Tolkien is Not Yeats - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 02-19-2003, 08:55 PM

Cup o' mead for now, set the pipe down....

Yes, this will get around to the topic in a bit, bear with me my friends....

I've been reading a "Lives of the Great Composers" book written in 1970. I have found point after point that makes me think of all the jibes against Tolkien. You see, it runs like this. One of the underlying themes of this Composers book is that there were good, minor composers who were quite good at composing music that is quite enjoyable, but not first rate. It's the geniuses that compose first rate music, and the DIFFERENCE is that they have a hand in the development of music. That's another way of saying progress. What I find so funny is that the composers who were NOT geniuses are still being played today, and they made the music that everybody likes listening to. Not to say that a few of the geniuses' music isn't listened to, but Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Mendellsohn, Elgar, Ralph V. Williams, are still being enjoyed while you have to go to some conservatory to take in the music of Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, etc.

Here's the point: you have the progressives, and you have the traditionalists. Progressives tend to be liked be fellow progressives while traditionalists have this nasty habit of being liked by a huge number of intelligent people because their art has meaning for them. Thus you have Tolkien's poetry trashed by those who care about (sniff) "the progress of poetry" (sniff sniff). Fact is, Tolkien's poetry is VERY good. He was a master with words. He had fun with it in such great, fun stuff as 'nuncle Tim' and 'the man in the moon' (one of my favorites), and he was a powerful enough poet to produce such moving works as "The Seabell" and "The Road Goes Ever On" (another one of my favorites. Tolkien was a genius. He'll never be accepted by the progressives.

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Threaded Mode

02-19-2003, 08:55 PM	#11
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	Cup o' mead for now, set the pipe down.... Yes, this will get around to the topic in a bit, bear with me my friends.... I've been reading a "Lives of the Great Composers" book written in 1970. I have found point after point that makes me think of all the jibes against Tolkien. You see, it runs like this. One of the underlying themes of this Composers book is that there were good, minor composers who were quite good at composing music that is quite enjoyable, but not first rate. It's the geniuses that compose first rate music, and the DIFFERENCE is that they have a hand in the development of music. That's another way of saying progress. What I find so funny is that the composers who were NOT geniuses are still being played today, and they made the music that everybody likes listening to. Not to say that a few of the geniuses' music isn't listened to, but Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Mendellsohn, Elgar, Ralph V. Williams, are still being enjoyed while you have to go to some conservatory to take in the music of Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, etc. Here's the point: you have the progressives, and you have the traditionalists. Progressives tend to be liked be fellow progressives while traditionalists have this nasty habit of being liked by a huge number of intelligent people because their art has meaning for them. Thus you have Tolkien's poetry trashed by those who care about (sniff) "the progress of poetry" (sniff sniff). Fact is, Tolkien's poetry is VERY good. He was a master with words. He had fun with it in such great, fun stuff as 'nuncle Tim' and 'the man in the moon' (one of my favorites), and he was a powerful enough poet to produce such moving works as "The Seabell" and "The Road Goes Ever On" (another one of my favorites. Tolkien was a genius. He'll never be accepted by the progressives.