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

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by 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.

If you are talking about ascertaining with complete assurance Russell's authorial intent I would agree that could well be impossible.

However, to suggest that a lecturer would not, somewhere in the lecture, refer to or suggest how the title related to the actual lecture, seems a tad disingenuous to me--or perhaps I should say the claim lacks candor or frankness. Even something as mundane as "Well, now that I have all your attention..." would suggest humorously her real interest. But certainly the way she constructed her argument and her examples would go far towards clarifying what her interest was.

I certainly don't wish to belabour the point--and I can quite see how she could have used it flippantly--but none of you who were in attendance--you, Lal, or davem or Estelyn has answered my question: Why did Russell reject Estelyn's claim that Galadriel was a muse? Did Russell define 'muse' differently than Estelyn? Was the focus and purport of her lecture different from that of this thread? If we are to discuss whether Galadriel was "the ultimate muse", we ought to know what we mean by muse, what other options exist for the ways in which Galadriel is 'involved with' Middle-earth, who other candidates are. If Russell didn't see Galadriel as being the inspirator as Estelyn did, what did Russell see Galadriel as?

Originally Posted by Estelyn

I am and always have been a staunch advocate of using the word "love" (in this case, "lovers") broadly. It is only our time that has come to restrict it to a purely twosome relationship, including sex, thereby losing its many possibilities in the process.

With all due respect to your position, it is also possible to debate that 'love' was previously never used as broadly as you suggest, that it harboured an unspoken secret which was regarded as dirty and shameful. The English noun does more than double duty of course, standing in for eros, agape, charity, caritous, carnality, sensuality, chastity, benevolence, grace. The very fact that the same word can signify the opposites of the charity and carnality is itself very suggestive.

If it is true--and I think it can certainly be argued--that 'our time' has restricted the meaning of love to sexual love only, perhaps that is in itself evidence not of greater meaning in previous time but of the lack of openness in earlier uses of the word. Sometimes silence about a subject in fact speaks more loudly about its presence than direct acknowledgement would. Through coded language, restrictions, underscored omissions, sudden contradictions, greatly nuanced differences and arguments, the real or fabricated presence was danced around so much that it finally broke forth in torrents of public recognition and acknowledgement. There's a description of an elbow in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss that is astounding for its eroticism, and every word and every nuance as clean as any most prudish Victorian reader would want it.

But my point is not to insist upon any one particular use of 'lovers' which Estelyn cleverly disguised in her initial post. It was really just ruminating on why Russell rejected Esty's interpretation that Galadriel was a muse.