Wolfram von Tolkienbach

[Anguirel]

While ranting about the inadequacies of the ROTK film, it dawned on me that The Lord of the Rings is a book told in strands.

We have the Frodo strand, and the Aragorn strand. What interested me is that this links the book closely to the version of the Grail Quest told by Wolfram von Eschenbach.

Wolfram took hold of the version of the Grail Quest half-finished by Chretien de Troyes. Chretien's poem is unfinished, but it has Percival and Gawain setting out in a manner that clearly indicates Percival will be a serious, spiritual hero while Gawain will be a bluff damsel-chasing knight errant. Wolfram nicked this structure and developed it splendidly. I would suggest that Tolkien then nicked it from Wolfram (and Wagner), but put it to subtler use.

So if Tolkien is "Wagner for kiddies", my friends, it is not Das Ring Der Nieberlungen or however you spell it, but Parzival.

The double-stranded structure gives the advantage of having a temporal hero and a spiritual hero, which is basically the only way of handling a post-Christian Grail Quest interestingly. The Church's licensed Grail stories are insufferable, with the prig Galahad riding around achieving miracles and then, mercifully, expiring. The Percival/Galahad figure has to be balanced by a Gawain/Lancelot figure, who does well but is too human and sinful to reach sublime glory.

Frodo is Percival. Aragorn is Gawain. Simple enough, apparently. Frodo achieves the big, meaningful quest, Aragorn rides around in nice armour to win a beautiful woman's heart. This is why when we were little we preferred the Aragorn-sub-plot to the Frodo-plot-proper (go on, admit it). I still do, actually...

...but that doesn't mean I'm wholly superficial, because Aragorn actually does some pretty important and symbolic stuff too. Percival/Galahad's mission is ultimately one of healing. They have to ask the question "What ailest thou?" that will heal their uncle the Maimed King and restore the Grail Kingdom. Aragorn, too, gains entry to a Kingdom through the act of healing...

...but Aragorn is still Gawain, because in the older myths Gawain was not a simple skirtchaser but the Grail hero in his own right. And he, too, was famous for his healing hand. (I haven't read the version to which I here refer, but I think it can be partly found in a German poem called Diu Krone.)

As for Frodo - is he good enough to be Percival? Some would say he failed by choosing to claim the ring. But Percival too is enormously imperfect, in Welsh and German stories. He fails to ask the right question at the right time and everyone suffers because of it. He's an innocent, even an idiot, in a threatening world. Like Frodo, you could argue, he learns the lesson of pity (by asking the question about the wounded man, second time round) and so is redeemed.

Right. There you have it. Aragorn, Gawain, Frodo, Percival. Discuss.