tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post4770996662863850938..comments2023-11-07T06:20:12.181-08:00Comments on Tolkien: Medieval and Modern: Tradition and Temptation: Tolkien's Elves in Middle-Earth"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"http://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-53772758331952998322014-05-26T11:54:58.311-07:002014-05-26T11:54:58.311-07:00Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your post! I was also really ...Hi Jeff,<br /><br />Thanks for your post! I was also really interested in this topic and felt our discussion in class was much too brief. <br /><br />I think your last sentence touches on what Tolkien was trying to say in Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. Finrod says<br /><br />"I was thinking that by the Second Children we might have been delivered from death. For ever as we spoke of death being a division of the united, I thought in my heart of a death that is not so: but the ending of both. For that is what lies before us, so far as our reason could see: the completion of Arda and its end, and therefore also of us children of Arda... And then suddenly I beheld as a vision Arda Remade" (319). <br /><br />It would seem as if Tolkien is trying to say that through the union of the Eldar and Men, the Eldar and their children can finally share the Gift of Iluvatar. The two races can be united, and share the gift together. Finrod believes that Men are on Arda with the errand to "heal the Marring of Arda...as agents of the magnificence of Eru, to enlarge the Music and surpass the Vision of the World!" (318). We mentioned in class that a key defining factor of Men is that they are creators through sex and reproduction. So reading this into Finrod's claim, it is through sex and reproduction with the Elves that Men may perhaps fulfill a greater purpose and truly heal Arda. Arda is Marred by Melkor, and in turn so were both races that now envy each other. Through marriages of Elves and Men, perhaps those hurts can be healed. In addition, the Eldar who choose to be with men die the death of men, not the death of Elves that is alluded to in The Simarillion where "dying they are gathered to the halls of Mandos in Valinor, whence they may in time return [i.e. reincarnating through their children]" (42). So in this way, these marriages really are, as you say, the key to salvation because then the Elves and their offspring would be able to escape the confines of Middle Earth. <br /><br />Alicia <br />achen324https://www.blogger.com/profile/02352573283174512015noreply@blogger.com