Dragons - How did they come to be?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

My point is HoM-e is a bad (if not useless) resource for anyone wanting definitive statements, let alone a coherent, internally self-consistent history & physics/metaphysics of M-e. You find the same thing with the letters - people take the letter to Michael about women :

Quote:
Their gift is to be receptive, stimulated, fertilised (in many other matters than the physical) by the male. Every teacher knows that. How quickly an intelligent woman can be taught, grasp his ideas, see his point - & how they can go no further when they leave his hand... etc

as a definitive statement of his views. However, as David Doughan shows in his article in the latest Mallorn Tolkien's views can be seen to change over the years, & his depiction of Erendis seems to reflect that. And he was certainly very proud that he had a daughter, as well as sons at Oxford - plus, as Doughan points out, one can hardly imagine the writer of a letter like that quoting Simone de Bovoir with such approval as he did in the 'Tolkien in Oxford' documentary. Tolkien changed as an individual. His attitudes changed, & his fiction reflected that.

It's amazing how many fathers change their minds/attitudes when faced with a daughter's abilities and education.

As always with any writer's letters, it is helpful to keep in mind the recipient of the correspondence. That dynamic differs from the dynamic between writer and audience of a story, of a scholarly article, of a documentary, of an interview. None of those secondary sources really supplant the primary ones, anyway.