![]() |
![]() |
Visit The *EVEN NEWER* Barrow-Downs Photo Page |
|
![]() |
#1 | |
Eagle of the Star
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Sarmisegethuza
Posts: 1,058
![]() |
Quote:
__________________
"May the wicked become good. May the good obtain peace. May the peaceful be freed from bonds. May the freed set others free." |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#2 | |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
![]() ![]() |
Quote:
__________________
Gordon's alive!
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#3 |
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
![]() ![]() |
I think that by its nature no mythology can be the product of a single mind. A mythology is a cultural product. Its what a people do with experiences/events. Its impossible to trace any mythology back to an individual - as Tolkien points out in OFS. In origin all myths were 'religious'. They were what a people believed to be true, stories about the gods they worshipped.
No-one in our world ever believed that the stories of M-e were true. No-one in our world ever worshipped the Valar. We all know that M-e is a fictional creation. It may be that in the far distant future people will have turned M-e into a mythology - but, at the risk of stating the glaringly obvious, that would be a terrible thing, & could only be a result of some kind of disaster. We, thousands of years after Homer wrote, know that The Illiad is 'fiction', & four centuries after Shakespeare we haven't turned MacBeth into a God. Being an optimist (in the long term) as regards the human race, I'm pretty sure that our decendants a thousand years down the line will still have access to some kind of computerised database/library system, & will be reading The Sil & HoM-e on e-books & not sitting round fires in dank caves worshipping Manwe - or believing that we did. I even have faith that most of them will realise that there are other authors out there, whose works are just as interesting as Tolkien's & actually choose to read some of them, rather than sitting around in despair over the fact that they can't spend their whole existence reading stories about Middle-earth by A.N. Other-Writer. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#4 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
I really want to thank Child for her post which has so strongly stimulated this most recent aspect of the topic at hand. And I want to thank davem for his insistence on defining the word mythology. Definitions are very helpful in forwarding discussion. They do not, however, necessarily influence human behaviour at the time of the act. (To use an analogy: I suppose there are some people who might stop and refer to their illustrated copy of the Kama Sutra and then return to the activity they were engaged in, but I doubt if many would find that kind of engagement really pleasurable, more an exercise in logistics. )
It is the modern scholars of mythology who davem references who have given us this sense of tribal superstitions and which claim that the religious aspects were paramount the ancient socieities. That is not to say these scholars have an objectively true explanation of what the mythologies meant: what they have is a definition/understanding which satisfies them in their time. They could be wrong--after all, social scientists display the same kind of scepticism which hard scientists claim. 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. So what this could well mean to our exploration of mythology in Tolkien is that mythology may not necessarily have to have this component of belief system. It is the telling of the stories which is important, not whether the speakers actually think that Manwe or Yavanna (or their REB counterparts, as the case may be) will keep watch over them. Ritual is not limited to religion, and increasingly we understand that ritual (as opposed to fetish) has a place even in a modern or post modern world. So, if it is true that a mythology is not written by one mind, but by many over the telling, (and for the record, I don't think that Tolkien's work was written by one mind, but represents the creative response of one mind to the myriad reading that one mind did.) then what might be going on here is indeed what Child speculated: a coming together over story, with various hands providing aspects of that story. It is entirely possible that mythologies in the cultures of the 21st century need not have religious compoments in order for them to have power in the communities which tell them. It is the very fact that so many hands are engaging in the storytelling of Middle earth that proves Tolkien did create the story components of mythology. And I do hope I have provided a bit more humour for Raynor. And Fordim, who would have thought your canonicity thread would rise up again in new form?
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#5 |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
![]() ![]() |
But they aren't though.
Ther aren't thousands, hundreds or even dozens of minds engaged in telling Tolkien's stories. There is one. Tolkien. The only way you can start thinking along that track is if you accept the following: 1. That fan-fic is 'telling Tolkien's stories' - no matter how cruddy or how many Princess Tippy Toes characters childish minds chuck at you. 2. You believe post-modern/structuralist/insanity theory that nothing has any meaning apart from what people decide to give to it. And if you do, beware! For the Four Horsemen of Theory Change are saddling up and ready to go in the form of Remodernism (see Stuckism, Tracy Emin, Billy Childish and Franz Ferdinand etc for further info) which reasserts the place of Meaning. 3. There's some vague chance that somewhere along the line, Tolkien fans will ever agree on how many Balrogs it takes to change a lightbulb. News. This will never happen. Why? We are nerds. Nerds by nature do not agree. They love nothing more than pedantry and feed on it like Ungoliant sucks on Light. 4. You must entirely suspend your sanity to think that Tolkien's work was written by davem, by me, by whoever reads it. Oh yes, and a mythology does not need to be religious either, it can be based on history but the important thing is that it is not written by one mind, and I have not got such need of Lithium yet that I have the delusion that I had any hand in writing Tolkien's stories. I read them, I interpret them, I imagine them. I do not, did not and cannot write them. Cut to the chase - lots of folk here write fan-fic and stuff like that. Perhaps they are being driven by their own daydreams of one day seeing that stuff in print? ![]()
__________________
Gordon's alive!
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#6 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 903
![]() |
Lalwende - your #3 item put a big smile on my face. That pretty much says it all.
ITs not just this particular site, but often when reading many internet chat sites I find these debates remind me of the great Emo Phillips story about God and religion. For those who may not have heard it before allow me - Quote:
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#7 | |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,330
![]() ![]() ![]() |
Quote:
Last edited by William Cloud Hicklin; 06-13-2007 at 10:16 AM. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#8 | |||||
Eagle of the Star
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Sarmisegethuza
Posts: 1,058
![]() |
Quote:
Quote:
![]() Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
"May the wicked become good. May the good obtain peace. May the peaceful be freed from bonds. May the freed set others free." |
|||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#9 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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) Quote:
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#10 | |
Eagle of the Star
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Sarmisegethuza
Posts: 1,058
![]() |
The passage in question appears after the much quoted paragraph about the mythology to be dedicated to England:
Quote:
__________________
"May the wicked become good. May the good obtain peace. May the peaceful be freed from bonds. May the freed set others free." |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#11 | ||
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
![]() ![]() |
Quote:
Quote:
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. |
||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#12 | |
Eagle of the Star
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Sarmisegethuza
Posts: 1,058
![]() |
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.
Quote:
__________________
"May the wicked become good. May the good obtain peace. May the peaceful be freed from bonds. May the freed set others free." |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|
|
![]() |