[littlemanpoet]

Faery represents at its weakest a breaking out (at least in mind) from the iron ring of the familiar, still more from the adamantine ring of belief that it is known, possessed, controlled, and so (ultimately) all that is worth being considered - a constant awareness of a world beyond these rings. More strongly it represents love: that is, a love and respect for all things, 'inanimate' and 'animate', an unpossessive love of them as 'other'. This 'love' will produce both ruth and delight. Things seen in its light will be respected, and they will also appear delightful, beautiful, wonderful even glorious. Faery might be said indeed to represent Imagination (without definition because taking in all the definitions of this word): esthetic: exploratory and receptive; and artistic; inventive, dynamic, (sub)creative. This compound [=Imagination](lmp's italics)-of [1]awareness of a limitless world outside our domestic parish; [2]a love (in ruth and admiration) for the things in it; and [3]a desire for wonder, marvels, both perceived and conceived - this 'Faery' [as it represents Imagination]is as necessary for the health and complete functioning of the Human as is sunlight for physical life: sunlight as distinguished from the soil, say, though it in fact permeates and modifies even that.

I have bolded and italicized portions of this paragraph to highlight what I take to be the core meaning Tolkien is expressing, which seems to have been missed so far in the discussion.

Originally Posted by davem

It's interesting that he distinguishes 'this' 'Faery' in the way he does - because this distinction implies that there is another Faery - perhaps the Faery of tradition. What's also interesting is that he seems to be saying that it is his Faery which is 'necessary for the health and complete functioning of the Human as is sunlight for physical life' as opposed to the Faerie of tradition - which he perhaps considered to be unnecessary - or perhaps even worse than unnecessary: truly 'dangerous' in a spiritual way? Who knows?

Let us distinguish with care: Tolkien is saying that Faery does not equal Imagination, but represents it. Is this nevertheless a modern notion? Surely the ancients thought Faery to be real rather than imagined, but is that saying something different? Nevertheless, how does Faery represent Imagination? According to the paragraph I've quoted first, Imagination (as represented by Faery) is the one thing in our (modern) lives that cannot be known, possessed, controlled. While all else can be enslaved, human imagination remains free. And this is what Tolkien seems to be saying is Imagination without which humans cannot survive.

Originally Posted by davem

I think what particularly interests me is that Tolkien set SoWM in a very 'medieval' world, & in that period of our history Faeries/Fairies were generally feared & seen as malicious & dangerous...

Perhaps this has to do in part with Tolkien's claim in On Faery Stories that desirability is the key ingredient: I (personally) desire dragons (and faery) with a deep desire. That Tolkien set SoWM in a medieval Wootton may derive from that which his mental life was most taken up with. His linguistic studies were all pre-Renaissance, so maybe he was writing what he knew (and desired); I find it also interesting that a medieval village was his entry point to a fairy story rather than 1960's Oxford. I think it's important to reckon with Tolkien's insistence upon the Forest as opposed to the Chthonic Underground as his entrypoint into Fairy itself.

We do well to remember also that Tolkien is fleshing out the rationale for THIS particular story. The plot-problem he settles on is the growing vulgarization of Wootton Major, and the plot-solution is the help of Faery. Thus he has presented himself with a rationale problem: why would Faery bother to help Wootton Major out of its vulgarization? What possible answers avail themselves to this question? Tolkien hits upon love and self-interest, which two he sees as not mutually exclusive. I also note that Tolkien suggests to himself that there may have been relations between Elves and humans, resulting in certain unnamed "sanctions".

So here's a question with which we may attempt to second-guess Tolkien: what possible answers avail themselves to the question Tolkien found himself facing: What would motivate Faery to help Wootton Major out of its vulgarization, if not those which Tolkien hits upon?

Originally Posted by davem

*The chronology Tolkien constructed for the story has Smith born in the year 1063, discovering the Star in 1073, marrying Nell in 1091 & making his last journey into Faerie in 1120 - making him about 57. 'His long journeys in Faerie probably were undertaken mostly in the years between 1098 & 1108, & 1115-20.' ie he would have been 35-45 & 52-57 - coincidentally the ages Tolkien was when he did most of his major work on The Sil & LotR....

I also find it interesting how these dates correspond to the Norman Conquest. This is a tangent, but Tolkien could not have used these dates without an awareness of their import upon the three imaginary villages of the story. It could be said that his story had nothing to do with that conquest, but I find the dates peculiar nonetheless. Perhaps he found them necessary because of the state of technology he has set up. But I tend to agree that he is doing this on purpose as a conscious statement (at least to himself) in regard to the Normanization of England.

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien didn't write about 'real' (ie genuine - in a 'folkloric' sense) Elves & Faeries at all.

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien (in On Fairy Stories) condemned the 'Flower Fairies' imagery for its falseness & 'Pigwiggenry', yet his own 'Elves' are just as 'false' a creation & no closer to genuine Elves & Fairies.

Hold on just a minute. I see why you say this, but in your revisionistic zeal I think you may be overlooking what Tolkien faced in the construction of his own Legendarium, for admittedly he DOES hit upon love of humans as the Fairy motivation, and it does carry through his entire ouvre. I submit that Tolkien's thesis, if you will, was (in part at least) that human myths have lost all memory of a former race of being that were Fairy, namely the highest of them, because these very beings have departed from the shores of our middle earth. Therefore, I submit to you that Tolkien was consciously writing a corrective to what he saw as a lack, and thus I find it ironic that here we are these many decades later claiming that Tolkien got it wrong because the human record of the old myths do not contain the very thing he sought to correct in them. Additionally, I don't see that it's really necessary to presuppose a necessarily Catholic (let alone Christian) view in order to see this submitted thesis through. I'm thinking about Tolkien's motivation for writing, as presented in the Carpenter Biography and his Letters. He and his three friends were bound by a common love for things Northern, and for things Saxon (pre-Norman), and for Myth (what a powerful combination!). Add his love of Welsh (thus Celtic roots) to this, and his Atlantis dream, and there is plenty to work with absent any religious directedness other than theism.

If you don't accept that submission, perhaps you may accept that such beneficent Elves & Faeries were required for the stories he had chosen to write. As was his right. I think he would be surprised that his version of the beings would come to be thought of as "received doctrine". Be that as it may, Tolkien did set a paradigm; he also awakened interest and knowledge, such that we know the differences between fairies of antiquity (whether Alfar or Sidhe or yet another group), those of Victoriana, and Tolkien's. So I ask: is Tolkien's corrective (as I claim) worth consideration as such? Is it a valid addition to Faeriana? Tolkien's own answer to this question is clear enough, as one or more of you have reminded us from LotR, such as the Rohirrim attitude toward Galadriel.

Originally Posted by davem

maybe the exploration of death overrode everything else for Tolkien, to the extent that he was required to re-create the Elves in his own image, put them in the service of his story, effectively make them into 'symbols', even 'emasculate' them.

Perhaps the questions posed by Tolkien in the essay presented at T2005, were posed specifically about SoWM, but perhaps not. However, whereas death is clearly important to Tolkien, this Beneficent High Faery seems to be really rather important to him in its own right.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Maybe we ought not to look at Tolkien's Elves at all if we want to find any reflection of 'our' Faerie. They are altogether too perfect to be a representation of Faeries, too controlled and moral. Tolkien's Elves are more like Men, or rather, like idealised Men.

At first I agreed with this until I allowed myself to think that perhaps we need to pay attention to Tolkien's point, if it is indeed accurate as I have submitted it. Consider that Tolkien wished his critics, as regards to sex in his works, would "grow up". Tolkien's Elves are super-human; the successful marriage of earth and spirit, and thus attempting to attain unto something utterly foreign to the Sidhe, Alfar, or other such beings.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Tom Bombadil and Goldberry would be more appropriate as the King and Queen of Faerie than any Elf; they remain slightly enigmatic yet familiar, otherworldly, and unpredictable.

Yes. Tom and Goldberry always seemed like they belonged in Middle Earth more than the Elves could.
Which now seems interesting in terms of my little submitted thesis. Should I start a new thread?

Originally Posted by davem

Did he see traditional Elves & Faeries as so 'dangerous' that he felt some kind of moral imperative to make them safe & suitable? Or was it that he just decided they were a suitable means to his didactic end - if so, what does that say about his real attitude to Faerie & its inhabitants? For all our discussions here, I don't think we've yet got the heart of the matter - why did he change the traditional Elves & Fairies to the extent that he did & more importantly perhaps why did he make out that he hadn't changed them at all?

I hope I've helped to approach the heart of the matter. Let me know what you think.

It seems that we are treating the Legendarium and the essays, as the "Gospel of Faery According to Tolkien", as it were. Granted, the "On Fairy Stories" and other essays do lend persuasiveness to do so, but maybe we would do well to back off of that and remember that these are Tolkien's fallible views, and his works fallible works. Perhaps that goes without saying, but there does seem to be an underlying need to "dethrone the author from his high place", which wouldn't seem so needful if we hadn't mistakenly (and unintentionally) put him there in the first place; I doubt he wanted or sought it.

Originally Posted by davem

Hmm... Well, to some people - the rural Irish (up to & including in this century) they were real beings - a 'real & present danger'. As they were (& still are) to some Icelanders. And to rural peoples everywhere.

Except in in the U.S., where the new bugaboo in rural areas appears to be Harry Potter books and the like; but that's fodder for another thread.

Originally Posted by davem

We seem to see in Tolkien a conflicted artist - 'torn in two'. Part of him is pulled towards the traditional Faery, part towards his religion & its requirements & values.

I don't see it this way now that I've thought about it. I think that he wanted to correct some misconceptions abour Faery as he saw them, and loved that which is contained by Faery as well. Faery is a big place, and I don't see such a thesis/antithesis problem in this.

Originally Posted by davem

My point here being, it seems that in TH, which was originally not meant to be part of the Legendarium Tolkien felt able to set the Fairies free to be themselves. It was only the Legendarium Elves that were required to 'work for a living' & earn their bread.....

This is one way in which I like TH better than LotR, treasonous as that may be. The Legendarium is thus a two-edged sword, used by Tolkien to carry his theme of the existence of the forgotten High Elves. Tolkien's Elves are a very refined type of being, whereas the Fairies of SoWM are not so minutely defined; and remain mysterious. I was going to say that this is part of why SoWM has a greater appeal to me than anything else Tolkien wrote, but I think it may have more to do with Tolkien being at his maturest and ablest in storytelling by this point in his life. That Wootton is medieval also adds to that appeal, for me, although Tolkien apparently chose that particular date-set for reasons having directly to do with the story he wished to tell. (In that regard, the pictures by Pauline Baynes, which accompanied the original publication, have a striking resemblance to the stained glass windows in York Minster; I was stunned by the similarity, as if she had sat in the pews in the nave and copied the style from some of the stained glass in the southern aisle of the nave. Sorry about the tangent) That there is a whole backstory shows how Tolkien's practice at writing had matured him into a full-fledged writer/artist by the 60s. Backstories are the kind of thing writers do in order to make their story more real to themselves. It's tough work. Here he is doing it, and still making the story itself exquisite in its seeming simplicity.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I think that the Faerie of SoWM quite literally is Tolkien's Faerie, but that's because Tolkien seems to have had a particular notion of what faerie was/is. I think that his Faerie, rather than being an Otherworld place was in fact the imagination, the realm within people. The star in SoWM could represent the imagination and the passing on of this could represent the encouragement of further generations to explore the Faerie within.

This seems to run slightly counter to Tolkien's statement:

The King ... devised the token or insigne of the silver star, devised it or revived it. His own insigne was a brilliant star upon the forehead. The token was a very small representation of this. Those who wore it were thus accredited (as if they were stamped with a crown and OHMS!) and received the guidance and guard of all Elvenfolk, as being in the King's service or in his favour. But it remained the King's property, and was not transferable, nor heritable

Thus the star Smith wore on his forehead was a symbol of the authority of the King of Faery within Faery, a passport as it were.

I don't know that Faerie itself would have no respect for such a notion as Art. Much of the point of SoWM seems to be that Faery does indeed care deeply about human Art. But of course now we run into the issue of "your Faery or my Faery?" Still, if we're discussing Tolkien's conception of Faery, we ought to at least give it its head insofar as it's Tolkien's story and theme, and see if his point is not valid.


On Other stuff from the essay:

Also he intended to make a very long stay in Wootton including in his plans the making of at least two Great Cakes, which would be memorable, and leaving behind a tradition of a long 'reign' of light colour and mirth, as well as culinary excellence, together with the rumour that this was due to a beneficent intrusion from Faery. It was therefore necessary to allow time for him to appear to age in human fashion at an at least credible rate.

This seems odd to me. There was in fact little hint of a rumour, except perhaps in the family of Smith. So rather than allowing for a rumour, it seems that Alf's slow aging was meant to quiet any rumour of help from Faery. Or am I missing something?

Another question I have that didn't seem to bother Tolkien was, why is Ned dependent upon his father? Why can he not go to Outer Faery? He is, after all, descended from Rider, and from Rose of Walton. How is he "one precisely of the practical and plain normal men and workers whose enlightenment and vivification was one of the objects of the King's plan"?