tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post3251972037896860512..comments2023-11-07T06:20:12.181-08:00Comments on Tolkien: Medieval and Modern: An Anachronistic History"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"http://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-86236596410202051712014-06-04T20:53:59.512-07:002014-06-04T20:53:59.512-07:00I find your idea of non-linear history very intere...I find your idea of non-linear history very interesting, especially because the anachronisms which permeate the story would lose their humor if history did not move in a linear way. I think that perhaps Tolkien is arguing that history is linear but myth does not intersect history in a linear way and therefore complicates the picture. Myths grow over time and incorporate new pieces which are anachronistic when seen as coming from the time of their conception. However, Tolkien also seems to argue that if myths affect people, they can be more real than history. Therefore, I would argue that rather than Tolkien envisioning history as non-linear, he might see history as linear but less real than non-linear myths. <br /><br />In The Once and Future King, White also plays with this idea of history and myth. He starts out with something mythological (King Arthur), and places it anachronistically within history. I think that this shows the same idea that myth is non-linear when attempted to be placed within history. However, this non-linearity does not equal a complete lack of reality in both White and Tolkien. As Tolkien says in The Notion Club Papers, myths affect the primary world (p. 228). In some ways Arthur and Farmer Giles may be more real than linear history.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11432519401679890337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-17268190598183404202014-06-02T12:07:04.876-07:002014-06-02T12:07:04.876-07:00The assertion that "the ‘truth’ of a history ...The assertion that "the ‘truth’ of a history lies not in its factual content but in its inherent artistic worth as such: it is not past events that make history, but the stories that cultivate them" is very interesting. In some ways, it seems that Tolkien would be inclined to disagree with such a sentiment. I would point to his inclusion of massive genealogies and historical accounts of men, elves, and dwarves in the appendices of LOTR as an example of the importance hard facts and events. Furthermore, the usage of fragments seems indicative of solidified historical linkages importance to the truth of accounts. In fact, the use of anachronism seems to further push a rift between myth and history rather than complicating the relationship between the two. We know Farmer Giles couldn't have a blunderbuss if he lived when he is supposed to have lived. How then can we reconcile historical facts with the "truth" of this story? Obviously Tolkien's goal was to create a mythological history, but when analyzing the "truth" of the Story of Farmer Giles, we must question whether a mythological history is different than a factual history. There must be some relationship, but there also seems to be divergence at a point that makes the two at least partially irreconcilable on a fundamental level. <br /><br />BM McGuireAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08728495278662024624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-61187166034416882252014-04-24T17:45:05.638-07:002014-04-24T17:45:05.638-07:00I enjoyed your obviously well-researched explorati...I enjoyed your obviously well-researched exploration of the anachronisms of Farmer Giles but was especially impressed with your discussion of the blunderbuss in the penultimate paragraph. It called to mind the greatest and most famous out-of-place bit of Tolkien's writings, Tom Bombadil. Like the blunderbuss, Bombadil allows "fates to converge, random events to align," and he defeats some monsters as well, seemingly out of nowhere and with scant, and obscure, cause. Of course, Bombadil also has a unique relationship to time. He's impossibly old, the "eldest." Coupled with the relation between the events in Giles with the Christian calendar, it opens up larger questions about the nature of time -- mythic, historical, and liturgical -- in Tolkien's writings that I would love to pour through the books again to draw out. dyingsthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02087241514388178221noreply@blogger.com