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Old 10-11-2002, 07:42 AM   #64
Bęthberry
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I must begin with apologies to lmp, for taking this discussion so far away from the faerie elements around the Shire, but, if you bear with me, I hope to bring it 'round eventually.

Davem,

*curtsies a polite greeting on a first meeting*

I appreciate your wish to defend Tolkien against what could be perceived as feminist criticism (a defense I would be in sympathy with) but let me take a look at some specifics of your argument.

Quote:
Find ANY female characters in any book from that, pre-feminist period who are as well developed & strong as Eowyn, Galadriel, Luthien. They don't exist. You can only judge him in relation to the other writers around at the time & previously. Also, its important to remember that he was writing an 'epic romance' along the lines of Morte D'Arthur, or the Faerie Queene, which has its own rules & forms.
Actually, that list is quite long: Clarissa Harlowe, Moll Flanders, Roxana, Anne Eliot, Emma, Lady Castlewood, Becky Sharpe, Shirley Keeldar, Lucy Snowe, Maggie Tulliver, Dorothea Brooke, Gwendolyn Harleth, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, ... limiting the list to just English novels of the 'realism' the 18th and 19th centuries and omitting Dickens and some interesting lesser novelists.

It is, to my mind, quite a mistake to think that feminists of the twentieth century have an exclusive voice in speaking of and for female characters or that modern and post-modern literature alone has created strong female characters. I am not, speaking philosophically, a feminist and in fact I despise their (alleged) logic.

Then, in consideration of medieval literature, there is Cryseyde and the Wife of Bath; the Morte d'Arthur, with its elevation of adultery into an idealised literary form, is not, I would think, germaine to Tolkien's interests. And The Faerie Queene raises some interesting points, both because it is an allegory, which Tolkien averts, and because of the difficulties with the historical references to Elizabeth I, Mary of Scotland, the Spanish defeat etc. That one-on-one link between symbol and historical referent can be a problem.

In all fairness, however, my comments here were limited to Goldberry alone; I have made no reference to Galadriel, Arwen, or Eowyn. And those comments about Goldberry were really to point to a problem in constructing the character. They are probably related to other posters' frustrations with Tom's nonsensical verse: how to allude to the more symbolic elements of both Tom and Goldberry without falling into the trap of allegory. (Letter 153 identifies Tolkien's intention to give Tom a ridiculous name and particulars as a way of fending off allegory.)

I think Tolkien was brilliantly original in his handling of the Persephone myth in Goldberry and I wish the particular nature of his 'rewriting' were more generally respected and admired, for it can suggest much, IMHO, about his legendarium. It is the grounding of the character in the homey domestic routines which are circumscribed by Tolkien's own culture, time and place, that cause me regret.

I'm a greedy reader; I would have wanted more, because for other characters Tolkien does give us more. Perhaps I need to constrain my appetite. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

lmp, I hope these last comments provide a way of bringing the discussion back to the Shire: there is mythology in the Old Forest which characterizes it in a way uniquely different from the Shire or other geographical places in LOTR.

Regards to all,
Bethberry

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]
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