Tolkien's sources: Icelandic Sagas and Beowulf 332
| The Complete Sagas of Icelanders | |
| author | Vi |
| pages | 2200+ (5 volumes) |
| publisher | Leifur Eiriksson |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Danny Yee |
| ISBN | 9979-9293-0-8 |
| summary | stories of Viking Age feuds, battles, legal conflicts, love affairs ... |
Beginning in the 9th century, settlers from Norway created in Iceland a society of fiercely independent farmers, fishermen, and traders; in the 13th and 14th centuries their descendants wrote a whole series of stories about them. These family sagas tell of feuds, duels and battles, legal conflicts, love affairs, travels and raids to Norway and the British Isles and further afield, and the attempted settlement of Vinland. The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is the first complete coordinated translation of these into English, containing all forty family sagas and fifty shorter tales.
The focus of the sagas is always on individuals and their relationships. They offer us strong men and outlaws, legal experts and tricksters, poets and warriors serving Norwegian kings, respected leaders and arbitrators -- and powerful matriarchs, faithful wives, and trouble-stirring women. The saga writers never venture directly into the minds of their protagonists, but they produce vivid, distinctive portraits of individuals caught up in memorable events: Egil, imprisoned in York by King Eirik Bloodaxe, with one night to compose a poem to save his life; the final ridge-top stand of the outlawed Gisli; Askel working for peace, to the point of trying to arrange in advance the settlement for his own death; Kormak's life-long obsession with Steingerd; Gunnar turning back from going into exile, moved by the beauty of the landscape; the imperious Gudrun, revealing at the end of her life which of her men she had loved the most; the burning of Njal and his family and the protracted legal and armed struggle to revenge them; and many others.
The sagas draw on local family stories, older myths and legends, and the broader body of medieval literature, along with a good deal of invention and original creation. While some are awkwardly structured, others rework their sources in sophisticated ways and some are literary masterpieces. In some, unity is provided by a biographical focus, sometimes ending with a peaceful death at the end of a long life, sometimes building with tragic inevitability to a climactic killing and the resulting resolution. Others are almost political studies, tracing the shifting balance of power between leading figures in a particular region. And while this genre of sagas is defined by a realistic treatment of early Iceland, many are (or incorporate) comic stories, fantastic tales, and romances.
In their attention to the actions of individuals within social networks, and the working through of their consequences, the Icelandic sagas are important precursors of the modern novel. They directly influenced many writers, among them Walter Scott and J.R.R. Tolkien. The sagas are also a valuable source of information about medieval Iceland, a subject of interest to more than medievalists. One of its notable features is that it had a sophisticated legal system but no executive government, which makes it a magnet for political theorists -- if you search the web for information on medieval Iceland, you'll find a running fight between the libertarians and anarchists over who can best claim it as an exemplum.
Some aspects of the sagas do take a little getting used to. They are episodic, sometimes covering events over several generations and jumping across decades to continue the story of a feud or the history of a region, and they alternate between periods of tension and relaxation. Characters are often introduced with a paragraph or two of genealogical information unrelated to the main story; and the sheer density of names, often shared by several characters, can be confusing. Though they never replace human actions and decisions as explanations of events, elements of foretelling and prophecy are nearly ubiquitous in the sagas. And obviously much of the cultural context is foreign to the modern reader. One soon becomes accustomed to these things, however, and overall the sagas are among the most accessible of medieval genres.
Unless your library has a copy or will obtain one for you, The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is probably not practical for a newcomer to the sagas; cheap paperback editions of any of the better known ones should be easy to come by. But if you become seriously interested in the sagas - and I should warn you that they are addictive -- then it's hard to go past The Complete Sagas.
Firstly, the translations are good. My academic friends assure me they are mostly of high quality, accurate enough to be usable for scholarly purposes. More importantly for the lay reader, they are lively and readable, avoiding inappropriate archaism or colloquialism. The sagas are each preceded by a brief note on when they were written and their manuscript sources, but otherwise they are clean, mostly unburdened by unnecessary commentary or annotation. The only regular exceptions to this are marginal glosses for the "kennings", highly figurative stock phrases in the poetry embedded in some of the sagas, and some explanatory notes where texts are partial or put together from different sources.
For readers who do want some background information, The Complete Sagas has a really good general introduction, a glossary of terms which are likely to be unfamiliar, some maps, and an index of characters. A minor complaint here is that the maps could show more detail and that they are all at the end of volume five, instead of in the appropriate volumes - and the index of characters is useful enough that it could almost have been repeated in each volume.
Perhaps most importantly, this is the only uniform, coordinated translation of the family sagas available. Collecting alternative translations of them all would be a lot of work, if it is even possible, and the result would not offer as coherent a presentation of the genre. Places, characters, and events often feature in several sagas, and motifs, stock phrases, and thematic elements often recur; a uniform translation scheme makes these connections easier to follow. On the other hand, the sagas do vary in style, mood, and structure, and this too is easier to appreciate when not obscured by variations in translation approach.
Finally, The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is beautifully produced. The leatherbound volumes find an elegant balance between attractiveness and austerity, and are of a size, shape and heft that makes reading them a pleasure (unlike some "great books" editions which are obviously designed to look impressive on shelves rather than to be read).
One minor caveat is that the title The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, while technically accurate, may mislead some: all the sagas about early Iceland (the "family sagas") are indeed included, but not any of the "fantasy" sagas such as the Saga of the Volsungs (based on older legends) or "romances" (based on continental models) from the same period. We will just have to hope that Leifur Eiriksson Publishing takes on the translation of those as a future project. A paperback edition would obviously make The Complete Sagas much more accessible; barring that, it would be nice if the volumes were available separately, so people could collect the set over a period of time.
Purchase The Complete Sagas of Icelanders at FatBrain or Leifur Eiriksson Publishing.
| Beowulf | |
| author | Seamus Heaney, translator |
| pages | 106 |
| publisher | Faber & Faber |
| rating | 9 |
| ISBN | 0-571-20376-0 |
| summary | An effective verse translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic. |
For those unfamiliar with Beowulf, it is a late first millennium Anglo-Saxon epic about the hero Beowulf's fights with three monsters: Grendel, Grendel's mother, and, fifty years later at the end of his life, a dragon. Since its rediscovery in the early nineteenth century, it has become a recognised classic, translated scores if not hundreds of times. Not being able to read Old English, all I can say here is that Heaney's translation gave me a better understanding of why people rave about the poem than any of the others I have read.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of Heaney's Beowulf is that it can be read almost as if it were prose - and then mined more deeply for the poetry. Heaney writes in his introduction:
So he captures something of the Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse form, but not at the expense of "the sound of sense;" he doesn't inflict awkward archaisms on the reader and is never difficult to read. Here is a brief sample, from the wait after Beowulf dives to attack Grendel's mother."I came to the task of translating Beowulf with a prejudice in favour of forthright delivery. I remembered the voice of the poem as being attractively direct, even though the diction was ornate and the narrative method at times oblique."
An immense body of critical work on Beowulf exists. In his introduction Heaney very briefly touches on this, offering a few hints to understanding and interpreting the work. He also discusses some translation issues, feeling obliged to justify his use of one or two obscure Irish words."Immediately the counsellors keeping a lookout
with Hrothgar, watching the lake water,
saw a heave-up and surge of waves
and blood in the backwash. They bowed grey heads,
spoke in their sage, experienced way
about the good warrior, how they never again
expected to see that prince returning
in triumph to their king. It was clear to many
that the wolf of the deep had destroyed him forever."
Scholars may cavil at Heaney's liberties ("an interpretation and not a translation") and there are certainly better translations for scholarly purposes. Translation is always a balance between competing concerns, however, and a verse translation that attempts to convey something of the power of the original as a poem must inevitably deviate from the literal. Tolkien's seminal essay "The Monsters and the Critics" urged scholars to approach Beowulf not just as a philological curiosity or a source document for Anglo-Saxon language and history but as a poem and a story -- and Heaney offers lay readers a chance to appreciate something of that too.
Purchase the U.S. edition of the Heaney's Beowulf from FatBrain
Christianity... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't have any links right now, nor do I necessarily believe that this is the case, but I thought it might add to the discussion.
Please no religion flames here, its just a point
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Discussions regarding plagarisms, sources of inspiration, etc, are usually absurd (just like complaining about how Microsoft ripped off Apple/Xerox/Aqua/whatever) : The human race is one of very limited creative thoughts and we all feed off each other: Every innovator/artist did so on the shoulder of other innovators/artists. Maybe it's better to say that Christianity ripped ancient stories about magic (i.e. angels are just wizards with some theology stuffed into them?)
Anyways most scholars disagree and state that Tolkien completely separated Christianity from Middle Earth.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Yes, I'm just being difficult :-)
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
That would come as quite a surprise to the ancient Jews that set down the books of Genesis and Job! Job is almost certainly the oldest book in the Bible. (Oldest in the sense that the manuscripts that exist of Job are older than those that exist for other works.) Both books make it pretty clear that the Adversary exists (as the Serpent that tempted Eve in Genesis, explicitly as Satan in Job) and exerts considerable strength, although equally clearly only so much as God allows him...
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Insightful)
> They even suggest that Gandalf was an "Angel" more than a "wizard"
Or they could just read Silmarillion and find out.
But alas, even Silmarillion doesn't tell how many Gandalfs can dance on the head of a pin.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Interesting)
One of my guesses as to why he did this was to position his mythology as a progenetor of european mythology, or maybe he just liked the stories.
Either way, he was probably also influenced by other mythologies, but I'm not familiar with them.
He even wrote some middle earth material in old english (a translation of some annals) and used it for one of his languages. (That of "wild" men that lived in the forest near Rohan.)
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Informative)
10. Then Módsognir became the greatest of all the dwarfs, and Durin the other; they made many manlike figures dwarfs of earth, as Durin said.
11. Nýi, Nidi, Nordri, Sudri, Austri, Vestri, Althjóf, Dvalin, Bívor, Bávor, Bömbur, Nóri, Án and Ánar, Ái, Mjödvitnir.
12. Veig and Gandálf, Vindálf and Thorin, Thrór and Thráin, Thekk, Lit and Vit, Nár and Nárád, I have now correctly, Regin and Rádsvid, reported the dwarfs.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Informative)
9.
Then sought the gods their assembly-seats,
The holy ones, and council held,
To find who should raise the race of dwarfs
Out of Brimir's blood and the legs of Blain.
10.
There was Motsognir the mightiest made
Of all the dwarfs, and Durin next;
Many a likeness of men they made,
The dwarfs in the earth, as Durin said.
11.
Nyi and Nithi, Northri and Suthri,
Austri and Vestri, Althjof, Dvalin,
Nar and Nain, Niping, Dain,
Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Nori,
An and Onar, Ai, Mjothvitnir,
12.
Vigg and Gandalf, Vindalf, Thrain,
Thekk and Thorin, Thror, Vit and Lit,
Nyr and Nyrath, -
Regin and Rathvith- now have I told the list aright.
13.
Fili, Kili, Fundin, Nali,
Heptifili, Hannar, Sviur,
Frar, Hornbori, Fræg and Loni,
Aurvang, Jari, Eikinskjaldi.
14.
The race of the dwarfs in Dvalin's throng
Down to Lofar the list must I tell;
The rocks they left, and through the wet lands
They sought a home in the feilds of sand.
15.
There were Draupnir and Dolgthrasir,
Hor, Haugspori, Hlevang, Gloin,
Dori, Ori, Duf, Andvari,
Skirfir, Virfir, Skafith, Ai.
16.
Alf and Yngvi, Eikinskjaldi;
Fjalar and Frosti, Fith and Ginnar;
So for all time shall the tale be known,
The list of all the forbears of Lofar.
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Informative)
audun
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Internally, there was no need for prayers or temples precisely because the divine is so close to the world. If you needed to send a message to God you could, in theory, simply write it down and send it on a ship to the uttermost west where his lieutenants lived. The various functions of religion were easily performed by mundane means. If you wanted to know how evil came into the world, you could simply ask somebody who was there.
Using exernal logic, Tolkien was trying to create a universal work of art, in which a kind of saga mythology of pre-christian Europe could live harmoniously with a Christian viewpoint.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.leaderu.com/focus/tolkien.html [leaderu.com]
Re:Christianity... (Score:5, Interesting)
There are elements of the Norse stuff in there though - the quest of the human hero (sorry, been that long I've forgotten the names) to recover a silmaril so that he can marry the elven princess etc. is a very epic sort of a thing. Mind you, there are parallels to be drawn between many religions. Odin's trial hanging from the tree Yggdrasil for nine days in order to give mankind the secret of the runes could be compared with the crucifiction.
The Silmarillion (nor Marillion - they're bloody rubbish) is well worth a read (although it takes some concentration). Don't judge Tolkien just by LOTR any more than you would judge him just by The Hobbit.
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Insightful)
> Certainly large parts of the Silmarillion [amazon.com] owed a lot to Christian mythology. The fall of Melkor certainly parallels the Satan thing - and yes, the Wizards to have cetain characteristics of angels.
The problem for people who want to really push the idea is that the Tolkien mythos doesn't have any Redeemer, which is the central concept of the Christian mythos.
Conversely, the Numenor meme plays a fairly large role in the Tolkien mythos, but it's derived from the Atlantis myth rather than from Christian myth.
The problem here is that people see a few points of contact between Tolkien and Christianity, know that he was a Christian, and take that as license to hammer everything else into the mold. But it simply doesn't stand up if you look at it objectively.
The interpretation of LoTR as an allegory for WWII seems to work better, though Tolkien himself disavowed it. I'm with those who say that Tolkien was immersed in Western culture (with a deeper than common familiarity with the languages, literature, and folklore of northwestern Europe), and not unexpectedly his writings reveal some of the notions deeply embedded in his culture.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Interesting)
"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work," he wrote, "unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like "religion", to cults or practices, in the Imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism." (Letter 142).
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al01
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Redundant)
I'm lacking mod points, so instead, I'll just repost the AC comment from below:
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Informative)
2. C.S. Lewis is best known outside of the Narnia and Perelandra books as a Christian apologist, and his religious identity in writing those books was as an Anglican. Anglicans sometimes identify themselves as "High Anglican" or "Anglo-Catholic," meaning Anglicans whose doctrinal beliefs were closer to those of Catholics than were those of other Anglicans; C.S. Lewis did not identify himself as such (while e.g. T.S. Eliot did, explicitly describing his conversion from Unitarianism to Anglo-Catholicism as becoming "Christian").
Thus the doctrinal differences between Tolkien and Lewis were rather minor: similar to those between an American Catholic and an American Episcopalian.
3. That Tolkien was a Christian, and that his Christianity consciously informed his writing, is undeniable. But he was also an Anglo-Saxonist and Medievalist, and some of his Christian imagery is probably unconscious, in reflection of the medieval influences on his work. Also, that professional interest exposed him to a lot of non-Christian imagery. In other words, many of the influences identified in this thread are probably validly identified. But allegorical interpretations, on the other hand, were explicitly denounced by Tolkien, and one should speak not of Tolkien deliberately identifying e.g. Gandalf as an angel, but using a different name (which would be a kind of allegory, though a transparent one), but rather as Tolkien using the concept of angels (a concept in he which might well have believed) to help him create Gandalf.
It is worth noting that the Christian element in LOTR isn't as remarkable as that in the Perelandra books.
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lewis is quite up-front about the moral and theological bases of his imaginary universe, and his protagonists often mull over (for the reader's benefit) the moral dimensions of newly-discovered worlds and creatures.
As has been mentioned, Tolkein quite consciously removed any overt religious elements from LOTR, but be did so only to highlight the underlying relgious/moral message, and to make it more accessible. In this he succeeded magnificently.
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Interesting)
> This could exaplain why Tolkien believed himself to be writing a very Christian story, but in fact one that rarely comes accross like that to anyone not interested in forcing the comparison.
Thanks to everyone who commented, especially those who posted the quote from The Man Himself.
However, per the quotes above, I simply can't see it by looking at the text. The following would genuinely terrify me:FWIW, my choice would be something like {Frodo, Samwise, Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Sauron, Galadriel, Faramir,
Also, JRRT seems to be somewhat inconsistent on the topic himself, as some people quoted his "yes it is" statement, but others say he is also on record adamantly against any allegorical interpretation.
Finally, what are we to make of his idea that an author can "unconsiously" [sic] produce an allegory? Though he adamantly denies that LotR is a WWII allegory, it seems to work better that way than as a Christian allegory, and the time and place of its writing would certainly be conducive to it as well. So can we conclude that he "unconsciously" wrote a WWII allegory and never recognized it?
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Re:hey... Marillion Rules!! (Score:2)
Not quite as good as the retelling of the three little pigs from the Wolf's point of view
Oh yeah...Marillion as rubbish - bollocks.
Re:Christianity... (Score:4, Interesting)
I would be interested in reading decent Fantasy novels written from a non-Judeo-Christian perspective as well if anyone knows of any and could post titles.
Just my $.02 worth
Keith
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Journey to the West (Score:2)
What makes it charming from a modern reader's perspective is that these characteristics aren't just obstacles to be overcome, but are the very means of the Buddhist's victory. The message is not that ambition, covetousness and carnality are evil, but that they are necessary part of everyone's journey. This gives Journey to the West a kind of psychological sophistication usually lacking in allegory.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Interesting)
Silmarillion contains much of the mythology, including creation and so on. The creation story implies one God, then a small number of major angels of which one later fell from grace, and a larger number of minor angels that were basically assisting the 13 or so major ones while God no longer did anything about the Creation.
I liked Silmarillion even more than LotR.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Informative)
C.S. Lewis was a Protestant Christian who thought it unusual that a Catholic could be so well educated (Catholics were not allowed to attend Universities in England until relatively recent times, late last century/early this century).
I do not think Tolkien converted Lewis. Lewis was evanglical (see Narnia, the Screwtape Letters other christian writings) Tolkien was not evangelical. There are themes of good and evil in his writings but no allegory for Christ like Aslan in Narnia.
For those who have read the Simirilion, another source for Tolkien was the prophetic writings of William Blake who used the names "Valar" and "Orc" though orc is an old word for monster, there are others.
Re:Christianity... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, Tolkien's biography (by Humphrey Carpenter) and Lewis's autobiography do pretty much state that Tolkien was one of the major figures in Lewis' conversion from Atheism to Christianity.
From Lewis' autobiography:
"When I began teaching for the English Faculty [at Oxford], I made two other friends, both Christians who were later to give me much help in getting over the last stile [to accepting Christianty]. They were H.V.V. Dyson and J.R.R. Tolkien. Friendship with the latter marked the breakdown of two old prejudices..."
According to Tolkien's biography (which I don't have in front of me right now to quote), one of the major catalysts to Lewis's acceptance of Christianity was a conversation between Tolkien and Lewis on the nature of myth and how in the story of Jesus Christ the myths of antiquity came true in human history. For a poetic rendering of this conversation, read "Mythopeia" by Tolkien.
Re:Christianity... (Score:5, Informative)
Tolkein intentionally kept his real-world religious beliefs out of his Middle-earth works, preferring instead for his heroes to display an intrinsic moral and ethical nature, although his world had its own creation myth (as described in The Silmarillion). Within that mythical construct, Gandalf and the other Istari (the Wise) could indeed be characterized as angels incarnate.
Here is the Middle-earth mythos in a nutshell. There is a central deity named Illuvitar in the language of the elves. From Illuvitar's thought's sprung the Valor, a host of beings who one might consider as demigods or archangels. Through a magical song, Illuvitar and the Valor created the world, and Illuvitar breathed life into the living things there. Illuvitar created Elves and Men, but left them sleeping while he sent the Valor to prepare the world for their awakening. One of the Valor, Melkor (the first Enemy) was jealous of Illuvitar's ability to create life, and sought to undo the work of his fellow Valor.
Where does Gandalf fit into all of this? Ranking just below the Valor, there existed another rank of divine beings known as the Maier (roughly equivalent to the angels of Christian mythology) who served the Valor. Some of these were corrupted by Melkor. Among these corrupted Maier were beings who would come to be known as Balrogs (such as the fire-deamon fought by Gandalf in the Mines of Moria).
Melkor's main lieutenant was a fallen Maier known as Sauron, who became the primary Enemy after the eventual defeat of Melkor. Eventually, to counter Sauron's rising influence in Middle-earth, the Valor dispatched a number of Maier there, made incarnate. The Maier-made-flesh were known as the Istari (the Wise), and included among their ranks Gandalf the Grey (Mithrandir), Saruman the White, Radagast the Brown, and the two Blue Wizards, who are only mentioned in passing.
I'm only hitting the high points here. For the full story, it is well worth reading The Silmarillion, or at least perusing the Encyclopedia of Arda [glyphweb.com].
Re:Christianity... (Score:3, Informative)
HH
Re:And Old Tom Bombadil??? (Score:2)
quotes not exact, but...
"Olorin in my youth in the west that is now forgotten" -- \i{Gandalf, Return of the King}
"Olorin was the wisest of the Maiar" \i{Valaquenta}.
Re:And Old Tom Bombadil??? (Score:2, Informative)
The Silmarillion explicitly indicates that the Istari are Maier.
As for Tom Bombadil, that character remains an enigma, and J.R.R.T. intentionally left it that way. Every myth needs at least some mystery. The character is based upon an old rag doll (dressed in yellow and green) which belonged to J.R.R.T.'s son. He made up stories and poems about the doll, predating the LOTR. Some of this material was recycled for LOTR early on in the righting, when the story was still viewed as a light-hearted sequel to The Hobbit rather than a monumental and somewhat darker toned epic.
It is unlikely that Tom is one of the Maier, for the Ring has no power over him, yet the known Maier are susceptable to its influence (even Gandalf felt the temptation of the Ring). Tom cannot be one of the Valor, for he stated that he was in Arda before the coming of the Great Enemy, yet we know from The Silmarillion that Melkor was the first of the Valor to enter Arda. Perhaps he is Illuvatar himself, in the same spirit as God's appearance as a crazy old hermit in Douglas Adams' writing. Or perhaps he is some sort of nature spirit. My personal theory is that he is a one-of-a-kind creation meant to provide an example of perfect and blissful love, as manifested by Tom's love for the Daughter of the River....
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Well not just theologists... many people over the years have suggested the same thing. They also suggested that "The Shire" is actually supposed to be England, and that Sauron is Adolf Hitler, and the big war in LOTR is World War II.
Thankfully Tolkein dispelled these notions. LOTR is what it is.
They even suggest that Gandalf was an "Angel" more than a "wizard"
Actually I would think, if anything, Tolkein was drawing from Jesus Christ, because...
SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!
at the end of book one, Gandalf the Grey sacrifices his life to save the others in the fellowship, and then is "resurrected" as Gandalf the White, who is even more powerful than before.
Then again, it just spoils it for me to think of LOTR in religious terms. It's a good old-fashioned story of Good vs. Evil that is popular because of how realistic the histories/languages/cultures really are.
Besides, if the Bible was written half as well as LOTR, you Christians might have way more followers than you do.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Actually it is spelled "Nazgûl."
Tolkein is a linguist, and developed all the names based on the complex history of Middle-earth. I haven't studied his languages, but I imagine someone who has could explain how the name Nazgûl was derived.
He was a devout Catholic (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a difference. Of course, Catholicism is a form of the religion called Christianity. However, when one says "a devout Christian," at least in the U.S. and increasingly in the U.K., it carries a connotation of a certain type of person, one who feels compelled to consider Halloween "of Satan" (even though it's one of the earliest Christian holidays), to state that when the Bible mentions "wine" it's really unfermented grape juice, and above all to make every creative work a footnote to the Bible.
In contrast, Catholicism was truly catholic, because it engulfed and incorporated all of the myths of the cultures it touched. Tolkien saw no conflict at all between being a devout Catholic and being fascinated by the mythology of various places in Europe. He referred to the world in LOTR and The Silmarilion as "sub-creation" and didn't think it conflicted with his religion at all. He asserted more than once that Middle-Earth was the Mediterranean, only very long ago.
Tolkien attempted to convert C.S. Lewis to Catholicism and was by all accounts really ticked off when it didn't work, and Lewis instead adopted something much more in line with the connotations with "devout Christian." Hence The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is the sort of blatant Christian allegory that such people like. Tolkien himself said he detested allegory, although he wrote a little allegory in his youth. He would certainly have considered the assertion that Gandalf was somehow "really" an angel to be absurd and simplistic, especially as the name, borrowing from a pastiche of Northern European languages, means "wizard-elf."
Do many of Tolkien's ideas parallel stories that some call "Christian?" Of course they do, just as they parallel similar stories in just about every culture on the planet. What Tolkien wrote made use of what might be called "archtypes." These stories are basic stories that human beings tell because they are human beings. To say that Gollum was really Coyote is just as accurate and just as silly as to say that Gandalf was really an angel. The value of an archetypal story is in the telling, not the plot, and Tolkien told it very well.
When modern apologists make these assertions, they're dealing with their own internal conflicts, not Tolkien's.
Re:He was a devout Catholic (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm dubious about the point, the word devout rarely is used in connection with people like Jack Chick. Devout seems to tend to refer to people of popular sympathy like the Pope and Mother Teresa, whereas Jack Chick is a "fanatic", "Lunatic", or "Nut". People a little bit less absurd than Chick, such as the guy who blamed the 9/11 attacks on gays and lesbians etc. are generally termed "right-wing christian extremsists", though it is occasionally shortened to "right-wing christians" or sometimes just "right-wingers", etc.
However, it is certainly true that there are plenty of people who at least call themselves Christian who seem to have decided that reason is not particularly important, and it is true that their great numbers and vocal political stances do tend permute the general image of a "Christian" to be one of them, rather than the Christians who like reason and logic and so forth.
As to where his point stands, I don't know. But what he's talking about is the gradual association of "illogical idiot" with "Christian" because there happen to be some of the former who are some of the latter who are very vocal (see the entire creation vs. evolution debate).
It's a real shame, but he certainly wasn't advocating loose moral standards, actually somewhat tighter ones that the people he disagreed with - he wants standards of intellectual honesty, as well as the other standards.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
As an aside, Christians (and perhaps others as well) stand to learn a lot about correct reasoning about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the current issue of Credenda/Agenda [credenda.org]. A choice quote:
Well worth a read.
Mod Parent Up! (Score:2, Insightful)
Also to all the people saying:"No LOTR does not reflect christian thought but ancient European pagan mythology" - well of course it does. But it is interesting to look at how Tolkien treated the ancient pagan mythology he loved in light of the influence that Lewis and Tolkien had on each other and Lewis's belief in the mythopeoic nature of God. Basically Lewis believed that the actual nature and actions of a real God (which he, and Tolkien, belived was the christian God of the bible) was echoed in God's creation and resonated with the human imagination. Thus there are "corn king" gods that die and are resurected for the salvation of their people in the mythology of every people. This mythology comes from the natural cycle of "death" and "resurection" in nature and has a powerful hold on human imagination. But Lewis belived that God created nature in that way and that it resonated with man's imagination because God was communicating a truth about himself to man - and that truth was forshadowing what Lewis called the "true myth" of an actual historic incarnation of God who died and was resurected for the salvation of his people.
I don't know if Tolkien had similar beliefs but I suspect that even if he did not hold those beliefs precisely as Lewis expressed them he was certainly influenced by them. It is even possible that he was the one influencing Lewis By Lewis's own testimony this understanding of the mythopoeic nature of God was instrumental to his becoming a christian - and Lewis also said that his conversations with Tolkien were instrumental to his becoming a christian. It is not too much to imagine that the idea that was pivotal to Lewis's conversion came from the conversations with Tolkien that were pivotal to Lewis's conversion.
Re:Christianity... (Score:2)
Go back and re-read virtually anything that chronicles the early interactions between Lewis and Tolkien. Tha latter was certainly a Christian, and stronly influenced Lewis' conversion.
As an aside, World is *by far* the most balanced and truthful news magazine out there. They admit up front the fact that they adhere to a Christian worldview, and explicitly and openly talk about the ways that affects their reporting. World is now the fourth-largest news magazine in the U.S. - none of the larger three (Time, Newsweek, US News) even approach this degree of forthcoming about their worldview...
Recycling of Story Lines (Score:2, Offtopic)
What is worrying is that now business is trying, through the ever tightening web of copyrights, to take ownership of what seem to be demostrated to be universal human myths.
Re:Recycling of Story Lines (Score:3, Informative)
Typical uninformed Slashdot copyright-bashing. Here's why it's wrong:
Businesses don't create copyright law. Sure, they lobby for influence, but law is created by legislators and interpreted by the courts. At least in the U.S., the Constitution provides important checks on what monopolies can be granted through copyright.
The Constitution provides Congress the power to create copyrights for limited times only. Though life of the author plus 70 years is a long time, universal human myths are quite a bit older. (No, Star Wars is not a universal human myth, it just draws on them.)
Copyright protects only expression, not ideas. The story of a demigod undertaking a quest is unprotectable. The character of Hercules as found in Greek myth is in the public doman. Artwork from the Disney animation is protected by copyright--but Disney can't sue Renaissance Pictures for "Hercules: the Legendary Journeys" (or vice versa), because they don't use each other's protected ideas.
Re:Recycling of Story Lines (Score:2)
... life plus 90 years
Re:Recycling of Story Lines (Score:2)
No, you're mistaken. After the passage of the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (the Sonny Bono Act), copyright in the U.S. currently lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years, or for 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever comes first, if the author is a corporation. See 17 U.S.C. 302 if you don't believe me.
Re:Recycling of Story Lines (Score:2, Interesting)
I read Heany's Beowulf... (Score:2)
My 12yo daughter is reading Heany's book now... I highly recommend it!
Re:I read Heany's Beowulf... (Score:2)
If you want to see the side-by-side text, go for Chickering, but for a drop-dead wonderful translation Rebsamen [amazon.com] is the only choice.
Strange (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Strange (Score:2)
Re:Strange (Score:2)
Iceland one of the first to have the movie? (Score:2)
Well, I guess the studio was clever to run the movie first in countries such as The Netherlands and Iceland. The reviews are raving.
Re:Iceland one of the first to have the movie? (Score:2)
AFAIK, the only country it is showing in so far is the UK.
And for more info (Score:2, Insightful)
You should also check out the fairy tales by Chrétien de Troyes (which include a ring that makes the wearer invisible) and Marie de France.
There are stories that are a part of who we are as humans. Several societies have legends/myths/religious texts that mention a great flood or deluge. And every society seems to have their heroic epics. Over time, these stories are retold and rehashed, divided and distrubited into digestible parts for frequent/easy consumption.
In the western world, be it Frankish, Saxon, Norse, Gothic, etc., these primordial stories were kept alive in fairy tales and folk tales. Tolkein knew these (especially Celtic and the like) and was able to take pieces of them and weave them into a coherant story.
So, when a teenager in Nebraska, or a 30-something in New York, reads the trilogy, there is something with which they identify - something rings true.
It's stories we've been telling for ages, retold and preserved by a master of the trade.
Arthurianist spazzes! (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry, Arthurian lit.'s kinda important to my existence; in fact it's a major aspect of my job- take a look at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm
Unfortunately our server seems to be having major issues right now, but it's a GREAT resource if you want to learn more about this literary genre.
And to keep this on-topic: hmmm, interesting point about the ring of invisibility in, i think, the Yvain story. Tolkien would almost *certainly* have known it; he was a medievalist, and it's rather difficult to be a medievalist and escape those darn French authors, even if your main focus is Anglo-Saxon.
Online texts (Score:2, Informative)
Find it Free! (Score:2)
ttyl
Farrell
Re:Find it Free! (Score:2)
Regards
HH
Re:Find it Free! (Score:3, Interesting)
HH
Re:Find it Free! (Score:2)
It may be interesting to note that Heany's "Beowulf" made the New York Times bestseller list -- a pretty impressive feat for a book a that's over 1,000 years old.
Arthurian works (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Arthurian works (Score:2)
Re:Arthurian works (Score:2)
Re:Arthurian works (Score:2)
Much of Quenya and Sindarin (Tolkien's Elvish tongues) was picked out of Finnish and Welsh, with a lot of additions and evolutions.
He uses English for the Riders of Rohan because, IIRC, he'd not gotten around to developing a full Rohirric. Or possibly he just loved OE too much to leave it out:-)
Re:Arthurian works (Score:2)
HH
Re:Er, not true (Score:2, Informative)
Hmm, I don't think this is actually provable at the moment. There are some overlaps between Arthurian stuff and the Mabinogion, as well as other Welsh poetry, but much of the Arthurian material was newly-written, especially the stories concerning the French knights, and the Grail.
And for online *Arthurian* texts, take a look at the Camelot Project at:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm
We've got all sorts of Arthurian stuff up that you can't find copies of. A lot of it's 19th century crud, but it's at least interesting, and gives you an idea of what modern Arthuriana is coming out of. And yes, this is the second time i've posted the URL. I'm a very bad person.
Re:Er, Finnish = Scandinavian? (Score:2)
The grammar is terrible for a non-Finn to learn, but some have!
Re:Er, Finnish = Scandinavian? (Score:2)
Some less kind Russian friends have commented that Finland is what remains of a Russian-Swedish argument. Certainly a large part of Finland used to be a part of Sweden (which is why Linus Torvalds is Swedish-Finnish) so certainly part (the West) can be said to be originally Scandinavian by any definition.
I'm impressed but not surpised that Tolkein could speak Finnish though. He certainly knew enough of the other Northern-European languages and in their ancient form.
Changing the subject, I would love to know what he was like as a teacher. With such a background, he must have seemed a little formidable.
A "Tolkien Review" appeared on british ITV (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry I do not know what the name of the program was.
Re:A "Tolkien Review" appeared on british ITV (Score:2)
> * it was CS Lewis and Tolkien's publisher who convinced him to write a followup to "The Hobbit";
In the front matter to my edition of LoTR he says that he had actually wanted to follow up The Hobbit with what later became The Silmarillion, but when he enquired about the chances of getting it published he was told "snowball's". So he wrote LoTR as a sort of half-way consolation piece.
Quenya is heavily influenced by Finnish (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Quenya is heavily influenced by Finnish (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Quenya is heavily influenced by Finnish (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Quenya is heavily influenced by Finnish (Score:3, Interesting)
Gutenberg (Score:2, Informative)
literature, Tolkien vs. "xxx," Grendle (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I have had an ongoing discussion with my circle of friends. The quick summary is: How do the Tolkien books compare with Lewis' Narnia books and more recently, Rowling's Potter books. Now, before you jump and defend/attack, the question is in reference to the way the stories are constructed. I have learned a great deal talking this out with my friends. It would be interesting to see what you all have to think.
That said, Beowulf is a very interesting book to add into the mix. Beowulf, being one of the older stories known to exist from Europe, has proven its worth by sheer existance today. I also think that it is interesting to note that several other pieces of literature have based directly from it. Grendle, by John Gardner, is a great retelling of the Beowulf story. A great read for those of you familiar with Beowulf.
So, another question to ask in light of all of the views posted already, what literature has been created directly based on the LoTR books. (Or, do modern copyright laws just make this a moot point...)
(Also, see "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard if you like re-tellings...)
Tolkien vs. Rowling vs. Lewis et al (Score:2)
I think the extremely original thing that Tolkien did, the thing that revived fantasy as a literary genre, was to give the saga a geographic and historical context. This underlies their "geek appeal" to be sure -- without the languages, the appendices etc, LOTR would not be anything like the phenomenon it is.
Aside from it's geek appeal, the huge amount of backstory and geography accomplishes something very important: it makes a tale of magic plausible to a literate, modern reader. Things (to a modern mind) don't simply happen some vague place and time lacking geographic, cultural, political, and historical connections. It isn't enough anymore to simply explain how the hero falls into the world of magic, but the author must also arrange a vehicle to take the reader along too.
In this, I think there is a strong parallel to Rowling's work. On the whole Rowlings work is very different (in some ways better, in other ways not) from LOTR. But the innovation in her writing is the way she encourages the reader to dovetail their world with the world of wizardry. Hogwarts is, if you read carefully, clearly in Scotland -- where else would you be if you travelled north from Kings Cross for five hours? There is a ministry of magic that reports to the prime minister. You buy your wizarding supplies in London in a magically hidden street. Magical folk live quietly near non-magical folk and do their best to avoid attracting attention.
The Narnia stories, by contrast, are more pure fairy tale (which does not to my mind denigrate them, or the Hobbit for that matter). The heros enter the world of magic through the simple device of clibmbing through the back of an old wardrobe. This is not a criticism, but it limits full enjoyment to the kind of person who can enjoy himself by climbing into a closet and pretending it is a door to some magical place (e.g. children and very child-like folk). Perhaps a better comparison would be Lewis' space trilogy, which holds much more appeal to an adult reader.
Monty Python and Iceland's Legal System (Score:3, Funny)
One of its notable features is that it had a sophisticated legal system but no executive government, which makes it a magnet for political theorists -- if you search the web for information on medieval Iceland, you'll find a running fight between the libertarians and anarchists over who can best claim it as an exemplum.
Yes, indeed...it's entertaining to read swashbuckling epics that spend a great deal of time discussing property rights, the complications of joint ownership, legal machinations surrounding property...some selections from Njal's Saga:
"There was a man called Mord Fiddle, who was the son of Sighvat the Red. Mord was a powerful chieftain, and lived at Voll in the Rangriver Plains. He was also a very experienced lawyer..."
"Thorarin lived at Varmabrook, which he owned in common with Glum, who had spent many years trading abroad. Glum was tall and strong and very handsome. The third brother, Ragi, was a great warrior. The three brothers jointly owned Eng Isle and Laugarness, in the south."
"At the Thingskalar Assembly in the autumn, Kilskegg made his claim to the land at Moeidarknoll; Gunnar named witnesses and offered to compensate the people of Thrihyrning with money or another piece of land lawfully assessed at the same value. Thorgeir then named witnesses and charged Gunnar with breaking their settlement.
And you thought that Monty Python was making all that stuff up... :)
Beowulf (Score:2)
Another cool epic is the Nibelungenlied which I haven't completely read but I remember a week in which my dad and I watched Wagner's The Ring on PBS. I'm not a big opera fan but that was definately worth watching.
Just my 00000010 cents.
38 hours until LOTR! (Score:2)
Tuesday midnight is the first show.
Kalevala (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kalevala (Score:2, Informative)
Good point but one thing to remember is that Kalevala is more along the lines of "Bullfinch's Mythology": a modern (19th century) telling of Finnish folktales. The collector's name was Lonnrott if memory serves. So you're not dealing with a primary source the way one is with Beowulf or the some of the Icelandic sagas.
Other "Beowulf's" (Score:2)
Eaters of the Dead [amazon.com] by Michael Crichton. The movie "13'th Warrior" is loosely (very, and badly) based on this. The plot is that an Arab Scholar of the 9th century wrote a report of his travels with a Viking who was fighting neandertals in Scandanavia.
Another Book:Masks of Odin (Score:2, Informative)
by E Titchenell
is a great book on the why where when of the ancient norse mythos.
A really great in depth look at the grand stories of the norse peoples
Before the posts get too out of hand (Score:3, Informative)
Why Heaney ? (Score:2, Informative)
T-O-L-K-I-E-N (Score:2, Informative)
Not "Tolkein". Not E-I.
I-E. Got that?
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.
I can't believe the number of so-called "fans" that can't even spell his name.
Re:T-O-L-K-I-E-N (Score:2)
Hey cyberkrieger,
Who peed in your cheerios?
-Sean (heh, heh
The Matrix (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that there are probably several things that influenced Tolkien both directly (or consciously) and indirectly (or unconsciously). This holds true for everything and anything ever written. Really one of the best places to look at this is religion. We are all fairly familiar with the similarities between Greek and Roman Gods (because the Roman's were greatly influence by the Ancient Greeks) but the correlations occur with many other distant religions. Virgin (or miraculous) births, sibling rivalry, great floods etc. appear in many different religions.
In summary, we are all the product of thousands of years of collective ideas and experiences. While the names in Tolkien's works may be from Norse or Germanic mythology, the ideas are from all of World History.
bin Lauden and Sauron (Score:2)
Tolkien's Open Source "Subcreation" (Score:2, Informative)
Beyond Tolkein's literary sources, it is important to understand the "open source" nature of the collaborative environment he had with "The Inklings" (including C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams). Also, it is crucial to know his literary software development methodology, which he called "subcreation." I believe that many deep software projects are examples of "subcreation" --including all Role Playing Games, much literary hypertext, and the sense in which any coder is a god-like subcreator of an complete, consistent, imaginary yet interactive world.
"Beyond the Fields We Know" is a haunting phrase by Lord Dunsany.
This is (as Baird Searles, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin point out ["A Reader's Guide to Fantasy", New York: Avon, 1982] a fine description of tales in which all the action happens in a magical world unconnected to our own by space or time. "The Lord of the Rings", by J. R. R. Tolkein, is a superb example. Tolkein said that the author of such fiction is engaged in "subcreation" of the other world, with an inner consistency and conviction:
"To experience directly a Secondary World, the potion is too strong, and you give to it Primary Belief, however marvellous the events. You are deluded -- whether that is the intention of the elves (always or at any time) is another question. They at any rate are not deluded. This is for them a form of Art, and distinct from Wizardry or Magic, properly so called" [J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories", in "Tree and Leaf", 1964].
David Hartwell [Age of Wonders, New York: Walker, 1984, p.14] summarizes this genre as "Tolkienesque fantasy, in the manner of Lord of the Rings -- carefully constructed worlds as the setting for a heroic quest."
Here we mean tales of a world sufficient unto itself, with its own history, geography, cultures, races, and nonhuman beings. There is a greater or lesser degree of magic, sometimes central to the action, sometimes part of
the taken-for-granted background, but always as something distinguishing this world from our technological one.
When we read such fiction, we feel ourselves drawn into the other world, and taking it as real, so that when we close the book, it is hard to wrench ourselves away from that world and reluctantly return to home. To capture the dream, we read the book again, or perhaps look for others that will produce the same magical emotion. Beowulf and the Icelandic Sagas certainly qualify.
For a list of 90+ such books, see my web page (from which this posting is drawn):
http://magicdragon.com/
then click on "Science Fiction", then
"Genres", then "Beyond the Fields We Know."
Beowulf on Project Gutenberg (Score:2, Informative)
Plain Text [ibiblio.org]
or zipped at
ZIP [ibiblio.org]
Help out Project Gutenberg!!
Distributed Proofreaders [dns2go.com]
More commercial but still good (Score:2)
Still, it's good reading.
Re:Beowulf? (Score:2, Funny)
...
Welsh Sources in Translation (Score:3, Informative)
> so if anyone has a suggetion
Could it be because the Mabinogion & related stories *weren't* written in verse but prose?
Helpful information follows:
I have two translations of the Mabinogion in my library: one by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones in the Everyman's Library series, & a more recent translation by Patrick K. Ford. Of the two, Ford's is done in contemporary American English, & I remember finding it slightly more readable. Both contain a translation of the related tale ``Culhwlch and Olwen", which contains the earlier Welsh description of Arthur before the late Medieval poets recast him as the ideal monarch.
Speaking of Arthur, there are translations of Aneiryn's ``Gododdin", the earliest Welsh poem which mentions Arthur in the middle of describing an unsuccessful North Country battle against the Saissons, aka Anglo-Saxons. K.H. Jackson's translation is useful for the extensive notes.
And if you want to get truly serious about Welsh traditions, hunt down a copy of Rachel Bromwich, _Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads_ (2nd, ed., University of Wales, 1978), ISBN 0-7083-0690-X. Bromwich's edition is a treasure trove of information, aswell as including an index of most of the personages of Welsh legendry.
Geoff
Re:Philology (Score:2)
<HUMOR>
You're right. The triology was written by Sir Francis Bacon [hiwaay.net].
</HUMOR>
Re:Philology (Score:3)
Yes... I think Tolkien also was one of anglo-saxon romanticists (or whatever proper term is... there was such a movement on early 20th century), hoping to get some of the already forgotten anglo-saxon words to be 'resurrected' (major reason for 'downfall of anglo-saxon language' was William the Conqueror et al conquering England, french becoming the "civilized language"... and as a result, tons of new words were imported from latin via french, often replacing 'native' words, sometimes just adding... in some cases there still exists 3 varieties of words, like 'regal', 'royal', 'kingly', from latin - french - anglo-saxon... and supposedly going from most formal/prestigious downwards).
In addition, Tolkien was interested in quite a few other (european) languages. I think I read somewhere that finnish was actually a big influence in elvish (whatever the language was called...). Thus, it might be that yet another book that may have been influencing some of Tolkien's books would be 'Kalevala', which is based in finnish (fenno-ugrian, actually) folklores, and was compiled in late 19th century by a finnish scholar. There is an english translation available (which seems kind of decent, too, although translating mythical epic books is always difficult), I read it a year ago. Because of the vastness of Tolkien's production, it's not surprising that there are parallels (and of course even Kalevala draws heavily from bible, christian legends mixing with existing folklores in medieval times). Wonder if someone has already studied these similarities. Hmmh, got to check Google for that. :-)
Re:I'm a karma whore. (Score:2)
About calling Gandalf and angel would have had religious nuts going mad: true. But J.R.R. was himself something of a religious "nut" and decided not to use the word "angel" not only because he did not want LOTR to become a religious work but also because he himself have felt it to be sacreligious (perhaps even worthy of burning
(Especially at that time, but it's not like we don't have people living in the Southern US trying to burn Tolkien's works nowadays..)
That's an incendiary comment