Surprising Literary Congruences

[littlemanpoet]

The other day I was reading in the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament Scripture (otherwise known as the historical books of the Hebrew Scripture), when a single phrase jumped out at me.

For the battle there was scattered over the face of the whole countryside, and the woods devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.

(For those interested to read the context, it's to be found in 2 Samuel 18.)

As usual, the writers of these works mention stuff like this matter-of-factly, giving no further description, no explanation. My imagination took off, imagining trees reaching their branches down and strangling or crushing various folk. But the writer doesn't say 'how'.

This of course reminds of Shakespeare's MacBeth with which Tolkien was disappointed and aimed to better with his Ents and the moving forest.

Two types of responses to this are coveted:
(1) responses to the particular incident related here;
(2) other surprising, unexpected literary congruences that you may have run across here and there that reminded you of Tolkien in some way.

I wait with bated breath......

[Durelin]

Very interesting topic, as usual!

Well, I naturally tend to think of Tolkien's Middle-earth whenever I read anything with a medieval setting. I've been reading Bernard Cornwell's The Last Kingdom, which definitely reminds me of Tolkien's works because it's English history: the invasion of the Danes. It's always striking to read nitty-gritty novels like this one and be thinking of Middle-earth because of the great contrast. In some ways, it's like entering in the same world, but then you hit a wall of...well, all the nasty stuff that made the Dark Ages the Dark Ages.

In the thread "LOTR - classist?" Selmo mentioned how they thought Tolkien had a "romantic" view of such history (here). My dad reminded me of this just earlier today, too. He was reading an excerpt from Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus, and remarked that "we've lost so much." Meanwhile he's reading about how soldiers brutally tortured and murdered peasants and ransacked towns during the Thirty Years' War. I think Tolkien was quite like this, in some ways. He harkened back to days that, now that they are long, long, long passed, can be seen as glorious. But it takes drawing a line between good and evil, light and dark for it to be viewed that way, and that's just what Tolkien does in LotR (and many people who call themselves "historians" do in their interpretations of history).

The stories of Middle-earth are "romantic," and in some ways actually "romantic" in the sense of 18th century Romanticism. So when I read about the Danes and think of the Rohirrim, though it's such an obvious connection it still leaves me shocked. Practically all the Free Peoples are so pure in my mind because of Tolkien's presentation of the black and the white (in the big picture; there's plenty of grey if you look more closely).

The other thing I was considering while looking over parts of Ovid's Metamorphoses for my Latin exam was the conflict between immortals and mortals found throughout myth. Relationships between mortals and immortals, and the constant difficulty of differentiating between gods, lesser gods, demi-gods, and other mystical creatures like nymphs and such. Elves are in conflict with Men and Dwarves (Hobbits they don't really notice, of course) constantly. Elves are seen and often even portrayed as superior. Simple Hobbits like Sam seem to look at them as practically "gods." And of course there's the issues surrounding immortal-mortal relationships. What is a child who is produced from such a union? In myths we have half-gods who can visit Olympus pretty much as much as any regular god, we have half-gods that are mostly portrayed as superhuman, and then there are more spirit-like creatures, more a part of nature...etc. In ME, mortal or immortal seems to be their choice, and they cannot escape the title "Half-Elven."

Tolkien's works are really like classic storytelling, like a myth that was spoken orally written down with more flowery language that looks better printed on a page, but without that first step, and without the passing down of generations. So, I think there are innumerable parallels to be drawn...and so this topic should have more replies.

[littlemanpoet]

Give it time.

You bring up an interesting point in terms of the gods, lesser gods, demi-gods, and humans. Tolkien has more or less "cleaned up" all that mess. Or has he? I did read somewhere (Shippey's Greatest Author of 20th Century?) that Tolkien was, in part, in The Sil, attempting to do justice to that strange half-mythical bit in Genesis 6 where it talks about the sons of gods and daughters of men. If that is part of what Tolkien was about, it seems strange to me that the two lines of the Children of Eru are what he came up with.

As for "Dark Ages", from the Renaissance until the early 1800s, the entire period from the Fall of Rome until the Renaissance, were considered the Dark Ages. Then certain persons discovered that the Cathedrals had not sprung from the ground as miracles of God, but had actually been built by those very same people that they had until then believed to be hopelessly ignorant imbeciles, lost in the midst of the Dark Ages; lo and behold, they had actually built the cathedrals. The opinion of the medievals shot up in the 19th century. Since then the term "Dark Ages" has been reserved for the period between the Fall of Rome and roughly 1000, which was the close of the onslaughts of Vikings from the north, Muslims from the south, and Bulgars from the east.

So the Thirty Years' War, being after the Renaissance, was considered an Early Modern tragedy (atrocity?) that stemmed from the Religious Wars of the Reformation.

You do make an interesting point in regard to how the Free Peoples are all rather "free of stain". They are an exception as far as humans go in Middle Earth, however; there were the Varangians, Easterlings, and Haradrim, all who had been at one time or another, enslaved by Morgoth or one of his servants. That which rendered the Free Peoples (at least the Human variety) as relatively "free of stain" was contact with either the Elves, or with Numenoreans (who themselves had been heavily influenced by Elves).

In place of Religious Wars Tolkien sets up the Dark Lords and their minions versus the Free Peoples. How much similarity, however, is there, between the struggles of early Europe against Viking, Muslim, and Bulgar, ... and ... the struggles of Arnor against Sauron's minions?

So I'm not quite convinced that Tolkien had such a romantic view of history. I think it might be more accurate to say that Tolkien used what is known about history to create his feigned history, necessarily altering things to fit his Dark Lord versus Free Peoples set-up.

[Durelin]

Sorry, I didn't mean to connect the Thirty Years' War with the Dark Ages, though I guess I just flowed right into it from talking about the Dark Ages... And though I do like sticking with the 'old ways' quite a lot.

Really, I suppose whether or not Tolkien's view of history is "romantic" or not is far too relative to talk about. The sort of literature Tolkien wrote is so vastly different from other types, like this The Last Kingdom that I'm reading, that scaling properly what is "more" or "less romantic" is pretty difficult. I mean, in Cornwell's novel, the English captive of the Danes is conflicted because he starts liking life with the Danes quite a lot more than he liked his life with the English. And the way each is presented, it makes it seem like a toss up. In Tolkien's works, you don't even get that sort of close-up, I think. At least, it's not right there on the page - perhaps everything's there for the reader to take it that step further, but it's not all there.

Is that something we've "lost" in literature perhaps, that we can look back at "romantically" and longingly: subtlety in literature that leaves things to the reader's imagination? Are authors now indulging in their own pleasures more than the possible readers' pleasures? Ooh, sounds like a piece from another familiar endless debate...

(All I have time for...unfortunate Latin exam... An aspiring Classics major should be more excited maybe? Pshaw. An exam is an exam. Work is work. It is blah.)

[littlemanpoet]

Hmmmm...... I think what you're starting to talk about is the evolution of storytelling. First there was myth-as-religion. It was about the gods and their effect upon humans (to put things blindingly simplistically) It lost its necessary link to religion and became Story in its own right when interest switched from the gods to the heroes (usually demi-gods). Now we have Adventure and Legend. Then the demi-gods give way to heroes who are humans with special ability, whether related to knighthood or royalty or magic.

In the late 18th century there sprung the novel. The word itself means "new". I imagine it was at first an adjective, modifying "story". A 'novel story'. In it, plot is no longer necessarily the driving force. Now, characters are invested with interest in their own right, and the characters are normal humans, not heroes (necessarily). The novel has continued to evolve since Sir Walter Raleigh, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, etc., until we have the modern and still evolving novel in which any aspect of story can be turned on its head, be it plot, character, theme, or setting, etc.

Tolkien didn't like anything written after Chaucer, except fantasy and science fiction, as he is known to have enjoyed William Morris and Isaace Asimov. These two genres are strongly idea- and plot- oriented compared to the modern novel. Surely, characters have to be interesting, but seldom will the story be structured around character. So actually, our rpg's are rather more like the modern novel and less like myth. I wonder about that sometimes.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by lmp

Tolkien didn't like anything written after Chaucer, except fantasy and science fiction, as he is known to have enjoyed William Morris and Isaace Asimov. These two genres are strongly idea- and plot- oriented compared to the modern novel. Surely, characters have to be interesting, but seldom will the story be structured around character.

He wasn't 'just' into sci-fi and fantasy. Did you know Tolkien was an avid fan of detective novels? He also liked Iris Murdoch, and her novels are strongly character driven; she based her plots around psychological development of her characters. He had also read James Joyce. And he was a huge fan of She; in this the character of Ayesha has sometimes been said to be a very Freudian depiction and examination of womanhood and men's reactions to femininity. He also liked Auden's work, reciprocating the appreciation he got from him (as happened with Murdoch). Tolkien's tastes were wide ranging (indeed, catholic) and cannot be pinned down to one 'era' or genre. He was very well read and fully aware of contemporary works of all kinds (davem has acquired the very set of Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which he bought for his son), as he would have to be heading up the English department of a prestigious university!

The term Dark Ages makes me smile as they were anything but Dark. As the Romans left Britain we had a strong Celtic culture with many rich kingdoms including Elmet and Rheged, traces of which resonate to this day. There were languages, including Cymric, or North Welsh, spoken by the people of Lancashire and Cumbria and which remains in dialect and place names today. There were the Triads, a series of fragments written as prompts to the bards for storytelling, and I'd recommened anyone read these as they are touching and poetic; like the fragments we find in Unfinished Tales and Tolkien's unfinished work they hint at greater legends, longer stories... And of course during the Dark Ages was the flowering of the celtic church with its peculiar mystery, monasteries at Whithorn, Whitby, Jarrow, people like Caedmon, Bede and Hild... I think Tolkien was trying to get back to that rich and yet coldly glacial culture that has been almost buried following 1066.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

He was very well read and fully aware of contemporary works of all kinds (davem has acquired the very set of Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which he bought for his son), as he would have to be heading up the English department of a prestigious university!

Gibbons (1737-1794) is hardly contemporary with Tolkien's life. His Decline and Fall was a standard historical text, particularly for those of a particular view of history. And before we assume that the Oxford Department of English provided some kind of immediate entree to contemporary literature, we should take a close look at the curriculum during Tolkien's tenure there.

It was almost a matter of pride that modern, that is, contemporary literature was not "taught," the assumption being that one would read it at one's own leisure. What this led to in many cases was the perpetuation of the "Greats"--Greek and Roman literature--at the expense of indiginous English literature or Germanic literature. And, yes, Tolkien did read English literature of his time and age, but his tastes ran to the earlier years as well as away from Greek and Latin. (His characterisation of modern English prose is a particular delight.) This, I would say, is the genius of his work, that he could bring those early forms of northern story and language into the twentieth century.

But stuffy old Oxford in Tolkien's day modern or contemporary? Heavens!

[Lalwendë]

Why, it's quite Dickensian around here. I'm reminded of Scrooge McPedant and his three ghosts of Dictionaries past, present and future.



Did I not say contemporary, not indeed 'contemporary with Tolkien's life'? Having received a British University h'education I am fully commensurate with the knowledge that 'contemporary' in Tolkien's world meant of the modern age. Thus at my own University Richardson, Fielding etc and literature post-Shakespeare was 'contemporary'.

'Not contemporary' would include Chaucer and older works. Which brings me on to the matter of keeping on saying Tolkien didn't like literature post-Chaucer. He did. The evidence is written down for all to see if we care to actually read works about Tolkien. It's time to debunk the bunkum.

In the documentary Tolkien In Oxford he is filmed taking down a book from his shelves and quoting the following as 'key' to Lord of the Rings:

There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.

That's Simone de Beauvoir, that is.

And Tolkien also loved Homer.

D'oh!

[Bêthberry]

Heaven forbid that us post-colonial ponders just don't adhere to the same meanings as da gov'nor what are on t'other side o' ta pond.

Of course Tolkien enjoyed post-Chaucerian, post-Shakesperian, post-eighteenth century literature. Not all of it though, and not certain aspects of it. But certainly some of it, yes.

It might be a stretch to find any kind of congruence with Joyce's Ulysses, though. Tolkien didn't use French publishers. It might be fun to write a stream of consience version of Eowyn a la Mrs. Dalloway or Mrs. Ramsay, though. Actually, Galadriel might be more fun--you--er, one-- could incorporate the young radical turning into the beloved matriarch/authority figure.