Melkor, Satan, and the Problem of Evil

            Though Tolkien denies any allegory in The Lord of the Rings, it is at time clear that at the very least there are parallels between it and other works, historical, fictional and religious. To me, his figure of Eru Illuvatar is meant, if not as an allegory for the Judeo-Christian God, to remind the reader of Him and have one thinking in that sphere. There are a number of similarities between the two, and to not compare the Creator that Tolkien believed in to the one he created seems a wasted opportunity.

            To start, both Eru Illuvatar and God are unique beings. In their worlds, there is no other being like them. They are all-knowing and all powerful, or at least so it seems for Eru and so doctrine states for God. Through their design is the Universe wrought. There are also key differences – Eru explicitly creates the Ainur, heavenly beings who assist him in creation, where God in the most widely accepted accounts of creation does all the work Himself. Nevertheless, heavenly beings at some point do come about in the form of the angels. Another similarity, the one I find most interesting, is the relationship each has with their favored “child” – God’s favored angel, Lucifer, and Eru Illuvatar’s favored Ainur, Melkor.

            Between these two figures there are again a number of parallels, even if they are not deliberate allegory. Both Lucifer and Melkor begin as the favored sons of their respective deities. Both have the seed of jealousy in their hearts, and before long both rebel against the will of the highest power. And thus is evil born into the world. Interestingly, both are also most often called by a different name after their rebellion -  Lucifer is Satan, and Melkor becomes Morgoth.

            There are differences here too, and they are important. While both rebel out of pride, Melkor’s rebellion originally is one of competition, not of rejection. He does not seek to destroy Eru’s works, not at first, but to add his own, better, unplanned creations to the divine song. Only later does he come to despise creation and desire its subjugation and destruction. As far as I have read in the Judeo-Christian tradition, there is no middle step for Lucifer: he goes from favored son to hateful destroyer without the attempt to add his own creation. His pride is different than Melkor’s at the beginning, though they end up in similar places.

            The issue around Lucifer and Melkor I find most interesting to discuss is the origin of their pride, and therefore their downfall and the subsequent birth of evil. In the case of Lucifer at least, my understanding of God is that He is all knowing and all powerful. He created all things exactly as they are, and therefore must have created Lucifer to be prideful. Can He, who is omniscient, have made an oversight, a mistake? This seems a contradiction; therefore God must have intentionally made Lucifer the way he is. I have seen many theological reckonings of this, the one that seems most sensible to me is that God created Lucifer to tempt humanity so that the free will he gave humanity would have any meaning. Without the ability to choose evil, the choice to live virtuously is meaningless. If truly He did see and plan for all of time, this is the only explanation that seems to me sufficient, though it is extraordinarily cruel towards Lucifer.

            The case of Melkor is more complicated for a number of reasons. For one, while it is implied that Eru Illuvatar is omniscient and omnipotent, it is not to my memory explicitly stated. Importantly, the free will and independence of the Ainur is implied to a degree that the angels’ is not. The Ainur seem to be the children, the companions of Eru whereas the angels are more God’s functionaries. This makes Melkor’s choice more meaningful. It doesn’t have to be preordained by Eru, he can invent it all of his own accord. Instead of the majesty of a vast, inscrutable plan, Eru’s mastery is shown in his effortless inclusion of Melkor’s discordant themes in his heavenly music. He adapts the unexpected and makes it part of the beautiful story that is Creation. Of course, it is entirely possible that Eru did just as it seems God must have, creating Melkor solely so that he would fall and introduce evil, and therefore meaningful choice.

            It is also technically possible that the opposite is true, and that God created Lucifer with free will that sparked his rebellion. The issue with this is of course that if God is all-knowing, then he would have known this would happen and then should, in theory, have just not created Lucifer. The doctrinal explanation of the clash of an omniscient God and free will, stemming from Augustine, doesn’t solve this issue entirely but it complicates it to the point of possibility. Augustine states that God’s omniscience is, in effect, knowing all of time without predetermining it. He can see all that will happen, but has not written it. We make our choices, and time progresses, but He sees it all in an instant, as if it was a single moment of time as we perceive it.

Therefore, He could know what Lucifer would do with his free will but not stop it, because that is the meaning of free will. This presents a separate problem, that of inaction. If God knew Lucifer would create evil, and had the opportunity to stop that, why didn’t He? Either he couldn’t stop it, meaning He isn’t all-powerful, or He didn’t, which implies that He wanted evil to exist. A complicated theological problem, and certainly not one I can untangle in 900-1200 words, but to me exactly the kind of thinking Tolkien would’ve wanted in his readers when he wrote a divine Creator so similar to his God, whose favored son creates evil in such a similar way.

—Sam Sobel

Name as Actuator and Substantiator

            Previously, in classes passed, we’ve identified a unique intellectual trajectory both in Tolkien’s own worldbuilding, and in his conception of the act of subcreation itself. This progression, which I will call Tolkienian evolution for sake of brevity, is the intellectual flow of language to myth, and then, from myth to history. While the relationship between all three of these elements of Tolkien’s Legendarium (and, these conceptual structures in the real world as well) are clearly bidirectional, it is also clear that Tolkien emulates this progression, and this evolution marks the conceptual aspects of his worldbuilding as well at the literal ones. This progression of language into myth into history was vital to Tolkien’s creative process and can explain much of the unique richness and depth that characterizes his worldbuilding. In his own words in a BBC Radio interview in 1964 (as Andrew Stump pointed out in our chat during class): “It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in my writing, always start with a name. Give me a name and it produces a story, not the other way about, normally.” This conceptual progression is meaningful specifically in our discussion of names. Names, for Tolkien, are able to actuate language, providing the definite meeting point where language creates myth, and myth creates history.

            Perhaps the clearest example of this is in Eärendil, a name which Tolkien describes (through a proxy character in The Notion Club Papers) as having come to him unbidden, through the Crist cycle of poetry. Tolkien, through Lowdham, describes the moment: “I felt a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English” (Sauron Defeated 236). Eärendil, of course, would become an eminent part of Tolkien’s legendarium, being also the father of the first king of Numenor, Elros, and Elrond. Interestingly, Eärendil also neatly embodies the progression discussed earlier: the purely linguistic name, Eärendil, leads to the mythological figures Eärendil and Elros, and finally, to the historical Elrond, and his status as a vital part of the history of the Second and Third Ages. Additional, Eärendil’s heritage traces backwards to Finwe and Indis, and his wife, Elwing, was saved by Ulmo, the Valar, who can be linked further back to Iru Eluvatar, bearing the full range from myth to history. This neatly sums up the way name actuates language: Eärendil, which stuck to Tolkien as interesting for mysterious, philological reasons, through name, set into action Numenor and Rivendell, the kingdoms of men and elves, and the history of Middle-Earth itself, and cascades backwards into myth, all the way back to Iru Eluvatar.  

            It is worthwhile for me to note that delineation between myth and history, in Tolkien’s fully-fleshed out Legendarium, is not quite binary. There is definitely a meaningful creative component to this distinction that one can trace through the first finished and public entries, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being historical and the prior events they allude to being mythical (especially in the deep past of the First Age and before). However, as Tolkien developed and published works predating this period, the broad distinction becomes less clear, though it is clear that Tolkien’s intellectual and creative progression followed from language to myth to history.

The way name can set language into action is not only relevant to the creative process of Middle-Earth’s creation, but also to the text of the creation itself. In my previous discussion post, I discussed how, in the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil can be considered a stand-in for Tolkien, and the Hobbits a stand-in for us, as readers. Through Tom Bombadil’s storytelling, the Hobbits are whisked into an ancient world of deep and mythic undercurrents seemingly impossible large in scope and grandeur. It is meaningful to revisit Tom’s encounters with the Hobbits with a renewed focus on naming.

For example, when Old Man Willow traps Merry, the Hobbits do not comprehend the tree as a living, conscious being until Tom gives it a name. Only then is what they assumed was brute matter rendered animate in their eyes. Another meaningful point of reference is how often Tom Bombadil states (and sings) his own name (certainly more than any other character in the Legendarium). These usages of name give their referents substance; Tom and Old Man Willow become real, to the Hobbits, and likewise, following the analogy, to the reader, when given name. This use of name can likewise be observed in Gollum’s/Smeagol’s use of third person (and their own name) in speech later in the text, wherein it reinforces and substantiates their identity. In this sense, naming not only actuates the creative evolution of Tolkien’s Work, but also substantiates the legendarium within The Lord of the Rings as well.

            Given that names, in this case, can substantiate, it is meaningful to look at Tolkien’s concept of real language versus simple code set out in The Notion Club Papers. Real language is relational, it has motivated similarity between its sonic qualities, its phonemes, and its referents. This, of course, also helps to explain how the internal consistency of languages in the text makes them real: for words with similar referents, or referents encapsulating over already-named referents, to have unrelated sounds associated with them, would make them code speech, not language. Names are what ground this relationality, making language real. This is worthwhile to relate back to Eärendil, and to the roots that emerged from this beautiful sonic name, becoming referents to love and to the Eastern Sea, which would then become roots for other parts of the language and other names. This clearly shows how names ground the relationality which makes language real.

            Revisiting Eärendil, it is worthwhile to note also that what attracted Tolkien to the name most, from The Notion Club Papers, are the sonic qualities of the name itself. There is clearly a relation between language and music in Tolkien’s legendarium, and in its most primal sense, music is what created the world (through Eru Iluvatar) and, in his Mythopoeia, language is what allows for sub-creation (through the primal application of adjectives). Thus, in this sense, names are linked to the fundamental, mysterious creative compulsion that can be placed before the progression from language to myth to history expressed before. Thereby, names do not only actuate language, but they can, in certain cases, predate and stimulate it.

Thanks for reading!

- MHK

Creating a Language for a History

An interesting question brought up in class discussion was the apparent contradiction between Tolkien’s attempts to cast Lord of the Rings as a historical work that is connected to our world and his insistence that the languages in Lord of the Rings are fully invented with no direct connection to any real-world languages or sources. If Tolkien claims that the Legendarium is a mythology for England and a lost history of our world how can the languages that serve as an origin point for the Legendarium be entirely disconnected from the languages and history of our world? Rather than claiming that his inventions are the origins of modern languages as he does with the “Hey Diddle Diddle” nursery rhyme, Tolkien aggressively shut down any attempt to find a connection between the names and languages of middle-earth and current language and myth. Would it not better support his conceit to incorporate the Volsupa and claim that it is a list of the dwarves in his story rather than deny any significant connection? Can the linguistic separation and historical connection between the Legendarium and our familiar reality coexist?

Part of the reason for Tolkien’s seemingly contradictory anger over the search for meaning in his languages might simply be possessiveness over his work. However, it also seems to be a response to a threat to the narrative of creation that he puts forth for the Legendarium that supports his historical aspirations. Tolkien wrote that his languages came first and from them grew the myths and stories. The progression of creation is reliant on the existent on his created languages, through which the “history” of Middle-Earth came to him. Speculation on the creation process and potential sources or connected meanings disrupt this proposed creation process. Obviously Tolkien did create the languages and the stories, but the idea that it seem historical and real was clearly important to Tolkien based on the frequency that he mentioned it in correspondences. If Tolkien derived names from Greek words or the Dwarves were taken wholesale from the Voluspa the order of the creation of the stories is disrupted. 

These speculations on linguistic meaning require that the language came from already existing history and mythology of our world rather than myth coming from the language. The internal consistency of Tolkien’s world would be less stable if there were so many connections to various sources of meaning. One way that Tolkien makes his work feel historical is with small jokes or references such as the suggestion that “Hey Diddle Diddle” is a fragment of a song Bilbo wrote. Tolkien could have responded similarly to speculation about the origin of the Dwarves names by claiming that the Voluspa is the remnants of the story of his Dwarves. I think he does not do so for a few reasons. The names of a significant number of characters is a far larger part of the story than a fairly insignificant song that appears only once in a book. Expanding the scholarly jokes to such an extent might have strained the idea of The Lord of the Rings as a lost history by making it too concrete or opening the way for an endless stream of connections and speculation. Once again it might have threatened Tolkien’s pride as a philologist in a way a small joke he made did not and additionally, many of the proposed points of connection that Tolkien railed against were perilously close to allegory. Claiming that a nursery rhyme came from a hobbit has no possible allegorical connections, but claiming that the name Endor is derived from the Bible seems to lead directly into a claim that the Lord of the Rings is a biblical allegory. 

     Tolkien’s insistence on the a historicity of his invented languages does not seem in significant contradiction with his attempts to make The Lord of the Rings feel historical and connected to our world. In fact in some ways the self-contained and unique nature of languages like Quenya and Sindarin is important to the narrative character of the books. The sense that the languages are complete despite the fragments that the reader is exposed to reinforces the historical character of the text. In the same way that all the appendices and in-text references to a undisclosed universe of history and knowledge makes the world feel rich and vast beyond the window provided by The Lord of the Rings, the glimpse of a unfamiliar but apparently complete language makes the world feel real and historical. The total uniqueness of the language and resultant fact that what fragments we are given in the text is incomprehensible without Tolkien’s help also elevates the feeling of a historical source. It feels like a long lost historical source without other sources for context in the appearance of some kind of translation and guess work around unfamiliar language. I also think that the internal consistency and distance from familiar modern language serves to preserve the distance Le Guin argues is so central to the fantasy genre. Even if Tolkien is committed to the framing of The Lord of the Rings as a historical narrative the style is clearly fantasy rather than historical or realistic fiction. Using an elvish language that is recognizably connected to a familiar language would have broken the sense of distance created by Tolkien’s use of archaisms. The fact that the languages are unique and the sole source of the stories being told means that everything has the same narrative feeling and texture, avoiding the slippage in style the Le Guin calls out in so many works of fantasy.  

-LBG

What’s in a name?

“The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter

When I tell you, a cat must have THREE

DIFFERENT NAMES”
– T.S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats

As we’ve discussed extensively in class, Tolkien has made the primacy of languages in the Legendarium very clear. In the famous letter 131, he states that “behind my stories is now a nexus of languages” (Letters, p. 143); later on, in the letter 294, he says explicitly that “a language requires a suitable habitation, and a history in which it can develop” (Letters, p. 375). This idea runs deep in Tolkien’s creative process, as he repeatedly claims that he first developed the languages (scientifically, as he asserts) and later on “discovered” the stories behind them: he seems to believe that a language cannot be “real” if it has no stories to sustain it. When we consider the case of invented languages like Esperanto this point certainly rings true: it is “a human language bereft of the inconveniences due to too many successive cooks […] the ideal artificial language” (Lost Road, p. 377) as Tolkien describes it. Esperanto does feel artificial (as in, not real) because it has no mythology behind it: as no one inherited this language and it carries no stories associated with its phonemes and structures, it is no wonder no one speaks it. This relationship between language and history, then, brings us to the question of names in Tolkien’s works. Back to letter 131, he claims that “out of these languages [he invented] are made nearly all the names that appear in my legends. This gives a certain character (a cohesion, a consistency of linguistic style, and an illusion of historicity) to the nomenclature” (Letters, p. 143). In the letter to Mr. Rang, he reaffirms this perception: “this construction [the nomenclature of LOTR], the product of very considerable thought and labor, has achieved (as I hoped) a verisimilitude, which assists probably in the ‘literary belief’ in the story as historical” (Letters, p. 379). That suffices to show that Tolkien’s interweaving of languages – names, in particular – and stories are a crucial aspect of his sub-creation, and that this process lends itself to fostering “secondary belief,” which is his goal all along. Now what does that tell us about the role of names?

First off, we need to consider the artistic aspect of languages and names to Tolkien, as it points to Tolkien’s broader understanding of epistemology. In many places, Tolkien makes it clear that he considers linguistic invention a form of art, and therefore the aesthetic dimension of languages (their “flavor” as he sometimes says) is very important to him. Indeed, back to the letter to Mr. Rang, he says that “this process of invention was/is a private enterprise undertaken to give pleasure to myself by giving expression to my personal linguistic ‘aesthetic’ or taste and its fluctuations” (Letters, p. 380). That is, Tolkien’s work is essentially grounded in the correct choice of phonemes and phonetic structures/combinations that give rise to his languages (and, downstream of this process, to his stories). However, this endeavor is not simply “code-making” as he says in the Night 67 of the Notion Club Papers. As Lowdham explains, there is a great degree of freedom when inventing a language and thus it is “difficult to fit meaning to any given sound-pattern” (Sauron Defeated, p. 238), but one is free to do so arbitrarily if one wants to – that would be simply code-making. Another thing entirely is "language-building," in which one needs to “find a relationship, sound plus sense, that satisfies, that is when made durable” (S.D, p. 239). With that in mind it is easy to understand why Tolkien chose the title “Lord of the Rings” to his work, because it contains the same phonemes as “cellar door,” a combination in which he found pleasure thanks to the association of form and sense it carries (as discussed in English and Welsh). It is also why Tolkien first invented (discovered?) the stories of the third age by scribbling “in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” in several languages in the 1930s, without knowing why it sounded so pleasing to him. All of this shows that Tolkien’s epistemology follows a pattern: phonemes, then sense, then stories.

This conception leads us to understand why Tolkien was so fascinated by the changes in the language across time, in the notion of language “not as a pure structure, without before and after, but as growth in time” (L.R., p. 378). The changes in the phonemes – through the actions of "many cooks" across time – paralleled the development of the stories of the peoples that spoke those particular languages, which explains Tolkien’s creation of the ambitious and complex Legendarium as a canvas in which his languages could grow. I think that this notion helps explain two things we discussed last class. First, it explains why Tolkien would always get frustrated when trying to create a complete etymology to his languages: it is precisely because they are so “organic” – that is, the stories affected them, and they affected the stories as Tolkien conceived them throughout the years. As Christopher says, he found itself in such a maze of references in his father’s works that the only way to determine a coherent sequence of events was following the philological changes themselves. Second, and most important, it is precisely because of the close intertwining of the languages and stories Tolkien created that he decried the practice of “root-hunting” (seeking external philological sources to find meaning in specific aspects of his literary corpus). As he insists in the letter to Mr. Rang, all of the outside sources of his nomenclature (which he did not invent) were mere “sound-sequence” inspirations derived from several real-world languages (except in the case of Earendil). In this sense, ‘Sauron’ bears no relationship with the Greek word for lizard because the name 'Sauron' was conceived specifically within Tolkien’s own linguistic systems. 

This close relationship between phonemes, sound, sense and stories are well-represented throughout Tolkien’s creations. In night 67 of the Notion Club Papers, for instance, Lowdham and Jeremy begin to “experience” the fall of Númenor, as if they were physically transported there as soon as they began to make sense of the Adunaic verses. Similarly, we can see this relationship when Frodo’s mind slips to other sceneries when he listens to the elven songs (which he didn’t even understand fully) in Rivendell; or when he and the hobbits travelled mentally to other places as Tom Bombadil told them his old stories. As for us, readers, isn’t this the exact feeling we have while reading LOTR? That is, we enter Middle Earth and feel the Secondary Reality as real when we read the Legendarium – we achieve, as Tolkien would say, "literary belief" through the effects that both language and the stories have on us.

Back to the question of names: our last class discussion indicates some clues as to what Tolkien is doing in this respect. In Dana Gioia’s poem Words, for instance, we read that “to name is to know and remember.” This notion that names are tied to knowledge and remembrance evokes Tolkien’s Mythopoeia when he says, “trees are not ‘trees,’ until so named and seen.” This means that names are, for Tolkien, a way to convey the stories of things and characters, a way to let us know them! As Peter Kreeft says (1), "things constitute a 'world' only by the creative word of the author, who names them." That is, the stories of the characters come alive through their names, and the names are what allow us to know these stories. The various names that Aragorn and Gandalf have among the many peoples of Middle-Earth, for one, reveal to us fragments of their adventures in the Legendarium. We get to know specific parts of their essence through those names – Aragorn means ‘noble king’ in Sindarin, but he is also known as ‘Strider’ in Westron. This may seem like a simple narrative device, but each of the names (and their philological construction) conveys us deeper insights into Aragorn’s history and personality, and shows us glimpses of the many events that he lived through. 

A final thought: I deliberately said “parts of their essence” above because I do not think that Tolkien believed that names conveyed the true essence of a character. Otherwise, why would he give many names to his characters? Would we be able to really get to know them, since we can only read the stories in English, as Tolkien translated the stories from Westron, which in turn might not even have contained their real names? I do not think so. I believe that Tolkien intended the Legendarium, as with all sub-creation, to give us refractions of one’s true essence, which is known only by God (the ultimate Author). If that holds true, Tolkien would reject Le Guin’s notion that true names give us power over other people – even though the Ents seem to allude to that danger to the hobbits. Having power over someone is precisely what the One Ring does and is definitely not a notion that Tolkien would ascribe to. 

- LR

External References:
(1) Peter Kreeft. 2005. The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings, p. 158.

How To Construct Reality: The Languages of The Lord of the Rings

The flavor of a language as Tolkien describes it, how it feels in one’s mouth, goes a long way to endearing one to it. Language, real language, is a sensory experience, “sound plus sense, that satisfies, that is when made durable,” as Lowdham in Tolkien’s The Notion Club Papers explains. That being said, the languages of Middle Earth are undeniably constructed in the sense that Tolkien invented them, whether he would like through Lowdham to have us believe that had an organic origin. Yet there is a sense when one reads The Lord of the Rings and other works within Middle Earth that the names and words of these languages make sense, feel organic to the characters, and in some sense real. So how does Tolkien construct his languages to be “real”? 

Let’s start with Tolkien’s letter to Mr. Rang where he repudiates his attempts to find significance in coincidental similarities with “real world” language systems. As he discusses in the first page of the letter, the process of inventing the languages of Middle Earth was “largely antecedent to the composing of legends and ‘histories’ in which these languages could be ‘realized.” This sentence gives us a clue into part of what makes a language real or become real for Tolkien, the legends and histories that surround them. Languages have their own histories and the coupling of sounds and senses that cement them into a durable realness come from these histories. Just as the languages of the Elves as described in “The Lhammas” move and change into the Lindar, Noldor, and Teleri into further divisions and iterations, their languages change with them and in so doing record that history. The phonetics play a key role in Tolkien’s languages of creating the environment through which the cultures who use these languages spring into being.

Here is where the adoption of phonemes from extant languages like Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Old English play into making the languages of Middle Earth real for readers. Tolkien makes it quite clear through Letter 297 that he constructs languages on a phonemic level and that any borrowing done was a matter of sounds that appealed to Tolkien. He creates languages that have an intuitive phonological sense to them, or in other words, they sound right. While he makes it clear that the exercise of building these languages was a matter of personal taste, by constructing them in a phonetically consistent way, Tolkien is crafting languages with intuition to them, that become organic through this intuition. Although we have yet to discuss in detail the relationship between “real” language and music, the grammar of a language, its intuitive sense of sound construction, is not unlike music theory. When a language works, it is like music and all of its parts come into harmony so that names and words come to fit into this weaving tapestry of rightness through their harmonious following of a grammar crafted by people.

So for the purposes of the reader, most of Tolkien’s languages are “real” in that they are spoken by his characters and have a history to them that has shaped them “organically” into the shapes they are in at any given moment. While the speakers of these languages are not existent outside of Tolkien’s world, the languages are just as real for the reader as any spoken languages in our world in that we can, just like Frodo, be taken in by the sounds of these languages and be in wonder of the histories they hold. Furthermore, with all the information Tolkien gives in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings as well as in “The Lhammas” and some of the letters, there is nothing stopping these languages being spoken in our world. In fact, take a look at footage of the Fellowship movie premiere, and you will see plenty of people conversing in admittedly not fluent Quenyan or Sindarin. Tolkien gives us detailed pronunciation guides in Appendix E and information on the phonological rules that determine these pronunciations, so why not use that information to speak the languages?  

That being said, Tolkien deliberately creates some languages to be artificial within Arda, such as Khuzdul given to the Dwarves by Aulë and Black Speech devised by Sauron. While both Khuzdul and Black Speech were constructed languages, there is a clear difference between Khuzdul and Black Speech in that the former is revered by the Dwarves and tied to their creation while the Orcs had existed prior to the creation of Black Speech and had already been cobbling together words from other languages so that there was too much regionalization in dialects for different tribes of Orcs to be able to communicate at all. Khuzdul is a marker of Dwarvish history and so they feel an affinity for it and preserve it as to preserve their origin. Black Speech was not unlike the Russification of the acquired states of the Soviet Union in that it had no link to the histories of the peoples it was given to and so it failed to catch on in colloquial use. Sauron proves the problem of constructed language in establishing a sense of realness that Tolkien avoids by establishing his “non-constructed” languages as created and developed by its speakers. While Tolkien’s languages cannot be so real as in The Notion Club Papers to have been discovered already real with an established history, he can create phonologically harmonious languages and then build the legends and histories around them as well as the speakers themselves to make them real enough. 

-Alyse

Ambiguity in LotR

Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien’s whole legendarium by extension, could be called a mastery of the fantasy genre for a variety of reasons. His story is inventive, his prose is simple yet powerful, but most importantly, every name and word has its own background or story. As we know, names aren’t picked from thin air on a whim or at random; they are carefully considered in the background of Middle Earth, and each place or person has a part to play, whether large or small. The origin of most of the Elvish words is pretty methodical, as Tolkien

devised them from within the historical structure, proceeding from the ‘bases’ or primitive stems, adding suffix or prefix or forming compounds, deciding (or, as he would have said, ‘finding out’) when the word came into the language, following through the regular changes of form that it would thus have undergone, and observing the possibilities of formal or semantic influence from other words in the course of its history. Such a word would then exist for him, and he would know it. As the whole system evolved and expanded, the possibilities for word and name became greater and greater (Lost Road 379).

This makes it seem like the meaning of most words in Lord of the Rings should be pretty straightforward, or at least a matter of there being one correct answer. In letter 347, a case of there only being one right answer occurs a few times, despite the fact that the other guesses seem to be plausible, as in response to the question of whether Aragorn can contain some reference to trees,

Aragorn etc. This cannot contain a ‘tree’ word…’ Tree-King would have no special fitness for him, and it was already used by an ancestor. The names in the line of Arthedain are peculiar in several ways; and several, though S. in form, are not readily interpretable. But it would need more historical records and linguistic records of S. than exist…to explain them. The system by which all the names from Malvegil onwards are trisyllabic, and have only one ‘significant’ element (ara being used where the final element was of one syllable; but ar in other cases) is peculiar to this line of names. The ara is prob. derived from cases where aran ‘king’ lost its n phonetically (as Arathorn), ara- then being used in other cases (pg. 426).

Clearly according to Tolkien there is really only one valid interpretation for the origin of the name Aragorn, despite how seemingly likely it is that there is some reference to the white tree of Gondor, Nimloth. Though not every example of ambiguity is solved by an interjection from Tolkien; for example, in the case of Galadriel (at least this is as far as I am aware, and just based on his notes in the etymologies). There are a few options for the construction of her name: either we start with Gal-, Gala-, or Galad-, and already problems start to arise, since the former means shine, the middle means thrive or blessed, and the latter means tree. The rest of the clues we possess are that Ri- means edge or border, and that El- means star. So, either the latter is correct, and we can form Galadriel’s full name, or one of the former two are correct, and we are just missing a small piece of the name. Either way, any of the interpretations seem to work for this character. Starting with the first option, if her name starts with Gal-, then that could be a reference to the gift she gives Frodo when he leaves Lothlorien, a glass containing the light from the silmaril of Earendil. If instead we take the middle option, Gala-, then thrive or blessed works equally well, if not better, in this context. For example, out of all of the elves remaining in Middle Earth, Galadriel is one of the very few blessed with one of the elven rings. She is also described as one of the oldest and most powerful elves during the 3^rd Age; clearly, she has thrived in Middle Earth. However, the third option is also promising; Galad-, or tree, could be a reference to her eventually deciding to live in Lothlorien, and essentially serving as one of its protectors and guardians. There are two ways of looking at this ambiguity: either this is just a frustrating exception to the rule, or maybe, if not intentional, it gives the reader the opportunity to participate in the story. There is definitely evidence for both of these positions: from many of his correspondences, Tolkien does not seem like he appreciates any sense of vagueness in his languages, so the case of Galadriel could definitely be a deviation of the norm. However, I am inclined to see this in a different light. While I don’t believe that this ambiguity was purposeful, and I am sure that outside of the Etymology there have been many clarifications regarding proper names in Lord of the Rings, Galadriel included, I think that this gives the reader the opportunity of a small form of sub-creation. While the word may be made and the story already written, being able to play with the different stems, suffixes, prefixes, etc. available to us can give us the opportunity to attach our own meaning to the story and each of the characters, and make Middle Earth mean something much more personal and unique for each person.
 - SGK

Original Thinking in Avallonian

“I remain puzzled, and indeed sometimes irritated, by many of the guesses at the ‘sources’ of the nomenclature, and theories or fancies concerning hidden meanings. These seem to me no more than private amusements, and as such I have no right or power to object to them, though they are, I think, valueless for the elucidation or interpretation of my fiction.” (Letter 297)

The way Tolkien describes the ‘sources’ of his names as being “valueless for [..] the interpretation of my fiction” (Letter 297) again highlights his desire for his work to be free of conscious allegory. He describes his story as being his own, taking place in his own world, and thus the names and words of his languages are mostly original and that “chance-similarities between names made from ‘Elvish tongues’ and words in exterior ‘real’ languages” is a fruitless endeavor “especially if this is supposed to have any bearing on the meaning or ideas in my story” (Letter 297). This explanation is echoed in the idea of linguistic “congruence”  that occurs when words “in two different languages, quite unconnected, and where no borrowing from one to the other is possible, you will come across words very similar in both sound and meaning” (Night 66). Tolkien separates his own fiction and exterior sources: “Investigators, indeed, seem mostly confused in mind between (a) the meaning of names within, and appropriate to, my story and belonging to a fictional ‘historic’ construction, and (b) the origins or sources in my mind, exterior to the story, of the forms of these names” (Letter 297). Even though he wants his “fictional ‘historic’ construction” to be mapped onto our world in ‘reality,’ this is still fantasy and Middle Earth is a fantastical history of our ‘real’ world.

Tolkien refers to his source of the names of the dwarves (and of Gandalf) in the Völuspá. The first possible reason for this, that comes to mind, is that he liked the “flavour” of the names—as he talks about language in one of his letters (Letter 163). This is echoed in The Notion Club Papers: as it is “flavour of the words that suited me [Lowdham]” (Night 66).  However, this is made more unclear when he explains the source of the dwarves’ names: “the influence of memory of names or words already known, or of ‘echoes’ in the linguistic memory, and few have been unconscious. Thus the names of the Dwarves in The Hobbit (and additions in the L.R. ) are derived from the lists in Völuspá of the names of dvergar; but this is no key to the dwarf-legends in The L.R. The ‘dwarves’ of my legends are far nearer to the dwarfs of Germanic [legends] than are the Elves, but still in many ways very different from them” (Letter 297). He does not mention that he likes the taste/flavour of these dwarfish names (which is not to say that he doesn’t) but does say that his legends of his dwarves are separate from the legends of the dvergar.

What does this mean? Does Tolkien’s use of names from languages and mythologies, such as the names of the dwarves, invoke the source’s mythology even if Tolkien does not intend for that to be the case? Maybe, but I think that is what Tolkien is trying to avoid. I wonder if using these names was intentional—because one has to dissociate what one knows about the dwarves in Norse myth form the dwarves in the legendarium. By using the same names from another mythos, does Tolkien create a paradigm shift in which the reader must dissociate the origin and meaning of names from the legendarium? Does this (consciously or unconsciously) encourage the reader to apply the same dissociation to other aspects of the story such as allegory and “hidden meanings” (Letter 297)? I find it likely that this is (consciously or not) a good reason for his use of the dvergar names (and an even better reason when the name is not for a dwarf, but an Ishtar (looking past the fact that Gandalf was not Tolkien’s original name for him)).

 How are we to understand language and keep our understanding congruous with Tolkien’s notions of language? One way to think about names and language is to associate them with regions and cultures. Names of the same person differ depending on where he goes—for example, Gandalf’s name (as we talked about in class): “‘Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not’” (LOTR). The countries Gandalf travels to is defined by the people who live there. Marco said in the chat that “Our languages represent how we interact with the world.” I think this is a great way to think about language as a defining feature of our cultural, societal, and individual identity.

Nearing the end of our discussion we talked about the connection between language and culture and asked if Tolkien would want us all to speak the same language. The chat responded with a resounding “no” as there would be a critical lack of unique myths and stories. This shows we clearly think as a class that Tolkien agrees with the social, cultural, and psychological power of spoken language.

—Jared Zuker

Language, Names, and Adamic Language

Tolkien, as we know, focused heavily on language and linguistic history, both of his fictional languages and of real languages. He pays special attention to names in his later writings about Middle Earth both because these are the most frequent occurrences of his created languages and because other people seem to have found names to be ripe ground for (allegedly incorrect) interpretation. In many of his letters Tolkien writes about his frustration with others’ attempts to find connections between his names/languages and “real-world” languages. A perfect example of this is his irritation at attempts to connect the name Sauron to the Greek “saurus” meaning lizard, and potentially thereby introduce a link to serpents and the Devil. But why this intense preoccupation with his names, both his own and external? Why are we so persistent in trying to find meaning in the names, and why is Tolkien so insistent that there is none, save what he intended?

            A definite possibility is some sort of authorial pride – this is Tolkien’s sub-creation and he doesn’t want people polluting it with nonsense that isn’t there. This is especially strong given his insistence that Middle-Earth, its languages and stories, was not invented by him but rather discovered. If so, he would want to protect the purity of his discovery and the concept that the languages especially are as he has set them out. But his insistence on the reality of Middle Earth is a double-edged sword. If it is real, why could the linguistic roots (though he doesn’t seem to like that term) of Greek “saurus” in some way come from Sauron, if not the other way around? I believe there must be something deeper tied to his love for and study of language.

            In theories of language there are two concepts I think are potentially relevant. First, there is the concept of a proto-language, a theoretical, hypothetical predecessor to all the languages of the Earth. This is also called at times the Universal Language, a language comprehensible to all people (and in some contexts all living things, as I’ll discuss later). The second concept is that of Perfect Language, which exists predominantly in more religious/mystical theorizations of language history. Perfect Language is inherently performative; to speak is to do. We have some vestiges of performative speech in our language, for example “I swear…” By saying that you swear, you do so; contrast that with a phrase like “I jump.” Merely saying that does not, in fact, make you jump in the same way saying that you swear binds you to an oath. In Perfect Language, however, all speech functions like the former example. Many religions have versions of this perfect language, also called Divine Language, and often Perfect Language and Universal Language are one and the same.

            In the Judeo-Christian context this language is often called Adamic. Though there has been much debate about what language Adam spoke, and if/when it changed, a large portion of theologians believe that in the Garden of Eden at least, Adam spoke the Divine Language; hence it is called Adamic Language. Part of the support for this is the narrative in Genesis 2 “So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” This has been read to imply something more than arbitrary naming; what Adam calls the creature, that IS its name. Adam is not just choosing names for creatures that, like our names for them, are essentially arbitrary and unconnected to the essence of the creature. The names Adam calls the creatures are recognized as correct even by God; they are the true names of the creatures. God also gives Adam dominion over all the animals, sparking a connection between naming and domination that can be seen in many religious, mystical, and literary traditions to this day.

            This may seem unconnected to Tolkien, and his persnickety responses to inquiries about the names in The Lord of the Rings; I will therefore try to connect the ideas succinctly. As we see in both real-world traditions of belief and literary works like LeGuin’s Earthsea, Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, and Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles, to name is to define and to control. A true name is the complete story of something, and to know the true name is to know the thing completely and to have control over it. Even Tolkien alludes to the power of true names through the Ents.

            Names in the real world, and internally in literature, are not given because we know the qualities of the person who will bear the name. There are any number of reasons someone might be given a name, including the hope that they will have the associated qualities, or that they instill those in others. We do not, however, have the ability to give each other true names, for when we name we do not know any of the person’s story, let alone all of it.

            Not so for a writer, especially one like Tolkien who believes the whole of the story exists from the moment it is first begun. Tolkien can give true names, because he can understand all there is to understand of a character. Now why all the discussion of Adamic Language, etc. earlier? Because Adamic Language is inherently tied to creation. Tolkien, as a devout Christian who believed he was sub-creating, would have needed a sub-creative language. When he named things, he needed them to be as they were named, to have the stories tied to those names. Tolkien himself said that the stories follow the names for him; he cannot write a character and name it anything, rather given a name he will write the story of that name. To imply other stories in his names than the ones his sub-creative, sub-adamic language put there is almost heretical to his sub-creation. It is to imply that the language he used to create and name his world did so improperly, that it did not create but borrow from existing creation.

-Sam Sobel

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

The Undying Lands: What Does It Mean?

During Wednesday’s discussion, one of the main topics that was brought up was the Undying Lands and what Tolkien’s intention was when creating it. For those who need a refresher, the Undying Lands, also known as Valinor, is a realm found on the continent of Aman that is located west of Middle Earth. It is primarily inhabited by the Valar, Elves who chose to leave Middle Earth and be with the Valar, and certain mortals who were allowed passage such as the surviving ring-bearers of the One Ring. Ultimately, the Undying Lands is a peaceful, heavenly region primarily inhabited by immortal beings as mortals are forbidden to sail west beyond the kingdom of Númenor.

When I first read about the Undying Lands in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, I immediately associated the region with that of the Garden of Eden. Considering the fact that Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic and included various moments of Christian symbolism in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, I figured that the Undying Lands fit into this category as well, serving as a Garden of Eden-like sanctuary for the pure, immortal beings of Middle Earth. In fact, I believed my theory about the Undying Lands serving as a Garden of Eden-like sanctuary for the Valar and the Elves only solidified when reading one of Tolkien’s letters in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. For example, when reading Letter 151, Tolkien explained, “Gone was the ‘mythological’ time when Valinor (or Valimar), the Land of the Valar (gods if you will) existed physically in the Uttermost West, or the Eldaic (Elvish) immortal Isle of Eressea; or the Great Isle of Westernesse (Númenor-Atlantis). After the Downfall of Númenor, and its destruction, all this was removed from the ‘physical’ world, and not reachable by material means” (Tolkien 186).

Essentially, Tolkien explains that for each age that Middle Earth enters, the less magical and mythological elements exist in the region. Instead, the region is slowly becoming a realm of men, and so the Undying Lands serves as a sanctuary that preserves the last remaining elements of myth and magic. However, when I was engaging with the topic of the Undying Lands and discussed my theory of it being Tolkien’s Garden of Eden during the class discussion on Wednesday, a fact that became aware to me during the discussion that may have disproved my theory pertains to the geography of both Middle Earth and the Undying Lands.

When examining the map above, it showcases that to travel from Middle Earth to the Undying Lands, one must sail west. Immortal, magical beings like the Elves who were invited to travel to Undying Lands where their spirits and purity could be preserved had to sail west to reach this blessed land. This is different from the Garden of Eden because not only did Adam and Eve have to travel east of the Garden to find their source of sanctuary after eating the Forbidden Fruit, but they had to leave the Garden because they lost their purity and became more human, mortal beings. Seeing that the Undying Lands and the Garden of Eden have major differences in both geography and mythology, I began trying to create new theories as to what Tolkien specifically intended with the Undying Lands.

To try and understand what Tolkien’s purpose was in creating the Undying Lands, I focused my attention on one specific aspect that was brought up during Wednesday’s discussion: the process of Elves and ring-bearers of the One Ring traveling west to find their magical haven. For me, I really believe that there is a deeper meaning behind not just what the Undying Lands are, but also the direction they must sail to get the Undying Lands. I know that Tolkien famously hates allegory and very much avoids putting it in this his stories, but I just cannot help but feel that there has to be something deeper behind all of this other than Tolkien creating the Undying Lands because it fits within the context of the mythology he is trying to build. Despite Tolkien’s disdain allegory, I, nonetheless, attempted to search for a deep, allegorical meaning of traveling west to reach the Undying Lands.

The biggest theory I developed when trying to understand Tolkien’s intention in creating the Undying Lands was that maybe that the region represented the Americas. From both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, it is showcased that with Middle Earth slowly becoming a realm dominated by men, immortal and magical beings like the Elves realize that there is nothing left for them in Middle Earth. Therefore, to preserve their purity and immortal souls, the Elves must travel west to the Undying Lands to ensure this preservation. In some ways, Europeans during the 19^th century felt the same way as many believed that there were very few opportunities for them left in Europe. Therefore, they left their home countries and immigrated to the United States in search of a better life both for themselves and their families.

However, despite finding some connections, I began discarding this theory when I discovered Tolkien’s personal feelings about America. In Letter 53 in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien wrote to his son, Christopher, “I do find this Americo-cosmopolitanism very terrifying. Qua mind and spirit, and neglecting the piddling fears of timid flesh which does not want to be shot or chopped by brutal and licentious soldiery (German or other), I am not really sure that its victory is going to be so much the better for the world as a whole and in the long run than the victory of” (Tolkien 65). From this description of American-style capitalism, Tolkien seems to have nothing but negative thoughts about the subject. While he hates including allegory in his stories, if he were to include them, the United States would be very much the last nation Tolkien wants to associate with the Undying Lands.

Overall, I think trying to find a deep, allegorical meaning behind the Undying Lands and the process of traveling west to reach it is pointless. As mentioned before, Tolkien despises allegory and very much avoided putting it in his stories. There really is no way of fully knowing what Tolkien intended when he wrote and created the Undying Lands. Who knows, maybe the Undying Lands is simply another piece of Tolkien’s mythology that only serves as another component in Tolkien’s narrative and world-building. All I know is that there needs to be something more than, “because Tolkien said so”, and I am going to find out what it is.

TL

Crafting a mythology

        One of the large focuses of class was Tolkien's attempts at making a connection between our worlds history and geography, and that of his Legendarium. In letter 151 Tolkien says that the "new situation, established at the beginning of the Third Age, leads on eventually and inevitably to ordinary History."  This is further evidenced by Frodo's song in Book one Chapter nine. One of the notable verses goes as follows:

"With a ping and a pong the fiddle-strings broke!

the cow jumped over the Moon,

And the little dog laughed to see such fun,

And the Saturday dish went off at a run

with the silver Sunday spoon."

Regarding the song Tolkien wrote that "[o]nly a few words of it are now, as a rule, remembered." This poem is particularly similar to the English nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle which similar verses such as "The cow jumped over the moon" and "And the dish ran away with the spoon." Clearly Frodo's song is written as a predecessor to Hey Diddle Diddle.

        Tolkien doesn't only include historical connections to our reality, but he includes geographical connections as well. In letter 294 he even attributes locations in Middle-earth to locations in Europe. "The action of the story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. [...] If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are about at the latitude of ancient Troy." These connections to the real world raise the question of how Tolkien intended his audience to think of his Legendarium. Did he want us to believe it as historical fact, mythology, or something else?

        One indication of his intentions can be seen in letter 183. "I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. [...] The theater of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary." And later in letter 184 he writes that "[t]he 'etymology' given in my book is of course quite fictitious, and made up simply for the purposes of my story." So, the fact that Tolkien says that the historical period is imaginary and that the etymologies are fictitious allows us to dismiss the idea that Tolkien intended his audience to think of the Legendarium as historical fact. Why then would he connect it so clearly to the real world?

        More evidence of Tolkien's desires come out in The Notion Club Papers (Part Two). During a discussion Jeremy says that "I have a queer feeling that, if one could go back, one would find not myth dissolving into history, but rather the reverse: real history becoming more mythical." Later regarding myths he says that "[t]hey're not wholly inventions. And even what is invented is different from mere fiction; it has more roots." When asked what these roots are in he responds that they're "in human being; and coming down the scale, in the springs of History and in the designs of Geography." So Jeremy's argument is that mythology evolves out of history. The process of this creation is such that there are strong ties to actual people, events, and geography. These roots in reality can be seen from the christian influences on epics such as Beowulf. Furthermore locations in Greek mythology are based on geographical locations such as mount Olympus.

        Furthermore, Jeremy asserts that these myths are more than just "lies, or casual fiction" and that the "major kind that has acquired a secondary life of its own passes from mind to mind." Ramer argues that this "second life" of the myths constitutes in "the profundity of the emotions and perceptions that begot them, and from the multiplication of them in many minds [...] They are like an explosive: it may slowly yield a steady warmth to living minds, but if suddenly detonated, it might go off with a crash: yes: might produce a disturbance in the real primary world." So, this type of myth, according to Ramer, manifests itself in peoples minds in an extremely powerful way. Maybe this was Tolkien's goal. By creating a story with strong roots in reality, he can essentially make a true mythology. This true mythology is true in the sense that it could've been distilled from real history. In this way it would reflect, not only the history and geography or the real world, but the people as well. This reflection of reality could be what gives a story its power which Ramer argues affects our reality.

-YA

Polity and Immigration: It all Comes Full Circle

When considering History and Geography, it is important to intertwine the people of a land with the land itself and consider how the attitudes of the people towards their land affect the story overall. In his response to W.H. Auden's review of The Return of the King, Tolkien comments on how characters from different lands view the concept of 'polity', or organized society. Notably, he compares Denethor, Frodo, and the high elves, evaluating their relationship with their own society and discussing their ambitions to make a perfect world. Furthermore, we must consider the geographic history of each race: the elves travelled to Middle Earth to Valinor; the men of Gondor are descended from the original inhabitants of Middle Earth, and the Hobbits are descended from a different genealogy of Middle Earth-dwellers. Since (temporal) history and (spatial) place are interrelated, we can analyze characters' and races' paths through time and space to gain insight on Tolkien's views of the larger story at hand.

We start with Denethor, the lord and steward of Gondor. His "prime motive" (and tragic flaw)  in his role as steward is his desire to "preserve the polity of Gondor, as it was, against another potentate" (Letters 183).  The word 'potentate' is interesting here, since it shows that Denethor's greatest fear is another monarchical leader overthrowing him and plunging Gondor into chaos. Thus, Denethor will do whatever is necessary to prevent such a catastrophe, allowing us to deduce that Denethor sees himself as a monarchical figure, albeit a more benevolent one. Tolkien comments on this in Letters 184, noting that Denethor's fear is stemmed from another monarch being "stronger" than himself, and more "ruthless and wicked" (Letters 184). Shifting focus to the physical trajectory of the men of Gondor, we note that they originate from Middle Earth and remain there after the ring is destroyed. In essence, they have not undergone any significant journey. Thus, we can conclude that, according to Tolkien, being solely concerned with one's people and oneself gets nowhere. 

Second, we consider Frodo and Samwise, the primary Hobbits in the quest of the Ring. Frodo and Sam are primarily residents of the Shire, but Tolkien clarifies Frodo's worldview: Frodo's desire is for "liberation from an evil tyranny" rather than "the preserving of this or that polity" (Letters 183). This shows that Frodo is not primarily concerned with the upkeep of the Shire, although Frodo is not racing out to sacrifice the Shire anytime soon. Frodo's journey begins at the Shire and returns to the Shire, but ends in Valinor when he sails west with Bilbo. Putting two and two together, we see that being undistracted by politics allows Frodo to go on a journey from the Shire to Valinor, although this is not the most perfect journey in Tolkien's eyes.

Finally, we consider the fate of the high elves - namely Elrond and Galadriel in Rivendell and Luthien respectively. After learning the whereabouts of The One Ring, the elves conclude that destroying Sauron once and for all is necessary for the greater good, even at the cost of their own civilization and their own immortality. Tolkien says that this collapse is "inevitable," not a mere "unfortunate damage of war" (Letters 183), meaning that the elves' loss of immortality is an intentional sacrifice. The elves' journey is the most interesting to consider since they travel from Valinor to the forests of Middle Earth, but end up back in Valinor once they realize their residence in Middle Earth is temporary and fleeting. Generalizing slightly, the elves travel a nontrivial distance on a path that ends where it starts. Thus, visually, the path resembles a loop, or in more relevant terms, a ring. 

The elves' journey in the shape of a ring is significant for multiple reasons. First, we can connect the two in analysis similar to the above two scenarios to conclude that the selfless desire to sacrifice one's homeland leads in the most 'perfect' journey possible. Contrasting this to other characters, we see that Denethor is unable to go on any type of journey since he is solely focused on the well-being of his polity, and Frodo is able to go on a journey by leaving his homeland for the greater good, but does not make the best possible journey. One may argue that Frodo managed to make his perfect journey and more by making a ring starting and ending at the Shire, but Frodo's life story ends as he sails west, not as he returns to the shire.

The elves' journey is also significant because of the connection between Tolkien's storytelling structure and the geography at play. The full story of the Legendarium should be the object of consideration since it is the 'True' story here - incorporating the mythology of the Valar and the history of Middle Earth, ending with Legolas sailing the last ship down Anduin in 1541 (LotR Appendix B).

The shape of the journey being a ring adds evidence that Tolkien's story is a scholarly joke, because having his story about rings of power trace out a ring in space is too perfect to be a coincidence, particularly as we have seen that Tolkien scrutinizes every detail of his stories. To be fair, this argument is based on a limited amount of information, but considering paths traced out by characters is a useful window into their role in the story.

-Calder (BP2)

As always, please disagree with me in the comments! 

Maps, Imaginary Worlds, and Why The Alps Are Really Cool

Response to April 22, "History & Geography, History & Myth"

Everybody knows what the map of the world looks like. It’s a blue rectangular plane, filled with green or yellow shapes. The two American continents snake their way down its left side; naturally the United States of America is leftmost and uppermost (Canada is merely a margin), occupying the distinguished spot where readers begin their journeys in the venerable Western tradition. Traveling to the right, across the sea, we find a vaguely gun-shaped continent named Africa, conjoined to a massive landmass that’s either two continents, Europe and Asia, or just one continent, Eurasia. The argument doesn’t really matter though, because it turns out if you point to a random spot anywhere in Europe/Asia/Eurasia, there’s a 70% chance of it being in Russia—we can just refer to the whole thing as “Greater Russia.” Continuing further right, we eventually reach the end of the world, where there’s an incomprehensible sprinkling of tiny islands and an equally incomprehensible large island called Australia (why is it all the way down there?). This concludes our tour of the well-known visible universe.

The World we inhabit. Or, "The Great Rectangle."

It turns out people haven’t always conceived of the world in this way. For example, before Google existed, people actually printed, or worse, drew, maps out on paper to plot their travel routes and world conquests, instead of just pulling one up on their computer and asking Larry Page for the quickest path. (Thus why Frodo and gang didn’t run Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm—which can solve the age-old problem of navigation in a measly O(E + VlogV) runtime—instead of trying to figure it out by hand and ending up lost without gas in the absolute worst neighborhood in Middle Earth, the Mines of Moria).

As we saw in class, not just the mediums we use to view maps, but maps themselves have changed through the years. The familiar arrangement of the world-as-we-know-it didn’t reach its most modern, canonical form until after space travel and satellite imagery started in the 1960s. In multiple ways, space travel reshaped popular self-perception in directions alien to those who lived before—whether monks like Bede at Wearmouth-Jarrow Abbey during the Dark Ages (I’m allowed to call it that, because I’m a Medieval Studies major) or intellectuals over coffee at an Oxford pub in the 1940s. I’m calling out Tolkien, who in The Notion Papers Club envisions a character in the distant future of 1986 to say “I don’t think spaceships do [exist], or could.” (HME 9, 163). Not J.R.R’s most prophetic moment.

I’m not trying to be snarky or call Tolkien naïf for not having the power to predict that spaceships would exist by the 1980s. I’m just trying to distance ourselves from both our own understandings of the world and Tolkien’s, in order to enhance our approach to the Middle Ages and Tolkien’s work. Tolkien is so close in time to us relative to the Middle Ages, but he’s also a historical figure at this point. His ideas are filtered through the lens of his historical moment, and in subtle ways can feel “anachronistic” to our sensibilities, particularly when he projects them onto other eras. But, though we can’t totally understand the historical moment we’re in, we too are historical figures. It’s important not to have a sense of superiority when approaching either the near or distant past, and to be aware of differences in worldview that are cultural rather than objective fact. The common world map is so second nature to us that it’s easy to forget it’s a convention of representation and not the physical reality of the world; in fact, it becomes really strange and tells you a lot about 20^th-21^st century culture when viewed from a detached viewpoint.

Vive La France, avec Alsace

Geography is so powerful because it’s connected to cultural conventions. In modern times, the shape of a country’s borders is an emblem that can be plastered on T-shirts and hats (why not a graph of average monthly temperatures? why not a list of the top 10 exports?). That’s despite the fact none of us, even astronauts, have actually seen the borders of France, the US, or Moldova  in real life. They represent real boundaries of political authority, but for most of us they are symbols of identity and received history. The squiggles that make up the borders of France entail a thousand years of change, growth, and conflict—the expansion of the Frankish kingdom to its height under Charlemagne and subsequent fragmentation; the development of Capetian royal power in Paris, slowly extending its political influence over all speakers of romance dialects west of the Rhine and north of the Pyrenees; the explosion of Napoleon on the scene for a brief moment followed by a century of charged, nationalist competition over territories like Alsace-Lorraine and Corsica; not to mention two world wars. If you wear a T-shirt that has France on it, you’re not necessarily thinking about all of that, but it’s all there, buried in the symbol of France’s borders, infinitely zoomable like an image made in a vector-based drawing software. Many landscapes like the Alps, the Nile delta, the Welsh marches, or the infamous Danubian basin can have the same symbolic depth, since they’re also embroiled in so many layers of history; none of these symbols can really be separated from each other either, since their histories are all intertwined and wouldn’t make sense without one another.

Your next T-shirt

This long stream of thought brings us to consider what Tolkien is doing when he builds the geography of his fictional worlds. Fantasy authors all copy Tolkien now and include a world map in their front matter, but his maps of Middle Earth for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were innovative. Their detail, particularly that of LotR’s map, is far more intricate and extensive than necessary for the purpose of the plot, contributing to the deliberate impression that the novel is just a glimpse into a world with an existence and history of its own. Like our world, Tolkien’s Middle Earth has random towns at the side of the road that you’ve never heard of, and distant lands where people have strange accents.

Creating geography that simulates thousands of years of history is a massive undertaking, but Tolkien mostly pulls it off. So why does Tolkien insist that his world is actually not a separate world? In a sense, he’s inevitably right, because at a fine-grained level the symbolism of any created world is inseparable from the symbolism of the real world—mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers. Even if you could, stripping a world of all geographic features known to humankind would make it boring and incomprehensible to human readers. Instead of fighting similarity, Tolkien is embracing it, because he understands that creations always resemble their creators and that those connections allow for deeper cultural associations than an author could ever create independently. The Shire is the idyllic soul of England, Gondor is the noble image of Western glory, and Mordor is a possibly problematic portrait of the Specter in the East (the Danubian basin, of course). Middle Earth is the real world, reshaped along the lines of the psychological portrait of a medieval philologist, J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s a bizarre and delightful place. 

-Daniel Steinberg