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Among the things I desire to own one of these days is one of those gigantic Unabridged Oxford Dictionaries that requires its own table.
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*smug smile*
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While rereading LotR in the last weeks, I realized that the word does not have the completely negative connotation we give it nowadays.
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This is absolutely correct. Indeed, the further you retrace steps through the usage, the milder the meaning becomes. However, before I blandly state that it was previously used simply as synonomous with Fate, let me temper with: Doom has had ever a darker facet than Fate, in Fate's current usage. Fate and Doom are entwined throughout litearure. The Ladies Fate, weaving their webs,knew that well. Fate used to be far grimmer a concept than simply 'the future' or 'what is ordained'.
Fate bound all of us and we are all fated to die. In the same way we are all doomed to die. Both words are resonant with a morbid poignancy; this is negative only from a certain perception of mortal death. That Doom, as is apparent in Tolkien's mythology, is not necessarily a negative event; indeed, in that mythology, the Elves are jealous of that particular Doom.
By the way,
Morte D'Arthur...Fantastic. Have you read Tolkien's translation of
St. Gawain and the Green Knight? It is interesting, although I don't believe it to be the best.
Two great Radical views of Fate and Doom; Octave Mirbeau and Arthur Rimbaud. If you are new to either; I suggest "The Torture Garden" for the former and "The Complete Works" for the latter. Although "The Torture Garden" is certainly not for the young, impressionable or faint-hearted.
Great thread; shall return.