dutch too. Norske Folkeeventyr here. Also in Norwegian here. The Mabinogion, the Eddas, the Kalevala, of course, which should all be on Sacred Texts. There's enough on that site to keep you going for ever. One of the joys of the Net is that finally people can collect together folk lore and tales, without the intervention of the Collectors, who I must now post a health warning - DO put their own spin on things a lot, particularly pre-war ones. One of the things Tolkien railed against was indded the pruging of the 'gross' and difficult elements from what are supposed to simply be 'collections'. Anyone interested should also look out for collections by Ruth Manning-Sanders, and of course, Angela Carter, an expert on the matter. Which brings me to: Quote:
What is important to remember about Fairie Tales is that they are not 'owned' nor are they 'fixed'. Likewise they can't be categorised. Some are moral tales, others tell about the natural world, still others are creation myths, some are entertainments. You can subject them to all kinds of interpretation, and Tolkien's is just a tiny fraction (and not really one of the most important ones in the minds of the scholars who go in for folklore) in the huge mass of others. Fairy Tales indeed can be functional texts - mainly orally based, used to pass on knowledge through cultures through recognisable archetypes, and also instructional in passing on cultural norms and expectations. Peig Sayers says that Fairy Tales are intended as oral tales, as collections of images; they could take weeks to tell and used words to create images in the mind, using them over and over. 'Living shapes that move from mind to mind' as Tolkien says. Think of the Tarot, which works in the same way. We should not underestimate the importance of Women's role in telling these tales, and some would argue that many are indeed Women's Stories. A feminist critic might argue that Tolkien wished his tales to be free 'of the gross' because he wished to expunge the elements of sex and bodily functions which were a major component of these tales, a way for women to pass on vital knowledge to their daughters about how their bodies worked, and most of all, how to deal with men. Other reasons why Tolkien might have wanted his tales to be 'high' might include for aesthetic reasons. I think he sought in some ways to pull stock figures such as Elves out of Faerie where they are tricksy and make them into noble creatures (though why a King is more noble than a boggart to some, I don't know). And of course the most glaringly obvious answer why is this - he wanted to create an epic on the level of the Kalevala, dealing with momentous events, the movements of the Gods, a big broad swoop rather than intimate details of how individuals should live their lives. Style and feel rather than message.
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09-30-2006, 12:46 PM | #28 |
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I am reminded that Tolkien and his fellow Inklings were trying to do something with the vast leaf-mould of folk tale, legend, and myth that was fundamentally at odds with two separate branches of naturalistic interpretations. The two branches are, on one hand, a modernist and 'chronologically snobbish' rejection of the old tales, legends, and myths precisely because of their connection with the numinous; and on the other hand, an embracing of the earthy aspects of the tales while rejecting (or at least skeptically questioning) the numinous.
I think that Tolkien's response to such a feminist critique as you describe would be not unlike his remark regarding Edmund Wilson's review to LotR back from the '50s. He would say, based on that comment, that an emphasis on sex and bodily fluids is essentially adolescent. Our own culture's current obsession with such things bespeaks a cultural degradation that is not celebratory. Tolkien is not 'the Law' on Fairy stories, but what he says needs to be dealt with seriously rather than merely dismissed as 'just one perspective', precisely because LotR has been so influential amongst publishers and readers since its publishing. This is even more the case because he and his fellow Inklings were attempting something unique. I feel at a loss, frankly, to adequately describe what it is I'm trying to say, but it is momentous and important, and I feel that we are in danger of missing it by concentrating on aspects of folk tale that Tolkien himself set aside. |
09-30-2006, 01:13 PM | #29 |
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Now, that's a bit naughty because those who write about folklore and indeed know quite a lot about it, are not polarised in that way. Not at all. Indeed in OFS you will find that Tolkien himself dislikes Bowdlerisation, and would rather they stayed in their true 'adult' form. He did not set the aspects some readers are uncomfortable with 'aside' from his view of Fairy Tales.
In fact, and this has been asked before, was LotR and The Sil (the Hobbit is excluded from this) Faerie Tale at all? Was it not something different, i.e. myth? If indeed it was, then being 'high, purged of the gross' would fit perfectly. On the point of 'cultural degradation' arising from concern with bodily matters, ahem, I'm going to resist giving you a lecture on how the culture of ordinary people, particularly women, has always included lots of this, as far back as we can identify 'culture'. It might be distasteful to some men (and women), and indeed we might ask if it was distasteful to Tolkien (and it's a fair question, and if indeed it was, then I am not saying if this is right or wrong). By the by, Tolkien's work might not have that much sex in it, but it is certainly there (in extreme forms such as incest) and he does not shy away from the Gothic and horror. Oh, and another good writer on Fairy Tales - Maria Tatar. They had a book with an intro by her lying around in one of our art galleries today and it was very interesting stuff.
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09-30-2006, 02:39 PM | #30 | ||
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Lalwende wrote:
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1. "Bowdlerization"; making stories "safe" for children - i.e. removing or avoiding anything too frightening, too serious, or too grim. 2. Rejecting the "amorality" and the focus on, as Lalwende puts it, "bodily fluids" commonly found in many folk tales. Tolkien did not make his stories safe for children by avoiding grim or frightening material, and this is not what he meant when he said "purged of the gross". A work in which there are evil characters is not amoral - on the contrary, the amoral sort of fairy story generally does not include clearly evil characters any more than it includes clearly good ones. In fact, it seems to me that the amoral fairy story and the "bodily fluid" obsessed fairy story are nearly always less serious, less grim, and less frightening. If any kind of fairy story ought to be called puerile or adolescent, it is this kind. Or am I alone in finding Beowulf and Gawaine far more serious and 'adult' than, say, the Kalevala? Quote:
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09-30-2006, 05:04 PM | #31 | ||
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What though, could be more serious than life and death? I actually find the amoral tale more perilous but at once more comforting than the moral tale (of any culture) which has a 'message'. Probably why I love LotR, as it has little obvious message. It is enigmatic like the most twisty, tricksy of fairy tales. And in that respect, Tolkien hit paydirt in terms of what he wanted in OFS: Quote:
Finding Beowulf more adult than the Kalevala (I presume you mean mature and the Kalevala is juvenile?) is a matter of taste. To a Finnish reader nothing could be more serious than the Kalevala. Tolkien didn't make such distinctions between them. Fair enough if its just your taste.
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10-01-2006, 11:10 AM | #32 | ||||
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Lalwende wrote:
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In any case, the point I was trying to make here was that a story can include scores of frightening, wicked characters and still be 'moral' - as indeed Tolkien's stories do. Quote:
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But my point was this: a work that is not about amoral characters and bodily fluids is quite capable of being serious; Beowulf, Gawaine, and the Silmarillion are prime examples. |
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10-01-2006, 11:57 AM | #33 | ||
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After all, it is notoriously difficult to find 'ur' texts or original versions of fairy tales. The structuralists tried to do that eighty years ago and failed. There just ain't no original version of Cinderalla recoverable--no "One Cinder" to rule them all--but lots of very unique versions. Quote:
Also, to dismiss Tolkien's essay because it may be largely ignored in the world of fairy tale scholarship is not an analysis of his ideas, but rejection by reputation. After all, his literary work was largely ridiculed and ignored for decades by the literary academics, so it wouldn't surprise me if his other work has also been ignored. That doesn't mean he does not have something to offer, it merely means that current scholars are going off on other directions. Which they have a right to do. But it isn't necessarily grounds for rejecting Tolkien's ideas out of hand. I think Tolkien's interest in exploring the Old English word fey in early stories is interesting for the light it sheds on how he thought as well as on what could be a legitimate characteristic of the stories he names. Yes, he excludes some stories, but so do all interpreters. After all, he is one scholar who championed story as story. He did not 'defend' fairy tales as history or myth or taboo. He championed narrative as an essential element in human imagination and that's very worthy of discussion. I do hope this doesn't turn into that banana peel he was talking about though.
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10-01-2006, 11:58 AM | #34 | |||||||||||||||
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10-01-2006, 12:58 PM | #35 | |||
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The point that's being missed is that Fairy Tales are not literature, as in books wot we study in skool, they are oral tales. And oral tales, like oral language, belong to the Speople who tell 'em, not to the clever folk who come with them sinister pens 'n' paper 'n' write 'em down. We know its not possible to find ur-texts as how could we if they're oral tales? Tolkien says so too. Quote:
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10-01-2006, 02:18 PM | #36 | |||||
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Thanks for quoting those Letters, Raynor.
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Other than this recourse to the inevitable differences of opinion, however, is the significance of this idea of eucatastrophe. If any good happenstance or reversal of fortune is taken to be Eru's silent hand (not to be confused with Adam Smith's), then that to my mind cheapens Tolkien's idea of facing one's doom. It distorts them away from the most powerful expression of Hope which resides in his idea. There are two passages in the Orodruin chapter which reflect what I had meant to express. Quote:
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10-01-2006, 06:32 PM | #37 |
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Perhaps Tolkien has written into LotR, by means of "the long defeat", a deterioration of the Elves (aka Fairies). They descend from the heights of the First Age when their deaths are accompanied by the flame of their hot fëar corruscating from their heads, to, fourth age onward, quaint, earthy beings that have lost all trace of that hot fëa. Thence until now they become ever more reminiscent of woody trees, florid blossoms, and winged butterflies, or the muddy ferment and fluid fecundity of natural processes. Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon comes to mind in terms of the descent to fluid and amoral fecundity.
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10-02-2006, 02:06 AM | #38 |
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I think that's exactly what he intended to get across - note that those left in Middle-earth are the Moriquendi who had not seen the Light of Valinor. However a little of it is that Elves simply withdraw from men's lives, as do Hobbits (and Wizards and Dwarves), which is also a neat writerly device for showing how the magic has declined and the world has become more mundane.
Indeed in Mists of Avalon, an important book for modern Pagans, the only descent we see is the 'descent' to Christianity which takes the power away from the Land, the Britons (or Brythons if you prefer, having noted this term when I was reading about the long lost Cumric language yesterday) and from women. But I wouldn't expect you to be kind about this work as Zimmer Bradley's not all that kind to Christians. Gwynhwyfwr (can't remember the spelling) is a bit of a caricature TBH, but hey, so are 'heathens' in Christian Arts. Is it all 'redressing the balance' or just having a go back? You decide. There's certainly a descent into something or other in LotR, possibly just mundanity, a decline from the mystical and magical (which is what makes me sad at the end, no more Elves and wizards and dragons! Boo!), so that's very interesting if we're saying it marks the beginning of more 'earthlike' religions in Middle-earth.
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10-02-2006, 09:48 AM | #39 |
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I'm rather amused (as I hunch you are, Lal) that what I see from a Christian point of view as a descent, you from a pagan point of view see as an ascent, and vice versa. It has been said among Christians that the Fall turned the world upside down and backward, and the Incarnation and its aftermath turned it right side up again; which you would of course consider upside down and backwards.
And this may be the "corrective" that Tolkien was trying to achieve in LotR, but especially in The Silmarillion, as compared to paganism. Thus, perhaps, part of "genuine fairy-story" was, for him, a reclamation of myth from not only its nursery backwaters, but also its paganocentric locale, by placing it squarely in an Eru based cosmos? |
10-02-2006, 11:23 AM | #40 | |
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This is why I think Tolkien is so popular and successful among many persuasions. It's Tolkien who has the 'subtle leaf', as opposed to, say, Pullman's 'unsubtle knife' as well. Although whether subtlty is an aspect of Fairy Tale . . . .
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