The Lord of the Bible?

[Boromir88]

Mansun, if it felt like anyone was ridiculing your opinion I apologize for myself, and the rest, because I'm sure that was not anyone's intent.

I've just been trying to get across davem's point. It isn't the "Lord of the Bible," it isn't "Beowulf of the Rings," it is The Lord of the Ring's, a story of it's own. If you find similarities that's good, but I got the impression that you were saying Tolkien stole and/or borrowed from the Bible. Where I'm disagreeing because someone can certainly not see anything biblical related to the Lord of the Rings, and still be just as 'right' as someone who does.

Equally dangerous to free thinking is to say "Elrond is Elrond and should only be seen as Elrond. No outside connections, coincidental or not, should be considered, even if only for amusement."

Fea, you have been saying some wise and truly cogent remarks but this time I'm going to actually have to disagree with you. If someone has no desire to make connections to the 'real' life, or the 'real history,' that's perfectly up to them. If they only look at Elrond as Elrond of Lord of the Rings, I don't see how that is 'dangerous to free thinking.' It makes me wonder how boring this person's life is that he/she couldn't possibly have found a 'connection,' but it's not dangerous to how anyone else thinks of Elrond.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

If someone has no desire to make connections to the 'real' life, or the 'real history,' that's perfectly up to them.

I'll certainly agree with that. Far be it for me to force a connection no matter what the context. My only point is that if people really have no interest in making the connections, why haunt this thread at all? It seems a disappointing waste of time and energy, as well as a rather negative activity for all involved.

I think it would be a brilliantly fun exercise to explore the literature Tolkien might have drawn from, Bible included. Not the well known ideas that influenced his story, but the underlying inspiration. When I have more time, and that's a thought that makes me laugh sadly, I think it would a terribly exciting study to make. Literature as a form of psychosociology. How the human mind works as an individual entity and in group situations; how society influences art, as well as art's influence on society. Surely I can't be the only person with a distinct fascination pertaining to the study of ideas with very little practical value?

It's an interesting experience to see the connections that minds make, both author and reader. Why quash them? I'd rather cosset them, cuddle them, perhaps even nuzzle them, and take notes to see what they grow into.

Originally Posted by davem

All of which gets us precisely nowhere it seems to me.

When you travel, do you always find the quickest route from beginning to end? Do you never drive roads upon which you've never been, simply to see where they go and enjoy the brand new view? Do you never take a walk and think "Maybe today I'll turn left, instead of right, just because I can."? No lovingly pointless meandering for the sheer sake of not having to be anywhere?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

I think it would be a brilliantly fun exercise to explore the literature Tolkien might have drawn from, Bible included. Not the well known ideas that influenced his story, but the underlying inspiration. When I have more time, and that's a thought that makes me laugh sadly, I think it would a terribly exciting study to make. Literature as a form of psychosociology. How the human mind works as an individual entity and in group situations; how society influences art, as well as art's influence on society. Surely I can't be the only person with a distinct fascination pertaining to the study of ideas with very little practical value?

Possibly. Yet Tolkien warns against dismantling the Tower to see where the stones of which it is built originally came from. The Tower was built so that its builder could climb to the top & look out on the Sea.

There are two approaches to such things: where it came from & what it was built for. It seems to me that Tolkien's purpose was not to construct a puzzle to be fathomed out, but a work of Art (or if you prefer a story) principally intended to move the reader, to entertain him or her.

I can play this game of sources & inspirations well enough - I did it for much of the CbC read through, but found that by the end I had not really gotten very far or gained very much. Increasingly I don't see any value in it. If others do then that's fine for them, & I have no desire to stop them doing that. However I do see the danger that this process of dismantling the story to find out how it came to be will leave you only with a pile of old stones & deprived of sight of the Sea.

But each to their own...

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by davem

There are two approaches to such things: where it came from & what it was built for. It seems to me that Tolkien's purpose was not to construct a puzzle to be fathomed out, but a work of Art (or if you prefer a story) principally intended to move the reader, to entertain him or her.

Exactly! Thanks Davem. You put it much more nicely than I as I tried to make the same point.

A work of art / literature can't be analysed into pieces that would convey the exactly same meaning. Happily so.

To re-write the old phrase: a whole is more than the sum of it's parts, and a work of art is more than the ingredients even the author thought consciously of...

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Sure. But can you not analyze things without losing the magic? That's not a rhetorical question. Can't you go through something and study it without interest being lost through the findings of the answers? Just because we now know why the sun rises every morning, does that decrease the beauty of dawn? Does knowledge of the origins of lightening take away from the sheer ecstasy that is watching a storm come in and rage above you?

It's like metaphysicists appreciating the finer points of creationism by learning the details of creation. In such concise study, you either fail or succeed to find things, but surely you learn nonetheless.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Sure. But can you not analyze things without losing the magic? That's not a rhetorical question. Can't you go through something and study it without interest being lost through the findings of the answers? Just because we now know why the sun rises every morning, does that decrease the beauty of dawn? Does knowledge of the origins of lightening take away from the sheer ecstasy that is watching a storm come in and rage above you?.

Does knowing where Leonardo obtained his paints improve your appreciation of the Mona Lisa?

Well, it may do, I suppose.

If you're that way inclined.

I don't see the connection.

Of course, he must have obtained his paints, & canvas, & brushes somewhere (or made them himself perhaps). And I'm sure there's a really interesting story behind that for Art students, but I think its a whole other story, & nothing to do with the Mona Lisa, except very tangentially.

I don't get what you plan to do with this other story about LotR once you get it. It wouldn't be difficult to find Tolkien's sources of inspiration - everything from Northern Myth & Icelandic Sagas & the Bible, to personal experiences of being orphaned & fighting in a war, through Morris' romances, Lonrot's Kalevala, right up to Kipling's Rewards & Fairies & Wyke-Smith's 'Snergs' among much other stuff.

If I knew what relevance it would have to you maybe I'd be more sympathetic to your endevour. But if all it is is just a matter of finding out what his sources were then I have to say that for me what he did is of much greater importance than what he used.

EDIT

In Tolkien Studies volume 2 Dale Nelson wrote a piece attempting to show how Tolkien's descriptions of Mordor were possibly influenced by descriptions of industrial towns in Dicken's Old Curiosity Shop. It is four pages long & is full of 'it may seems unlikely, but's & 'it is possible that's, & in the end tells us that Tolkien may have read said book & may have been influenced by it. In a note to the essay the author states that 'Whatever else Tolkien read by Dickens he must have read the first chapter of The Pickwick Papers (please compare, he begs, Bilbo's speech at the Long Expected Party with Mr Pickwick's oration at the end of the first chapter of PP).

So, what this piece in a respected journal of Tolkien studies tells us is that Tolkien might possibly have read some Dickens & he might possibly have been influenced by some descriptions in those books. Of course, he might not have read any Dickens apart from the first chapter of PP in which case the whole piece is a waste of space.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Does knowing where Leonardo obtained his paints improve your appreciation of the Mona Lisa?

Vastly.

Think on it: say that paints were terribly hard to come by several hundred years ago for an impoverished dozenth or so child of poor parents. Say that canvases are quite equally difficult to find.

Think of how resourceful that person would have to be not only to acquire supplies, but to find the time in which to use them.

Think of how close Leonardo may have come to never having painted the Mona Lisa at all. Do you not further your appreciation of the art before you by knowing what went into it and how, without those things, it never could have come to be?

Without the benefit of smooth transition, I'd like also to say that at this point, I have more interest in Tolkien than I do in his work. What made him tick. What inspired him. What he wrote and why he wrote it. I'm fascinated with writers in general. They have a certain something to them. A writer whose work I read recently said that nobody becomes an artist unless they have to. I'm interested in why people have to. What underlying reasons Tolkien had for what he wrote. I've been pondering Leaf by Niggle, which I finally read, for days now.

Art catches my breath and takes me on wild adventures through realities unguessed. The magic captures me and stays with me.

But people are equally enthralling. Delving into what goes through minds is my equivilant to sifting through a pile of jewels with each piece more enchanting than the last.

Tolkien was a great writer. But I'm interested in the man, not the image of him. I'm curious about how he thought and why he thought it. If I can learn more about humanity by studying the things humans do, say, and make, cool.