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FarFromHome
Valinor
May 14 2007, 8:14pm
Post #26 of 39
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Well, comic books and graphic novels
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are, I guess, one of those many items of 20th century American popular culture that favour self-indulgence, and what can be more self-indulgent than fantasizing about sex? 
It's certainly true that Tolkien doesn't focus on physical descriptions of his characters, although the beauty of the world gets plenty of description. But then again, it has been remarked that Tolkien often focuses on flora - descriptions of trees, flowers, even grass are plentiful - and very little on fauna. That's just his preference, it seems. And for people, his chief interest seems to be in their actions, and their situations, rather than their physical appearance. It seems a big step to diagnose aversion to sex from that. Perhaps he just wants to recreate the style of medieval and earlier stories, which are very different in their approach than what we've become used to in the standard 20th century novel. Post-Freud, Western culture has become highly sexualized, to the point where any other worldview may seem odd or dysfunctional. But attitudes to sex have varied a lot through history, and Tolkien is trying to recreate another time that had a very different view of life.
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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FarFromHome
Valinor
May 14 2007, 8:21pm
Post #27 of 39
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that Ezpeleta's figures don't compare well to the classic nudes I linked to! I see what you mean about the poses and faces, although some of them reminded me of classic poses of Egyptian and Indian art, and occasionally of western medieval art too. They are certainly odd and rather disturbing (I like your "drugged dream" description), but as an attempt to portray "gods" of a mythological world I find them striking and interesting. There's something strange and uncomfortable about them, but I always find the descriptions of the Valar a bit strange and uncomfortable too.
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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Beren IV
Gondor
May 14 2007, 11:31pm
Post #29 of 39
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comes out in a letter. His avoidance of it under other circumstances might have been due to any number of things - the most important simply being that sexual desire just doesn't play a large role in any of his plots, except as part of romantic affection, and even there it is the lesser part when compared to the emotional affection.
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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Modtheow
Lorien
May 15 2007, 12:03am
Post #30 of 39
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I was travelling last week and so didn't have time to participate in the discussion, but I did have a great time last night looking at the pictures and reading through the comments. I never thought that I would be looking at Ezpeleta's pictures so closely, but I think that this discussion has actually nudged me into thinking about them seriously. There seems to be a lot of dreamlike, personal symbolism going on in these pictures. Maybe if I liked them better -- the pale pastels are just not to my taste -- I might want to think about them some more. As it is, Tove Janson and Cor Blok are looking much more appealing right now. But thanks for putting together the Ezpeleta Experience!
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Modtheow
Lorien
May 15 2007, 1:03am
Post #31 of 39
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I'm wondering which letter you're thinking of that shows Tolkien's aversion to sex. This is from Letter 43:
"But they [women] are instinctively, when uncorrupt, monogamous. Men are not . . . . No good pretending. Men just ain't, not by their animal nature. Monogamy (although it has long been fundamental to our inherited ideas) is for us men a piece of 'revealed' ethic, according to faith and not to the flesh. Each of us could healthily beget, in our 30 odd years of full manhood, a few hundred children, and enjoy the process. Brigham Young ( I believe) was a healthy and happy man....
For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify & direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains. It will not satisfy him -- as hunger may be kept off by regular meals. It will offer as many difficulties to the purity proper to that state, as it provides easements. No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial."
This sounds to me like a man who understands the pleasures and temptations of the flesh -- and the struggle to keep sexual desire under control. But I don't see an aversion to sex here. And although Tolkien doesn't go into explicit details about the sexual desires of his characters, and he doesn't describe adultery or unmarried sex (though there is an interesting scene in Children of Hurin), I do think that he creates stories in which sexual desire is an important part of the plot: why else would Beren desire Luthien at first sight? Or Eol want Aredhel? -- "Very fair she seemed to him, and he desired her" -- or how about a woman looking at a man: "But Erendis looked upon Aldarion as he rode by, and for his beauty and splendour of bearing she had eyes for little else." Sexual desire motivates these and other attractions in Tolkien's works, in my opinion.
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Beren IV
Gondor
May 15 2007, 2:09am
Post #32 of 39
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"Sex is the Devil's favorite subject"
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I don't know which letter this is, but I remember this quote. It may be the same one (probably is).
The relationship between B&L I think truly is meant to represent actual love, not just lust, although that is one instance in which I think that the physical interest actually is fairly important. Pallando of course has expressed belief that it is not the heroic love that it ought to be, but I don't think that bears out even in Tolkien's own cosmology: if it weren't, then B&L shouldn't be able to accomplish anything like what they actually manage!
Aredhel and Eöl, perhaps, might be an exception - I had not thought of them. Sexual desire is a bigger component in the Sil than in LotR, and particularly in the early versions of the Sil. However, even in the case of the ill-fated marraiges of A&E, er both A&Es I still get the feeling that there actually is love there, at some point. Then it goes sour. Still, I've certainly come to understand women who become blindly and unhappily infatuated with more than just lust.
I never said that sex is not a part, even an integral part, of the loves of Tolkien's characters. However, even in the case of B&L, I think there is much more to it than pure lust, and that the sexual part is less significant than the emotional part. Is this moral? That depends on your view of morality in sexuality.
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
May 15 2007, 5:13am
Post #33 of 39
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Yes, that's also from Letter #43.
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Though you've changed the phrasing slightly.
A man's dealings with women can be purely physical (they cannot really, of course: but I mean he can refuse to take other things into account, to the great damage of his soul (and body) and theirs); or 'friendly'; or he can be a 'lover' (engaging and blending all his affections and powers of mind and body in a complex emotion powerfully coloured and energized by 'sex'). This is a fallen world. The dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall. The world has been 'going to the bad' all down the ages. The various social forms shift, and each new mode has its special dangers; but the 'hard spirit of concupiscence' has walked down every street, and sat leering in every house, since Adam fell. We will leave aside the 'immoral' results. These you desire not to be dragged into. To renunciation you have no call. 'Friendship' then? In this fallen world the 'friendship' that should be posible between all human beings, is virtually impossible between man and woman. The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favourite subject. He is as good every bit at catching you through generous romantic or tender motives, as through baser or more animal ones. This 'friendship' has often been tried: one side or the other nearly always fails. Later in life when sex cools down, it may be possible. it may happen between saints. To ordinary folk it can only rarely occur: two minds that have really a primarily mental and spiritual affinity may by accident reside in a male and a female body, and yet may desire and achieve a 'friendship' quite independent of sex. But no one can count on it. The other partner will let him (or her) down, almost certainly, by 'falling in love'. But a young man does not really (as a rule) want 'friendship', even if he says he does. There are plenty of young men (as a rule). He wants love: innocent, and yet irresponsible perhaps. Allas! Allas! that ever love was sinne! as Chaucer says. Then if he is a Christian and is aware that there is such a thing as sin, he wants to know what to do about it.
Of course, Modtheow knows this, having discussed Letter #43 in 2005.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Tolkien Illustrated! Jan. 29-May 20: Visit the Reading Room to discuss art by John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith and others, including Tolkien himself.
May 7-13: Maria Lombide Ezpeleta.
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Daughter of Nienna
Grey Havens
May 15 2007, 7:53am
Post #34 of 39
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Thank you for doing this. I am very sorry I missed this week...saved all teh threads to go back...have not even looked at the images yet.
Last week I was dealing with floods, cleanup, disinfecting and other disasters...Alas!. It looks like it was an interesting week to say the least, if not exhilerating. I will enjoy plowing throw the discussions when I can.
...
Art Gallery Revised, Aloha & Mahalo, Websites Directory
Nienna: “ those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope . . . All those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom." — Valaquenta
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mae govannen
Tol Eressea
May 15 2007, 4:29pm
Post #35 of 39
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To add my own answer to the ones already given,
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I will say that in our materialistic age, we have gone from excessive, exclusive Spiritualism to an equally excessive and exclusive Materialism.
The body, from entirely denied and negated, has become now all important.
To have discovered the concept of 'Fitness' is great, but the way we look at this body we claim to love and try to care for is in itself quite 'reductionist', and dangerously so, for we have come to deliberately ignore whatever may influence our health, other than purely physical causes - but the other causes are there anyway, whether we acknowlege them or not...
The deep joys of spiritual life being now declared superstitious illusions or nervous diseases, life having no meaning nor aim any longer, and love itself being seen only as some hormonal reaction in our body, it is only natural that in our seeking of happiness we have nowhere anymore to turn to but to the 'pleasures of the flesh' - not any more in a normal, balanced, healthy manner, alas, but the very opposite, as was only to be expected in such a situation. Sex and violence have become the only antidotes to an all-pervasive emptiness in our lives that can go from mere boredom to existential anguish and worse.
All this can of course be put to financially profitable use, and the many who see that don't miss the opportunity. Hence the plethora of such publications that want only to sell, and so, exploit as much as possible the downward propensities that are latent in every human being.
The whole question of Beauty and the present tendancy to equate it with mere sexual attractiveness stems from the very same root. I'm a great fan of Marilyn Monroe myself, I find her just irresistible, but among the few actresses of that time that I know of, it is Greta Garbo that always stunned me, if you see what I mean.
There is a sensual quality and an ethereal quality to Beauty, and I suppose everybody can feel the difference - among the French actresses I know, it would be the difference between Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve, for example.
As for Tolkien never describing his beautiful characters, I don't quite agree, and would refer you to that wonderful passage where we see through Frodo's eyes the main persons present at Elrond's table in Rivendell ('Many Meetings', pp.220-221).
To that I would add the last look Frodo has, at the very end of that evening (and of that chapter), of Arwen from afar:
'Suddenly it seemed to Frodo that Arwen turned towards him, and the light of her eyes fell on him from afar, and pierced his heart.'
There.
The light of her eyes.
No doubt, all the rest is there too which makes of her the most beautiful feminine being of her time, but still... the supremely important thing, the one that pierced Frodo's heart, is the light of her eyes.
That is, the light from her soul: it is a true saying that says that the eyes are the window of the soul...
In a being like Arwen or Galadriel, it is that light from the soul that adds an extraordinary dimension to the already extraordinary physical beauty they also have - which is of the slender type, as Tolkien tells us for example of Luthien, but that is a rule, in Tolkien's writings, precisely because that kind of beauty is NOT primarily a question of sex-appeal at all, but rather, I would say, a question of 'soul-appeal', if I may invent such an expression.
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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mae govannen
Tol Eressea
May 15 2007, 5:01pm
Post #36 of 39
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It is not a question of morality
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(which is something of the mind mostly, and rarely more than a rigidified and culturally codified set of principles accepted by the society a human being belongs to), but rather a question of the kind of love one is already capable of feeling and expressing.
Seen in that perspective, the words by Tolkien about sex being 'the Devil's favorite subject' can be understood as meaning, not at all any aversion on JRRT's part for sex (he himself admits to precisely the contrary in the letter quoted), but rather his total awareness that this tendancy in human beings (especially males) is constantly used by 'the Devil' (that is, the Forces and beings opposed to our further evolution) to keep us at the lowest level of love, the 'merely sexual attraction' one.
Not that the physical level must be excluded; but it must not be only that, or it will not deserve the name of love at all.
On the contrary, love in itself doesn't necessarily need to be accompanied by sexual attraction nor any sexual act. Close and deep friendship is nothing but a form of Love - just as between Sam and Frodo, for example, although in their case (and in many other cases) the two friends are of the same sex, but as neither of them happens to be homosexually oriented, the love between them is not accompanied by any sexual attraction whatsoever, and that's just fine... 
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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entmaiden
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
May 15 2007, 5:13pm
Post #37 of 39
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comes out in a letter. His avoidance of it under other circumstances might have been due to any number of things - the most important simply being that sexual desire just doesn't play a large role in any of his plots, except as part of romantic affection, and even there it is the lesser part when compared to the emotional affection.
I think it's important to take into account the cultural norms of the time in which Tolkien was writing. Sex was not discussed at all in polite society, and that carried over to literature. Sexual desire was cloaked in terms of love, so the reader would have to look past the words and understand the author was not only talking about love between two people but also physical desire.
Of course there were authors who spoke about sex, most notably James Joyce, but their books were clearly written for an marketed to adults. Tolkien, writing a follow-up to the children's book The Hobbit, would not have even approached sex in the Lord of the Rings.
I think it's clear from Tolkien's unpublished work and his letters that he wasn't averse to sex. I can't see the leap from avoiding writing about it to concluding he didn't consider sexual desire between his characters.
Each cloak was fastened about the neck with a brooch like a green leaf veined with silver.
`Are these magic cloaks?' asked Pippin, looking at them with wonder.
`I do not know what you mean by that,' answered the leader of the Elves.
NARF since 1974.
Balin Bows
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Beren IV
Gondor
May 16 2007, 2:43am
Post #38 of 39
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Well, I'm not sure what you are saying in your opening paragraph, although I generally agree with the rest of what is said: the major characters are beautiful because of who they are, their spirits, not just their bodies. Of course that's true!
*
Science is often taken in a very reductionist way in that scientific inquiry tries to tease apart what the relevant factors are and where they are in causing something. However, science is well aware of what is called an "interaction term" - that is, the whole does something different than what you would predict from the sum of its parts. Living things are internally interacting, and that is certainly true of people. It is absolutely true that factors that you would never imagine would affect human health if approached from a reductionist standpoint, such as attitude, are in fact extremely important. Likewise, things like intellect are affected by the degree of physical fitness of the body!
Nonetheless, the spirit is unmeasurable. I doubt that it is the cause of this interconnectedness, because there are things in the universe that display it that probably do not have spirits, being what we would normally describe as inanimate objects. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't - science can't answer that. 
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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GaladrielTX
Tol Eressea
May 21 2007, 12:58pm
Post #39 of 39
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I was away on vacation last week so I missed the opportunity to say thanks. I was one of the people who urged you to take up this topic so I feel badly that I didn't make any posts on it. Honestly, though, I would look at the pictures and was so incredulous I didn't know what to say or how to approach them!
Love your sense of the absurd and your humor, BTW.
~~~~~~~~
I used to be GaladrielTX, but it's springtime and I'm shedding.
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