Metareferences and Intertextuality.

[Sapphire_Flame]

Originally Posted by A_Brandybuck

One example is the ring.

I was reading Plato's Republic and came across something rather interesting:

According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.

I don't know if this was an influence to Tolkein in any way, but it struck me as being very relevent to the topic at hand.

On the subject of Beowulf, in a video documentary on Tolkien that I have, it mentions that, in the scene where Gandalf and company arrive at the doors of Meduseld, Tolkien inserted word for word some of the dialogue from a similar scene in Beowulf; in fact, the entire incident at the doors of Meduself was strongly based on that scene in Beowulf. I good example of intertextuality, I thought.

Great thread, Boromir!

Abedithon le,

~ Saphy ~

[davem]

Not sure it belongs here, but something Tolkien wrote about Ents did strike me. I'll need to quote a bit from one of my recent CbC posts:

So, Tolkien has invented the Ents, but hasn’t come up with an account of them. It seems like he knew they were there, but had no idea where they had come from. In fact, in letter 157 he says:

'I always felt something ought to be done about the peculair Anglo-Saxon word ent'. Note, not 'something could be done' but ought to be done.

To me this says that Tolkien was not only using some old ideas/themes because he was struck by them in some way, he was doing it deliberately, because it ought to be done. This clearly goes back to his original intent of recreating England's lost mythology. 'ents' were a part of A-S mythology, even if little or nothing about them had survived beyond the name. But Tolkien felt they were important to our ancestors, whatever they had been, so he had to find some way to incorporate them into the mythology for England he was writing.

Shippey has also shown how other things in the Legendarium were incorporated for the same reason - like the Eddaic Dwarves already mentioned, or the unexplained account in the same work of the different kinds of Elves - Light Elves, Dark Elves, etc. In ancient Northerm myth there were these different kinds of Elves, but if there ever was any explanation of why some were 'Light' & some were 'Dark' it has been lost. As Shippey shows - specifically regarding the Elves issue - was to try & explain this difference. The difference was there in the myths, Tolkien was attempting to create (or perhaps 're-create' as he was always trying to find 'what really happened') a story which would acount for this difference is Elvish types. (See Shippey's essay 'Light-Elves, Dark-Elves & Others: Tolkien's Elvish Problem' in Tolkien Studies vol1)

In short, I think Tolkien did take things from earlier myths, legends & stories, both consciously & unconsciously, but he also took somethings because he felt he should - because something ought to be done with those things.

[A_Brandybuck]

Originally Posted by davem

'I always felt something ought to be done about the peculair Anglo-Saxon word ent'. Note, not 'something could be done' but ought to be done.

I have used this quote already in the Chapter-by-Chapter-section, but it is helpful here, too.
This is from a footnote in Letter #163.

Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called 'Treebeard', from Treebeard's first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (except for labour pains) almost like reading some one else's work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the 'unconscious' for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till 'what really happened' came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their pan in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the 'male' and 'female' attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening.

Tolkien describes en detail, where the word ent came. He also described, that he included them 'unconsciously'. Thus he included them not deliberately. Not until with hindsight he knew, where they came from.
But davem's conclusion could fit still. That have to do with Tolkien style of writing. The story came often from his mind 'unconsciously'. I cannot explain that very well, but I hope you will understand.
davem said, that he did create the ents, because it fits an Anglo-Saxon mythology. Tolkien was very interested in all kinds of mythologies and old Anglo-Saxon literature. So he read a lot and knew a lot. Regarding the style of writing, his mind could have included the aspect of trees marching to war 'unconsciuously' based of the experiences he had with the literature. Not until after that he noticed what he had done.
The key-aspect is here, his style of writing. He wrote all down without knowing, where it came. He often said, that the story has developed itself.
Hope you understand what I wanted to say. ;-)

[Gurthang]

I understand perfectly. Tolkien didn't think about putting stuff like trees marching or Atlantis(Numenor) into his writings. They were just sitting in the back of his head, and then came out into the story. When the story was being composed smoothly, the influence of other works he had read came out.

Tolkien was a master at this. He soaked up all the good parts of Macbeth, Atlantis, Beowulf, the Edda, and countless other works, and used what he had absorbed to write a really beautiful tale. I agree that he was a master of both metareference and intertextuality, and that's what keeps us in ME. When we read it for the first time, the story wasn't something we'd seen before, but it still seemed... almost familiar.

One thing I'd like to bring up is that there comes a point when some people look at writings and say, 'Hey that looks like....'. Immediately rumors of plagiarism fly. There is a rather fine line between plagiarism and metareference, and its a pretty big deal when an author crosses it.

Tolkien never came near that line, but still used metareference extensively. That's why we love LOTR so much, it sort of brings all the best together.