Quote:
|
Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
Would J.R.R. Tolkien have allowed such a work as CoH to be published as Christopher did? Or would JRRT have revised it so as to weave in a glimmer of hope? Who knows?
|
Clearly Tolkien saw CoH as one third of a First Age Trilogy, along with Beren & Luthien & The Tale of Gondolin, so I suspect CoH would have remained 'hopeless', but would have been read in the context of the other two Three Great Tales.
Yet it has not been. I take Legate's point about the context, but I also agree that CoH now stands without such a larger context
and neither do so many of us 'post Christians' . This is the point - the suffering in the world may be understandable in the larger context of Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Hinduism..... but remove that context & what one faces is as cruel & nihilistic as Morgoth.
Why did Turin fight - anger, spite against Morgoth, pride, self-aggrandizement, or just because he felt Morgoth was the biggest @£$%@* around & he wasn't going to get away with it if Turin had anything to do with it!
But the bigger point is, neither Eru nor the Valar actually step in to help him. Of course, with Morgoth & Glaurung making him the focus of their malice he has no chance - he needs divine help -
but he doesn't get it. He is left to deal with the horror & suffering of his house - & does it as best he may.
Turin is not an athiest - he acknowledges the existence of the Valar - he just considers them to be either useless or uncaring. They play no part in his thinking.
(Too rushed...)
EDIT
And of course, Tolkien wrote the Narn as we have it after completing LotR, so in terms of composition we are also dealing with a post-'religious' work. Tolkien tells the story of a great victory (LotR) first, & follows it up with a tale of despair & defeat without hope. I also note that the planned sequel to LotR also looked to be full of despair & lost hope. Was Tolkien disillusioned after end of the WWII? Did he look around him & see that his England was not about to return to Christianity (remember the hopes of the TCBS?)?
Is the world of CoH the world that Tolkien saw coming, the world of LotR the one that he now realised had passed away?