Myth vs History: How Tolkien's Tales came to Ring so True

Middle-Earth, Tolkien's epic fantasy world full of strange creatures and characters, mystics and heroes, the perfect escapism for those seeking a break from reality. These are all common sentiments about Tolkien's work but they are fundamentally misguided. Tolkien himself remained people often of the simple truth that he did not invent middle earth but that we, in fact, it has been here all along. From the Norse Midgard to the middle English midden-erd the idea that our world is somehow suspended in the middle of the cosmos, neither high nor low but somewhere in between has been a constant motif. Tolkien writes in his note on W.H. Auden's review of his book that "Middle Earth is not an imaginary world" and "the theatre of my tale is the earth" (Letters 183). Middle-earth is real then and its stories, history, but yet they are an imagined "historical period". How can Tolkien make both of these claims about his work without contradicting himself? The answer lies in one of his favorite concepts: Myth.

In his monumental letter to Milton Waldman in which he fully lays out his vision of Middle Earth Tolkien begins by confessing that the whole creation (technically sub-creation) grew out of a deep desire to create a mythology for his beloved England. It is in this passage that he perfectly sums -up the answer to this conundrum "An equally basic passion of mine ab Initio [Latin for from the beginning] was for Myth (not allegory!) and for fairy story and above all for heroic legend on the brink of fairy-tale and history" (Letters 133). This is a manifesto. Tolkien is striving to create a world that balances on the edge of fairy story and history and so we must look at the world of Arda wit that in mind.

First, let's look at the geography of his world. One of the strangest claims Tolkien made about his work was the idea of the latitudes of his locations lining up with real-European locations with the Shire lining up with England and Minas Tirith lining up with Florence. 

-One of the strangest claims Tolkien made about his work...

Some have jumped on this statement and others like it and created maps like the one above, but others have denounced this citing the impossible geography of Mordor as a clear indicator of its falsity. The fact is both sides are correct to an extent. Tolkien in attempting to create history created a map full of detail and deliberately gave it familiar attributes after all Middle Earth was long ago the shape of the world and so some aspects would remain although much that had once been known would be lost. It helps reinforce the idea that Tolkien may have just stumbled on a record of the forgotten ages of the deep past by giving it that unstated twinge of familiarity.

But there remains the problem of Mordor. Many have argued that it is strange that Tolkien who paid so much attention to detail would create such a geologically unrealistic landscape in Mordor. Tolkien, I think would find this amusing. First of all impossible is not a term that goes well with heroic legend and fairy story but secondly, I find t hard to believe that a man so dedicated to the accurate detail of his world that he revised his book so as to make the cycles of the moon line up or who created a correct topographic landscape complete with accurate erosion patterns (see Atlas of Middle Earth), would create a land like Mordor on accident. Tolkien is, of course, playing into the mythic side of Mordor. Mordor is the final destination, the epitome of evil on earth at the end of the third age, and the most impenetrable fortress in the world. Tolkien created a larger than life and impossible difficult terrain to reflect this. He is conveying much more vividly the true evil and peril that Frodo and Sam must face by using this terrain than if he simply limited himself to "geologically accurate topography". It's a prime example of Tolkien using Myth to convey deep Truth that he believes the facts just won't achieve.

Why is there a Red Book of Westmarch?

This brings us back to the dialogue that exists in all of Tolkien's works between mythology and history. Farmer Giles of Ham is, of course, the most on the nose with its very realistic chronology at the beginning which turns out to be nothing but references to other "mythic" stories. How can Tolkien be claiming both at once, at best he can claim to be writing myth but why does he have to keep using the term history about his works? Why is there a Red Book of Westmarch? What does he hope to gain by claiming to have translated not invented these stories?

The answer lies in confronting one of our Modern biases. In this day and age, when science and reason are all the rage we tend to want and believe only the cold-hard facts and dismiss anything that isn't concrete. But Tolkien is looking at Myth and Language and he understands that facts are only a part, a very small part it turns out, of the larger tale. The second part of The Notion Club Papers deals with this progression

"Starting from the beginnings of Language, we began to talk about legends of origins and cultural myths. Guildford and Markison began to have an argument about Corn-gods and the coming of divine kings or heroes over the sea"  (Tolkien, The Notion Club Papers (part two) pg 227). We, of course, have no idea if any of this is real, we have a depressing lack of cold-hard facts. But what we do have are countless legends of lands away west and a great civilization sunk beneath the waves. We have no concrete proof that the Numenoreans didn't exist either just a tale of the lost city of Atlantis.

"The coming of divine kings or heroes over the sea"

Tolkien is pointing out one of the key differences between myth and history. There are two types of truth according to Tolkien: facts which are true but hopelessly small in scale and application and others real Truth: the fundamental themes, morals, and patterns that govern and frame the fabric of the world's great ever-unfolding story. History captures s many of those true facts as it can an creates a picture from them, but who's to say that those facts from so long ago are really capturing the true story. Looking at Homer for example, is Achilles just a great warrior in nice armor or is it more real to look at his demigod status and heroic feats, neither reality is tangible to us, they are both equally foreign so why do we choose the one with" cold-hard facts" and not the one that preserved the story itself?

The great Hero Achilles

Instead, Tolkien wants to remind us that Myth is really the grand story of history without all the little facts to support it. It still captures the grand tale that that part of the great story told and contains the Truth therein. And for Tolkien that is infinitely more valuable than how one warrior's armor looked or how the "real" Achilles may have fared.

A historically accurate bronze age Achean warrior in full-armor

And so Tolkien decides to create a myth for his country by creating Middle Earth, and he chooses to balance wisps of history and great "fantastical" stories together because he understands what myth truly is and of course this is why he succeeds so spectacularly.

Abe West