Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Which mythologies, exactly, are based on the word of one person?

My argument was based on a conjecture, that if some myths are based on various religious beliefs which are in turn related to a one important individual, then these myths can be traced to one person. At least at this moment, I don't have the knowledge to be more specific.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

And I do hope I have provided a bit more humour for Raynor.

I am much in debt to all the participants on this thread that provide, willingly or not, delightfully amusing arguments .

Originally Posted by davem

Its impossible to trace any mythology back to an individual - as Tolkien points out in OFS.

Where in OFS did he say that?

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

From a narratological point of view, the idea that mythologies derive their power from the representation of religious belief is too limiting. Such an explanation does not really provide, for instance, an explanation of the power of narrative in our culture, which supposedly does not tremble in caves, but climbs in them for sport and leisure. What might be more important in terms of mythologies is not their truth factor (that is, their semantic content) but their psychological value. Mythologies may have derived their power from the importance of story telling to humans. It is the narrative act which gives mythologies their coherence and significance. Anyone who has ever been to a funeral will understand how those left behind use stories to deal with their grief and to celebrate the life that has passed. Story telling is a hugely important aspect of the human mind, both for individuals and for the group, be it familial, local, tribal, national, or world.

I believe yours and Child's approach to the subject is much better than the one I pursued (the parallels with religious myths). To emphasise the "inventive" aspect of the myths, I would say the following passage from the same chapter of the Biography is relevant:

You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a ‘tree’ until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.

In this light, are we, as humans, to apply "literary" rights over formulations of truth? We might have "professional" reasons (or rather excuses) to do that, but that would be missing the point of the works of the "blessed legend-makers" that "kindle the heart with legendary fire". To make another paraphrase of Mythopoeia, in Paradise the eye error will not see, for error lies not in sound but in the tuneless voice.

[Bêthberry]

I can't find that source now where Tolkien says he felt like he was merely recording and not creating. I'm sure you folks with the pulse of the Letters and HoMe at your fingertip can find that passage, particularly if you think you can work it round to your side of things as the context and recipient and date must be pondered like the entrails of sacrificial animals.

For now, here's a very eloquent statement from a letter to Unwin. It's the letter where Tollkien talks about grace appearing "in mythological form"and where "Allegory and Story meet[. . .] somewhere in Truth." (bolding mine)

Originally Posted by Letter 109, 31 July 1947

Well, I have talked quite long enough about my own follies. The thing is to finish the thing as devised and then let it be judged. But forgive me! It is written in my life-blood, such as that is, thick or thin; and I can no other. I fear it must stand or fall as it substantially is. It would be idle to pretend that I do not greatly desire publication, since a solitary art is no art; nor that I have not a pleasure in praise, with as little vanity as fallen man can manage (he has not much more share in his writings than in his children of the body, but it is something to have a function; yet the chief thing is to complete one's work, as far as completion has any real sense.

As for putting "ahead" literary things over "formulations of truth", I'd go with what Tolkien said about the nature of mankind as subcreators in OFS.

[Raynor]

The passage in question appears after the much quoted paragraph about the mythology to be dedicated to England:

Originally Posted by Letter #131

The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.

Of course, such an overweening purpose did not develop all at once. The mere stories were the thing. They arose in my mind as 'given' things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew. An absorbing, though continually interrupted labour (especially since, even apart from the necessities of life, the mind would wing to the other pole and spend itself on the linguistics): yet always I had the sense of recording what was already 'there', somewhere: not of 'inventing'.

[davem]

Where in OFS did he say that?

Let us take what looks like a clear case of Olympian nature-myth: the Norse god Thorr. His name is Thunder, of which Thorr is the Norse form; and it is not difficult to interpret his hammer, Miollnir, as lightning. Yet Thorr has (as far as our late records go) a very marked character, or personality, which cannot be found in thunder or in lightning, even though some details can, as it were, be related to these natural phenomena: for instance, his red beard, his loud voice and violent temper, his blundering and smashing strength. None the less it is asking a question without much meaning, if we inquire: Which came first, nature allegories about personalized thunder in the mountains, splitting rocks and trees; or stories about an irascible, not very clever, redbeard farmer, of a strength beyond common measure, a person (in all but mere stature) very like the Northern farmers, the bœndr by whom Thorr was chiefly beloved? To a picture of such a man Thorr may be held to have “dwindled,” or On Fairy Stories from it the god may be held to have been enlarged. But I doubt whether either view is right—not by itself, not if you insist that one of these things must precede the other. It is more reasonable to suppose that the farmer popped up in the very moment when Thunder got a voice and face; that there was a distant growl of thunder in the hills every time a storyteller heard a farmer in a rage.

As to the 'Not inventing but receiving' thing. I don't think Tolkien ever made that statement publicly - or if he did that it was anything more than a way of referring to his 'muse'. I've lost count of the number of writers who have claimed that once they started writing their story 'wrote itself' & that the characters 'took on a life of their own'.

I don't think there's a one that wouldn't sue for plagiarism anyone who wrote a sequel to one of their books. And why? Because however you dress it up, & whatever clever arguments you use & words you twist, stealing is stealing.

[Raynor]

Davem, the passage you quoted has zero relevance to your claim "its impossible to trace any mythology back to an individual - as Tolkien points out in OFS". As far as I can tell, it discusses the subject of a story, not its authorship.

I don't think there's a one that wouldn't sue for plagiarism anyone who wrote a sequel to one of their books. And why? Because however you dress it up, & whatever clever arguments you use & words you twist, stealing is stealing.

I disagree. If I would write a book, I would definitely be thrilled if someone else picked up on it and write a sequel; I would hold the same to be true for a good deal of my friends. Not all writers are in it for the fame, the money or whatever other perks come with 'intelectual property rights'. Some would be actually pleased to see that their message got across and that it begins to have a life of his own.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Raynor

I disagree. If I would write a book, I would definitely be thrilled if someone else picked up on it and write a sequel; I would hold the same to be true for a good deal of my friends. Not all writers are in it for the fame, the money or whatever other perks come with 'intelectual property rights'. Some would be actually pleased to see that their message got across and that it begins to have a life of his own.

You do it then, if you are silly enough. Sorry but after the journey I have had to endure this morning with some of Britain's finest examples of scum I am not going to put up with silliness gently.

If you really do believe that All Property Is Theft then what about I wholescale copy your posts and post them as my own work elsewhere? maybe even put them in a pamphlet of some kind and self-publish it for profit? Would you like it if another University student say copied your work and handed it on?

Of course in this day and age it is not surprising that we follow the ideas of folk like Barthes who believed the Author Is Dead and we should have a free-for-all on intellectual property. After all, we live in a society where the young do not respect the old, the rich are not kind to the poor, the chav steals from the working person etc....Such intellectual ideas are OK with the sandal wearing Islington set as hey, man, they have the trust fund to fall back on, and like, man, they don't need the dough anyway, yeahhhhh.... while all around them other people who do not feel the same see millennia-old moral codes such as Do Not Steal crumble into dust.

Course, following Barthes idea is rarely followed to the letter. Firstly as if I was to copy out one of his works and pass it off as my own, the All Property Is Theft high-mindedness would soon disappear as the lawyers came rolling in to take some royalties (not that Barthes would see any, he was knocked down by a laundry van ). Funny how in the Real World people actually DO want to make some money from their work. Although in Cloud Cuckoo Land...

And secondly - if you are on here propounding the theories of Barthes, then kindly go right now and burn all your copies of Letters, of the Biography, in fact of anything which might make you think for one second of the Author. or you are a hypocrite.

But then that is the essential downfall of Barthes and his ilk, and their theories and why they are coming to a close at last. People cannot reconcile looking at what the author says with having to accept he is dead - though they are quite happy, thank you very much, to be allowed to Say What I Like And Like What I Ruddy Well Say. Sorry guys, but even Stevie Wonder could see right through the double standards of that one

And finally if we have folk saying this:

Not all writers are in it for the fame, the money or whatever other perks come with 'intelectual property rights'.

Then what on earth is this thread still doing open?! Surely You Already Have The Opportunity To Write Fan-Fic?! is all that needs to be said. Now stop Bellyaching and go back to your desk and flipping write some, you moaning minnies!

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

You do it then, if you are silly enough.

I truly wonder, for how long does this notion of literary rights exist? Were all the writers, from the dawn of time of literature, born with it? And if not, were they silly for writting without expecting others to treat their work as untouchable?

If you really do believe that All Property Is Theft then what about I wholescale copy your posts and post them as my own work elsewhere? maybe even put them in a pamphlet of some kind and self-publish it for profit? Would you like it if another University student say copied your work and handed it on?

Anyone can go ahead and do that for my posts; they have my blessing, and it won't affect my sleep at night. I would actually be quite pleased if my thoughts are worthy of repetition in other forums, or of publishing, or of being quoted in an University environment. Conditional joy is a source of suffering .

And secondly - if you are on here propounding the theories of Barthes, then kindly go right now and burn all your copies of Letters, of the Biography, in fact of anything which might make you think for one second of the Author. or you are a hypocrite.

I hope that your flow of unjustified personal remarks will stop with your last post. I am not acquainted with the ideas of Barthes; but you pose a false dilemma, between participating with new stories to a particular universe, and valuing the contribution of the initial author; the two can perfectly coexist, without implying any fault of character on behalf of the new writer.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I wasn't going to weigh in on this again, but.....

Just to reiterate, I am not really interested in what is going to happen tomorrow or in the next 100 years. My interest in and reading of fanfiction is minimal. My concern lies on a broader scale. I feel this issue boils down to one central question: to what extent can/will the Legendarium be regarded as mythology and/or legend 500 years from now. Myth/legend can legitimately be told, retold, and expanded. No one, for example, would call Thomas Malory or T. H. White "fanficton" writers or look down their noses at them because they stole ideas from someone else. No poster on this thread (myself included) can answer that question with certainty, but I think it is a legitimate exercise (as Davem has done) to ask in what ways the Legendarium comes close to qualifying as "mythology" and in what ways it does not.

Davem,

You point to legitimate distinctions between the Legendarium and other forms of myth. However, I feel you stress these differences to the exclusion of some very important similarities. Specifically, I think that your proposed "tests" for determining what is myth and what is not fail to take into account the very complex and tangled nature of any mythology in terms of its creation and transmission. Your tests rest on certain assumptions about "natural myth" that I don't feel hold true.

Let's start with the question of "who" creates a myth. You see a stark line between "natural" mythology, which is created by "many" authors, versus the Legendarium, which you describe as the product of a single mind and, therefore, totally different. In reality, that distinction is not so clear cut. In 98% of the mythologies in our world, there are two phases of creation. First comes the oral tradition--verbal folklore and its transmission--that normally involves a multiplicity of tellers in a variety of settings. However, the process of telling, retelling, and creating does not stop there. The second phase is when the myth is reshaped , formalized, and most frequently put into writing. Almost always, this involves one or more specific individuals who take the older material and its many divergent and conflicting stories; make significant changes and choices; and eventually come out with a unified narrative, one that is loosely based on the old but which may be strikingly different in terms of emphasis, characters, and plotline. These differences may be so great that the author virtually creates a new myth.

Just look at the Illiad and Odyssey. With few exceptions, classical scholars have come to belive that Homer was a real person who made significant changes to the oral tradition of Greece/Asia Minor and thereby created the 24 books of the Illiad and the 24 books of the Odyssey. (Some have suggested that one writer was responsible for the Illiad and another for the Odyssey but 95% of recent scholarship is agreed that each was the work of a single author, and that this individual put them through multiple revisions before the final draft was produced.) Moreover, most classicists conclude that this involved much more than the simple retelling of an old story: the changes made by Homer were so significant that he virtually created a new story.

We can find the same process of creation and transmission if we look at Norse mythology. What started as loose oral tradition crafted by many minds was formulated and put to paper in the ninth through the twelfth centuries in what came to be known as the Elder (Poetic) Edda and the Younger or Prose Edda. In some cases, we know the names of the specific author.

The second phase of creation when the myth is sorted out by one or more specific persons and set down on paper is absolutely essential. Oral and folkloric transmission is not enough; it is the genius of a Homer or a Snorri (or a Tolkien) that allows the myth to be transformed and passed on to future generations. Without that step, without that specific person, we would be left in the dark.

While there are obvious differences between the role of Homer and Snorri on one hand, and Tolkien on the other, there are also points of similarity that should not be ignored. You have suggested that these works are different because the "natural" myths were based on an historical truth, while Tolkien's world was purely fantasy. It is true that there is a tiny grain of historical truth at the core of the Illiad and the Odyssey but 95% of the characters and episodes in those 48 books are not historical; they are fantasy--the product of Homer's imagination based on the earlier oral tradition. Thus, while Tolkien's Legendarium is "less historical" than Homer's poems, that difference is not as sharp as your posts suggest. Secondly, as Shippey and others have shown, Tolkien draws very heavily on the older mythic creations for his own subcreations. Names, races, themes, symbols--you name it--he derived them from existing myths that reach back into the oral tradition. Is this so different from what Homer and Snorri did?

Secondly, I am not comfortable with your assessment of how JRRT viewed his own work: first seeing it as myth but then consciously rejecting that formula as a result of what happened during the war. As a philologist, Tolkien was always careful about language. In the published Letters, right up to the end of his life, he referred to his writings as "mythology". Why would he use this word if he had rejected the idea of his writings as mythology? In the interests of brevity, I'll give just one example. There is a letter written in 1964 to Christopher Bretherton. It is filled with phrases like this:

....In O(xford) I wrote a cosmogonical myth.
....The magic ring was the one obvious thing in the Hobbit that could be connected with my mythology.
.....so I brought all the stuff I had written on the originally unrelated legends of Numenor into relation with the main mythology.

Altogether, he used the words "mythology" and "legend" five times in this letter when talking about his own writings. I don't think he would have loosely thrown around these terms unless they had some meaning behind them.

Another point that bears a closer look is that of belief, especially"religious belief", and its relation to Tolkien's writings. The gist of what you are saying seems to be that Tolkien cnosciously wrote fantasy. Since he did not believe these writings were "true", they could not be true myth.

I agree with your premise. At the core of a myth must lie a modicum of truth and belief. If those elements are missing, the Legendarium is not any form of myth whatever words Tolkien used to describe it. I sat and scratched my head over this for a while, but it was Bethberry's post that set off bells in my head. (Thank you. )

I can't find that source now where Tolkien says he felt like he was merely recording and not creating. I'm sure you folks with the pulse of the Letters and HoMe at your fingertip can find that passage, particularly if you think you can work it round to your side of things as the context and recipient and date must be pondered like the entrails of sacrificial animals.

Just take a look at a letter written to Carole Batten-Phelps in 1971. I am going to quote it at some length, because it is directly pertinent to this discussion of whether or not Tolkien believed what he was saying was true, and exactly where the Legendarium was coming from (the italics are Tolkien's):

I am very grateful for your remarks on the critics and for your account of your personal delight in the Lord of the Rings. You write in terms of such high praise that [to] accept it with just a 'thank you' might seem complacently conceited, though actually it only makes me wonder how this has been achieved--by me. Of course the book was written to please myself (at different levels), and as an experiment in the arts of long narrative and of inducing "Secondary Belief". It was written slowly and with great care for detail, & finally emerged as a Frameless Picture: a searchlight as it were on a brief episode in history, and on a small part of our Middle-earth, surrounded by the glimmer of limitless extensions in time and space. Very well: that may explain to some extent why it 'feels' like history; why it was accepted for publication' and why it has proved readable for a large number of very different kinds of people. But it does not fully explain what has actually happened. Looking back on the wholly unexpected things that have followed its publication--beginning at once with the appearance of Vol. I--I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world had been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost forgotten sunlight had poured down again. As if indeed the horns of Hope had been heard again, as Pippin heard them suddenly at the absolute nadir of the fortunes of the West. But How? and Why?

I think I can now guess what Gandalf would reply. A few years ago I was visited in Oxford by a man whose name I have forgotten (though I believe he was well-known.) He had been much struck by the curious way in which many old pictures seemed to him to have been designed to illustrate The Lord of the Rings long before its time. He brought one or two reproductions. I think he wanted at first simply to discover whether my imagination had fed on pictures, as it clealy had been by cetainkinds of literature and languages. When it became obvious that , unless I was a liar, I had never seen the pictures before and was not well acquainted with pictorial Art, he fell silent. I became aware that he was looking fixedly at me. suddenly he said: "Of course you don't suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?"

Poor Gandalf! I was too well acquainted with G. to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: "No, I don't suppose so any longer." I have never since been able to suppose so. An alarming conclusion for for an old philologist to draw concerning his private amusement. But not one that should puff any one up who considers the imperfections of 'chosen instruments', and indeed what sometimes seems their lamentable unfitness for the purpose.

The contents of this letter has always been mind-boggling to me. Obviously, Tolkien did not worship Manwe or believe that he actually existed, but on some level, there was belief: the belief that the Legendarium was not simply coming out of his own human brain but out of somewhere else. Tolkien's religious beliefs are such that he expresses this in terms of being a "chosen" instrument presumably of providence. Perhaps a number of us would feel more comfortable using terminology and images that draw on Jung. But, either way, aren't we talking about belief...the same kinds of belief that lies behind "natural myth"? What do we do with this letter? How else can we understand the sentiments that are expressed here?

And that isn't even getting into the question of the dreams of Atlantis that came to form the core of the Numenor myth!

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Davem, the passage you quoted has zero relevance to your claim "its impossible to trace any mythology back to an individual - as Tolkien points out in OFS". As far as I can tell, it discusses the subject of a story, not its authorship.
.

No, its absolutely relevant. The hardest thing about having a discussion is when your opponent takes statements used in support of your argument literally - for instance if an advert for a new Jaguar sports car stated 'The New electric Blue Jaguar - 0 to 250 mph in less than 5 seconds! *(also available in red)' & I offered this as evidence that I'd seen a Red Jaguar doing 250mph. You, seemingly would come back & state 'The advert only states the Blue Jaguar can do 250 mph!'

Now, on to the Homer/Malory point. What both H&M did was to produce a work of literature, not myth. They used an existing mythic background but they were pretty free with it. As was Tolkien in his use of Nortern myth.

There are two points to make here. First no individual can invent a myth in the true sense - all an individual can do is tell a story. That story may be taken up into an existing set of other stories/traditions/lore & be absorbed, adding something new to the mix. Second, there is a difference between Myth & revelation. One person may recieve a revelation & go on to found a religion, but that it not the same thing at all as a mythology.

From this perspective it is neither here nor there that Tolkien 'believed' that in some sense his creation was 'true'. It would not be a 'myth' in the real sense unless a whole people shared that belief. If one person believes 'x' its an idiosyncracy, if a hundred people believe it its a cult. If a few thousand people believe it, its a religion. What is isn't, in any of those cases, is a myth in the true sense.

Now, as for Tolkien being happy for other's to write & publish new M-e stories with any kind of 'official' status, I can only reiterate my earlier point that

HE DIDN'T PLACE HIS WORKS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IN HIS WILL.

He could have done. In fact what he did was bequeath his unpublished works to his son, to whom he gave absolute control, even to the point of authorising him to destory them in whole or in part if he so chose. Does this seem to anyone evidence that Tolkien wanted sequels to his work?

I also accept that Tolkien used the term 'mythology' to refer to his work in various places - most of them in private correspondence, & I can only read it as a 'shorthand' way of referring to his creation. There aren't many other words one could use to communicate the idea. Most of his correspondents would have no-more knowledge of what a 'Legendarium was than Brian's mother had of what a 'balm' was:

Mandy: What is myrrh, anyway?
Wise Man 3: It is a valuable balm.
Mandy: A balm, what are you giving him a balm for? It might bite him.
Wise Man 3: What?
Mandy: It's a dangerous animal. Quick, throw it in the trough.

[Raynor]

What more do you want?

What we already have, I guess. Freedom to decide each for ourselves what we consider allowable, appropriate, good in matters of art and culture. Regardless of the present scholar and judicial positions, be they worldwide adopted or not.

No, its absolutely relevant. The hardest thing about having a discussion is when your opponent takes statements used in support of your argument literally - for instance if an advert for a new Jaguar sports car stated 'The New electric Blue Jaguar - 0 to 250 mph in less than 5 seconds! *(also available in red)' & I offered this as evidence that I'd seen a Red Jaguar doing 250mph. You, seemingly would come back & state 'The advert only states the Blue Jaguar can do 250 mph!'

Now, on to the Homer/Malory point.

I fail to see the grounds for your generalisation, and presenting opinion as fact is not helpful. In that section, Tolkien talks about the fact that the "personality [of mythological heroes] can only be derrived from a person", that all the aspects, even those of gods, are created by humans.

The gods may derive their colour and beauty from the high splendours of nature, but it was Man who obtained these for them, abstracted them from sun and moon and cloud; their personality they get direct from him; the shadow or flicker of divinity that is upon them they receive through him from the invisible world, the Supernatural.

This is clearly a case of [conscious] invention of myths. Furthermore, at the begining of this chapter on the Origins (of fairy stories), he mentions that all the three possible origins (original invention, inheritance or diffusion) 'ultimately lead back to an inventor'. Taken figuratively or directly, neither of this passages constitute evidences of your position.