For the Love of Galadriel (Middle-earth’s Ultimate Muse?)

[Lalwendë]

Bethberry - Who can tell the intellectual reasons that Beth Russell had for using the term 'lovers'? But I would suspect that using such an evocative word would make your particular talk 'stand out' amongst the myriad other things to do at Tolkien 2005. As it happens, the talk was one of the very best so if she was indeed using it to be provocative and to attract attention, as davem has suggested, then I can forgive that.

And might I also add that many far more provocative talks were given at Tolkien 2005! *cough* a certain Hobbit talk *cough*

But I do think that even if Beth Russell wanted to attract our attention, then the content of her talk centred around the sense of Galadriel having 'lovers' in the sense of 'admirers', so it was not a misleading title. She did hint at the possibility that Feanor's admiration of Galadriel's hair could have had sinister connotations but this was very much a possibility, and one that had people talking afterwards.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

And, going along with your general theme, although Gimli admires Galadriel's beauty, it is NOT the beauty which first made him love her. It was her kind words, and repudiation of the general Elven antipathy towards the Dwarves. Note that we only hear Gimli speaking of her beauty AFTER she wins his heart, so to speak.

This is interesting. After all, why should Gimli find Galadriel beautiful in the sense that he found her attractive? Dwarves must have their own cultural notions of beauty, and maybe it is that he finds her graciousness and understanding to be what is truly beautiful about her?

Or do Dwarves have different cultural notions of beauty? Hmmm...