tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post5783257425108005331..comments2023-11-07T06:20:12.181-08:00Comments on Tolkien: Medieval and Modern: Tolkien and Time Travel"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"http://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-61609675253658225242014-04-13T20:51:37.056-07:002014-04-13T20:51:37.056-07:00“Enough detail to make interesting, but not enough...“Enough detail to make interesting, but not enough detail to make explicit.” Yes, this is exactly how I feel about many of our readings—but how dull, otherwise! You give us here a very fine summary of Dunne's work, and of philology-as-time-travel for Tolkien. I particularly liked where you note how the fairy tales and etymologies are similar, in that both require an internally consistent historical narrative. <br /><br />I think this is a rather fine phrasing: “Over time, it is modified and retold in new ways, gradually becoming quite distinct from its origins but nevertheless still hiding within its progressive iterations influence from and information about each successive generation that has contributed to its formation.” You are here referring to myth, but this resonated very strongly with me as fundamental to the practice of history as a discipline! We are forced to recognize how unlikely it is that we will ever know exactly “what happened”—all we have is fragments, like “hey diddle diddle”! I am convinced that this is in Tolkien's mind as well as he thinks through the relationships between myth, history, and language—and you describe this very well in your conclusion about Tolkien's dream-state as a way to combine narrative fragments in a way that feels “authentic” because they invoke, in your words, “spirit of the past that it captures.”<br /><br />--Jenna"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"https://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.com