[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

And that Empire began, some have suggested, with colonising Ireland. Although of course it was the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who pushed out the earlier inhabitants to the fringes of the island.

Well, one could argue that the invasion of Ireland was an extension of the Norman Empire, which had first taken in England. Then again, the Normans were descendants of the Vikings, & among their invasion force were Bretons, who had originally been refugees from the invading Anglo-Saxons who had settled in 'France' & formed 'Little Britain', the continental counterpart of 'Greater (ie 'Great') Britain, or Brittany. Hence from the Celtic viewpoint the Norman Conquest could be seen as a return home for the 'exiles'. How far do you want to go back?

A bit of a broad generalisation there, as much of our reading is dependent upon the mass marketing of both our book and movie industries as upon readerly intent. I could name several Canadian authors who are inspired by First Nations mythology, but there's a truth about invaders and interlopers there, too.

Is the statement 'so many readers that broad a generalisation? I didn't numbers I can't see that 'several' (authors) counters 'so many' (readers). My point was that Americans seem to have taken Tolkien's Legendarium to heart to an even greater extent than we English. Certainly most of the critical works I have on Tolkien are written by Americans, published in America, & read by more Americans than English readers. One could even include Shippey in that statement as he is now, apparently, an American citizen. He told us at Birmingham that in his citizenship 'exam, or test, or whatever kind of arcane process it is, he was asked to write a sentence in English to demonstrate his command of the English language & he wrote 'Need brooks no delay, but late is better than never.' & was almost failed by the examiner! Fortunately he had his lawyer with him & so got his citizenship. Anyway, I digress. I think the point is that Tolkien seems to speak to Americans' need for a mythology far more even than it does to the English. I really don't think that here we're dealing simply with an entertaining story (or series of stories) but with something much deeper - Tolkien himself wrote of Americans being involved in the stories in a way he was not (or something along those lines - don't have the letters to hand.

Its an interesting question whether one responds most strongly to a mythology which ones own culture produced. Certainly Americans seem to like to identify themselves with their culture of origin as much as with their nation (African-American, Jewish-American, Irish-American, Native-American, etc). I also notice that many American neo-Pagans have adopted the (pseudo) Celtic 'path' rather than the traditions of First Nation peoples. I think that, as so many Americans have European ancestry they respond to a 'mythology' which has its roots in European soil. In other words, what they brought with them speaks to them more strongly than what they found - one could suggest that that is the answer to your question as to why Tolkien chose to 'side' with the Anglo-Saxons over the native Britons....

Tolkien explores words rather than his own life, you might say. This is not to deny that his life also gets into the story, but to suggest that its presence in the story is not easy to isolate.

The story has to work on its own terms to be effective. If it is only understandable in terms of the author's life then we would need to know the author's life in great detail in order to understand the story, & it would be little more than 'symbolic' autobiography. So, we could argue that a story like the Fall of Gondolin could be read in two completely different ways - in one way as pure 'myth', in another, in John Garth's phrase, as Tolkien's own experience of WW1 'seen through enchanted eyes'. The point is, we can never know exactly what Tolkien experienced on the Somme or how it affected him, so we can only experience & be affected by ithe former.

I think this is why Tolkien rejected the idea of 'allegory' so forcefully & promoted 'applicability' in its place. We cannot read the Legendarium as Tolkien's 'autobiography' as we cannot know his life experience (certainly not what went in his head & what his experiences meant to him).

Having said that, CT makes a very interesting comment in the introduction to vol 12 of HoMe to the effect that what he has produced is a literary 'biography' of his father. I don't think he has, btw. I think, in the end, such a 'biographical' reading of Tolkien's works is more likely to unravel the story (or dismantle the Tower). Its an interesting 'game' but I'm not sure it gets us anywhere in terms of experiencing the Art

Edited for reasons of accuracy.