Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?

[davem]

Re: 'A Mythology for England'.

Again, we have to go back to Tolkien the young man. One of Tolkien's great inspirations was Lonrot's Kalevala. The Kalevala was presented as 'Finland's mythology' - a 'mythology for Finland'. & it had a momentous effect on Finland - ultimately it proved to be the spark that produced Finland's independence. The nation was transformed - it got a mythic history of its own & that created a sense of national identity. The 'myth' rejuventated the people & gave them a new vision. The fact that it was to a great extent 'creative accounting' on Lonrot's part, & that he wasn't averse to 'inventing' & 'constructing' what he couldn't find, is not really the issue.

Tolkien wanted the same - for a while. He wanted to create not a wholly new mythology for England, but to draw together what had survived of ancient myth & legend. Tolkien believed that two things had devastated England's native mythology - the 'War' (ie the Norman Invasion) & the Industrial Revolution - the first by bringing in French influence/legends (of which the Arthurian Legends are the classic example, because its not the Celtic Arthur but the French version who took over. In other words, its Chretien's Arthur, rather than the Arthur of the Mabinogion's Culhwch & Olwen) |& the second by breaking up the closed rural communities which had preserved legends, folklore, & songs for so long.

Of course it could be argued that England never had the kind of complex, coherent mythology that Tolkien dreamed of 'recreating'. However, that's another question. The point is, he, & the TCBS dreamed of an English Mythology having the same effect on their own land that the Kalevala had had on Finland. There would be a new mythology built from the bricks that survived of the old. England would take up the myth, be inspired like the Finns, a sense of Englishness would inspire people to return to decency, morality & faith.

The TCBS was obliterated on the Somme - two of the four died, but the vision lived on. Tolkien clearly felt that he had an obligation to continue the work. He was invalided back to England with Trench Fever, & began The Book of Lost Tales, & continued on, developing the Silmarillion.

Yet, by the time of the Waldman letter, his 'crest had fallen', & by the time of the Second Edition of LotR he could state (in the Foreword to his most successful & famous work) that the book had 'no inner meaning or message'. The TCBS went to war driven by a desire to transform their country via a new 'mythic history' of its people. Thirty-odd years later Tolkien has, perhaps regretfully, left behind that desire. Fifteen or so years after that, when writing the Foreword to the Second Edition in the mid sixties, he could declare it was 'Art' & only itself - certainly not a 'mythology for England'. So why the change?

Well, certainly if Mythology had been shown to have a power for good via the Kalevala, it had also been shown to have a power for evil via Wagner & the Third Reich.

The problem with myths is their power. They are difficult to control & their effect is too unpredictable.