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Melissa
Rivendell
Mar 28 2011, 11:00am
Post #1 of 35
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A mythology for England?
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Did Tolkien succeed, in his stated intention, of recreating a lost mythology for England? I think he has a very good claim to have succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
SHC Tolkien Club
http://shcmms.webs.com
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Olwe
Rivendell
Mar 28 2011, 3:33pm
Post #2 of 35
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Before you hand Tolkien alone the laurels, maybe read Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series (Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, etc.) and of course Susanna Clarke's wonderful "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell." I'm listening to the recorded version right now (26 CDs!!!). I think these additional "nodes on the landscape" would triangulate along with Tolkien into a suitable "Northwestern mythology." What I find so stupendous about Clarke is that she makes it very clear that the "real England" is still out there in some paranormal parallel way . . . just waiting for us all to come home. Yes, indeed. . . .
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Mar 28 2011, 4:18pm
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Hmm, I am not sure that his works reflect that specifically.
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A true mythology for England would be original, something not derived from other cultures. He certainly succeeded in creating a mythology...The Silmarillion especially, but I don't see it as particularly English. Yes, he has English elements, especially the the hobbits, and some Anglo-Saxon themes with the men, but the sources include Celtic, Scandinavian, Finnish and other traditions.
I tend to think of the Arthurian legends as "English" history-mythology because they are rooted in a historical time and place but with added myth.
So, his soaring success, to me, transcends England and is more a myth based on "the old northwest of Europe" so to speak. The Shire is England, but the rest goes beyond it......
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Melissa
Rivendell
Mar 28 2011, 4:37pm
Post #4 of 35
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Is English mythology, and this is the most important element he drew from.
SHC Tolkien Club
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Mar 28 2011, 4:57pm
Post #5 of 35
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Yes, but what makes his works "specifically" English?
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JRRT drew upon Finnish and Celtic (neither are Germanic) too so it is hard to say the world he created is specifically "English" (Angle, Saxon, Jute etc) based. The hobbits are the most English elements in my opinion.
He could be said to have invented the most popular English language based mythology.
What do you think about Arthurian legends in context to LOTR and Silmarillion as being English mythology?
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Melissa
Rivendell
Mar 28 2011, 5:14pm
Post #6 of 35
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And Arthurian mythology is part of English mytholgy (whatever its ultimate origins).
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jrpipik
Rivendell
Mar 28 2011, 5:35pm
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Whatever his original intentions, he seems to have abandoned them later. In later letters he always talks about it as an old goal, not a current one. He seems happy to have created a mythology for himself.
But more importantly, England doesn't seem to have bought into it, adopted it in the role of cultural touchstone that myths play in society. Unless I'm missing something, the deeper mythological stories of The Silmarillion aren't referenced by leaders and artists the way, say, Arthur is.
But who knows? Maybe someday Tolkien's works will come to greater prominence. It takes a while for a culture to adopt a myth.
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Darkstone
Immortal
Mar 28 2011, 6:02pm
Post #9 of 35
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At least a national epic for England
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_epic
******************************************
From IMDB trivia:
"A scene was cut from the finished film that showed Eowyn (Miranda Otto) stripping away her regular clothes and then dressing herself in the armor of a Rohan warrior."
*Darkstone bangs head against wall*
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jrpipik
Rivendell
Mar 28 2011, 8:12pm
Post #10 of 35
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Not being on the scene, I wouldn't be aware of it, though I think it would be great fun. In what ways has the Tolkien legendarium enter the public discourse?
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mendil
Rivendell
Mar 28 2011, 11:00pm
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Well, first you need to ask, what is the modern function of myth?
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If you consider myths as having the same purpose as in more ancient times, then I would say that JRRT clearly didn't succeed.
But that wouldn't really be fair, as the role of myths in modern culture is quite different than it once was. No one could create a modern myth by such criteria.
Do we have anything in our modern western culture (never mind English culture) in 2011 that can be called "myth" ? If so, what criteria is used to determine what is and what is not a myth?
As this is totally off the top of my head, I would have to say that myths need to fulfill some role in a culture. They need to answer questions. They don't have to be the sole answer, but at least an answer that has a value - for the answer itself, and for the means of providing it. Myths, if anything, are accessible in ways that other things (science, psychology, religion, philosphy, politics, history, et al.) are not.
"... But of bliss and glad life there is little to be said, before it ends; as works fair and wonderful, while still they endure for eyes to see, are their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song."
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jrpipik
Rivendell
Mar 29 2011, 12:27am
Post #13 of 35
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As I said above, myths function as cultural touchstones. They are a common language of imagery and metaphor that a society refers to in art, politics and everyday discourse. Myths enter our speech as allusions and idioms. They become part of our imagination, our dreams as archetypes. Just ask yourself how easily we understand Trojan horses, odysseys, scylla and charibdis, swords in stones and more. They support and affirm our cultural identity and understanding of ourselves as a people.
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dijomaja
Lorien
Mar 29 2011, 12:51am
Post #14 of 35
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"...myths need to fulfill some role in a culture. They need to answer questions. They don't have to be the sole answer, but at least an answer that has a value - for the answer itself, and for the means of providing it. Myths, if anything, are accessible in ways that other things (science, psychology, religion, philosphy, politics, history, et al.) are not."
"As I said above, myths function as cultural touchstones. They are a common language of imagery and metaphor that a society refers to in art, politics and everyday discourse. Myths enter our speech as allusions and idioms. They become part of our imagination, our dreams as archetypes. Just ask yourself how easily we understand Trojan horses, odysseys, scylla and charibdis, swords in stones and more. They support and affirm our cultural identity and understanding of ourselves as a people."
Those are good working definitions of myth. By those standards Tolkien succeeded. As for his mythology being specifically English, so many of the elements of myth are near-universal. Tolkien's stories are no less "English" for all that.
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Mar 29 2011, 1:04am
Post #15 of 35
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Custer's Last Stand.....Western mythology.
Aryan Supremacy and Nazi mythologizing...racial mythology.
Japanese Emperor divinity...cultural mythology.
Most served political ideology.
Oh by the way, Welcome Melissa! What a first? day!
(This post was edited by Eruonen on Mar 29 2011, 1:06am)
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Gwytha
Rohan
Mar 29 2011, 3:37am
Post #16 of 35
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assuming tthe research showing english DNA is mostly Celtic is accurate.
We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Mar 29 2011, 3:57am
Post #17 of 35
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(in J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century:
Tolkien did rather more than flirt with the idea -- though in the end he found it untenable -- that Elvenhome had survived as England, with England as formerly Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, Warwick as the elvish city Kortirion [etc.]. The theory could not work. For one thing, as Tolkien knew perfectly well, the English were themselves immigrants, who had come into Britain (not at that time Eng-land, the land of the English, in any sense) some fifteen hundred years ago, and though like the hobbits in the Shire they 'fell in love with their new land' and indeed forgot they had ever had another one, it was impossible for a real historian to imagine a continuous tradition, in the same place, lasting from before the Romans and the ancestors of the Welsh through to the arrival of those whom Tolkien reckoned as his ancestors.
Join us in the Reading Room for LotR The Two Towers, Book IV! Discussion starts March 27!
Elizabeth is the TORnsib formerly known as 'erather'
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Mar 29 2011, 6:33am
Post #18 of 35
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There's genes, and there's culture.
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Yes, it was fascinating to learn that the majority of the genetic material in the British Isles dates, in fact, to before the Celts, to stone-age migrants from the Iberian peninsula several thousand years ago. But, culturally, the successive invasions of the Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Norwegians, and finally the French, effectively wiped out and replaced (or, at least, profoundly affected) whatever was the prior prevailing mythology.
Much of the business of philologists like Tolkien was trying to probe back through the few verses that survived (such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) and try to identify the prior versions or myths were that had been "modernized" to the texts that we have.
Tolkien considered himself descended from the Anglo Saxons. The passages describing the migration of the three groups of hobbits west into the Shire almost identically describes the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes that settled England as the Romans withdrew in the fifth and sixth Centuries, particularly in the midlands areas where he grew up.
Join us in the Reading Room for LotR The Two Towers, Book IV! Discussion starts March 27!
Elizabeth is the TORnsib formerly known as 'erather'
(This post was edited by Elizabeth on Mar 29 2011, 6:39am)
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jrpipik
Rivendell
Mar 29 2011, 12:03pm
Post #20 of 35
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Those are good working definitions of myth. By those standards Tolkien succeeded. As for his mythology being specifically English, so many of the elements of myth are near-universal. Tolkien's stories are no less "English" for all that.
Do people really use Tolkien's stories as part of their everyday experience in England? I'd love to hear about it! Because here in the USofA making a Tolkien reference is a little like hanging a "nerd" sign around your neck.
(Not that I don't make them anyway! But I have to explain them, which is proof that the stories aren't common enough for myth status around here.)
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jrpipik
Rivendell
Mar 29 2011, 12:59pm
Post #22 of 35
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When it gets to the point that the society as a whole does it...
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...then it's a mythology for England.
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mendil
Rivendell
Mar 29 2011, 1:03pm
Post #23 of 35
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There must be scholarly writings on this matter
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Thanks for mentioning Shippey. I am sure there are other scholars who have touched on this matter. I feel rather unqualified to discuss this myself. But, then again, this is the internet ...
Didn't Tolkien himself dismiss the Arthurian legend as insufficient as a myth for England? Didn't he ever say way? Something about being British as opposed to English, I think. But do we otherwise know that Tolkien considered Arthur a real "myth" at all?
"... But of bliss and glad life there is little to be said, before it ends; as works fair and wonderful, while still they endure for eyes to see, are their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song."
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mendil
Rivendell
Mar 29 2011, 1:16pm
Post #24 of 35
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Not sure I agree with that. It's a part, but it's insufficient in and of itself.
For example, and this is probably only a US thing ... Charlie Sheen is a cultural touchstone at the moment. One need only say "winning!" to evoke a whole bunch of imagery that's floated to the top of our cultural swamp.
I daresay he's not a myth. But I would grant that he (or more specifically, the stories that surround his name) fulfills many of the same functions as a myth. That's the problem with modern myths, I feel ... too many other things serve a similar function, so what need to we have for them?
Myths don't thrive in an information age. One of the important aspects of myths (it seems to me) is that they get passed around until everyone knows them, making them more powerful than other kinds of information which isn't as apt for being passed on. (We would call it a meme today.) But today you can use Twitter, and ten million people will know you went to Starbucks. How can a myth compete?
Also, myths need to endure, I feel. They need to unify a culture across time as well as space. An 18th century English gentleman would recognize an Arthurian allusion as readilly as a 21st century one. Tolkien, at most, can lay claim to a mere fifty years. Off and on at that. If it doesn't endure, I don't think it's a myth, it's only a fad.
"... But of bliss and glad life there is little to be said, before it ends; as works fair and wonderful, while still they endure for eyes to see, are their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song."
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jrpipik
Rivendell
Mar 29 2011, 1:50pm
Post #25 of 35
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Myths must be enduring touchstones, not the 15 minutes of fame that the modern media gives you (and Mr Sheen is about at 14:59). If in 300 years a happy coincidence of arriving just at the right moment is called a "Durin's Day," Tolkien's work will have entered the realm of mythology.
Not sure I agree with that. It's a part, but it's insufficient in and of itself. [snip]
Myths don't thrive in an information age. One of the important aspects of myths (it seems to me) is that they get passed around until everyone knows them, making them more powerful than other kinds of information which isn't as apt for being passed on. (We would call it a meme today.) But today you can use Twitter, and ten million people will know you went to Starbucks. How can a myth compete?
Also, myths need to endure, I feel. They need to unify a culture across time as well as space. An 18th century English gentleman would recognize an Arthurian allusion as readilly as a 21st century one. Tolkien, at most, can lay claim to a mere fifty years. Off and on at that. If it doesn't endure, I don't think it's a myth, it's only a fad.
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