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Annael
Immortal
Mar 16 2011, 9:08pm
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The types of comedy in LOTR
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I just finished a class on Dante’s Divine Comedy. My professor in that class was a student of Louise Cowan, who saw in Dante a re-imagining of the genre of “comedy.” Up until Dante most people thought of comedy as Aristotle saw it: pretty much the lowest form of writing. He based that opinion on the Greek comedic plays, which were a lot like the current man-boy cinema, full of toilet and sex jokes and pratfalls. But to Dante, the genre held many more possibilities. Cowan credits him with separating out, in the three cantica of the Comedy, the elements of three kinds of comedy: infernal, purgatorial, and paradisical.
The basic difference between comedy and tragedy is that comedy moves towards union while tragedy moves towards isolation of the individual. Or as Dustin Hoffman’s character puts it in “Stranger than Fiction,” in comedy the hero gets the girl; in tragedy, he dies.
Infernal comedy is just barely over the line from tragedy in that the hero is often the only one left standing at the end, but he lives. Other features of infernal comedy:
· The landscape is dark, poisonous, and dangerous.
· The feminine is absent, perverted, or abused.
· Character does not change; nothing changes, because everything is fixed in time.
· Individuals are isolated even when in groups. (In the fifth circle of hell, the wrathful lie in a swamp and fight each other, which seems to me a pretty exact description of way too many discussions on the Internet . . .)
· Evil is omnipresent and everyone is either actively promoting it or passively cooperating with it; no one takes responsibility but blames all their woes on others or an outside force.
· The goal for the hero is to destroy as much of the evil as possible.
· Escape is not possible except for through a miracle.
· The action ends with retribution (often with the hero standing alone on a field of destruction).
In purgatorial comedy, the main attribute is movement. People change through their own efforts. Unlike infernal comedy, people take responsibility for their woes and are willing to endure and work hard to right things. That is because they have hope, which is completely lacking in hell. Other features:
· The landscape is often harsh, but sometimes beautiful.
· The feminine is absent but honored and yearned for.
· Character undergoes trials that improve it. Time is elastic: it stretches as much as necessary to bring about change.
· Individuals are part of communities.
· Evil lies within and can be overcome with the right effort and attitude.
· The primary goal for the hero is to move through trials to become a better person.
· The hero reaches the goal through his own efforts.
· The action ends with justice.
In paradisical comedy, the hero is transported by magic or divine action to a place outside the world. Here:
· The landscape is perfect and healing.
· The feminine is present and actively guides the hero.
· Character does not change; once again, time stands still.
· Individuals are united in perfect understanding.
· Evil is not possible.
· There are no trials and no goal; all the hero has to do here is open himself to understanding and receiving bliss.
· The action ends in grace and joy.
It seems to me that Tolkien combines all three kinds of comedy in his opus. Frodo and Sam take the infernal journey across the poisonous landscape of Mordor with no hope in their hearts, just the dogged determination to destroy the One Ring. They know this can only happen through a miracle, and are completely surprised when it does occur. Even though they travel together, by the time they reach Mount Doom Frodo is completely isolated from Sam by the Ring. There is no feminine presence in Mordor except the perverted Shelob. Escape only occurs through another miracle.
The rest of the Fellowship follow a purgatorial journey in which each is tried and changed, while forging strong bonds as a community. They never lose hope. Arwen, Galadriel, and Eowyn represent the honored and yearned-for feminine. While it can be argued that Eowyn is “present” and also undergoing trials, she does so only in the guise of a man; she takes back her femininity only after the Ring is destroyed. The landscape is sometimes harsh and dangerous, but just as often it is beautiful. Each member of the Fellowship does their bit to save the situation. At the end, Aragorn dispenses justice in Gondor and the hobbits dispense justice in the Shire.
Tolkien also gives glimpses of the paradise Over Sea each time the Fellowship visits one of the Elven realms. Here the feminine is present and active; the mood is uplifted; the landscape is serene and healing; everyone in the place is in accord; and time stands still.
It seems to me that Sam has more of a purgatorial arc while Frodo’s is truly infernal, and that is why Sam can return to the world afterwards, while Frodo is lifted bodily, as it were, to heaven.
Your thoughts?
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.
- James Hillman, Healing Fiction
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Mar 16 2011, 10:20pm
Post #2 of 12
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Would infernal / purgatorial / paradisical comedies with female protagonists show the masculine as "absent, perverted, or abused" / "absent but honored and yearned for" / "present and actively guid[ing] the hero[ine]"?
You have noted that Éowyn only endures "trials ... in the guise of a man", but doesn't she emphasize her femininity just before defeating the Witch-king?
If the goal of an infernal comedy is for the "hero ... to destroy as much of the evil as possible", would it be correct to say that Dante fails rather spectacularly on his tour of Hell?
Cowan's scheme is fascinating, and gives me much to think about; thank you for sharing it.
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Gimli'sBox
Gondor
Mar 16 2011, 11:15pm
Post #3 of 12
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Wow that's interesting, thanks for sharing!//
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Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing the evidently prefer.
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Annael
Immortal
Mar 16 2011, 11:42pm
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you'll have to wait for my dissertation
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which is on how the heroine's journey differs from the hero's quest. Cowan didn't raise the issue.
In our discussion we added the bit about "destroying evil" based on the "infernal" movies and books that seem very popular these days, where people have to destroy something that is evil, but it doesn't solve the problem - destroying the Terminator in the first movie of that name, for example. Dante didn't think evil could be destroyed at all, and I doubt he saw his trip through the circles of Hell as a hero's journey. He had a vision of what Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise were like and reported it purely as a witness; he did not, for instance, do any atoning in purgatory, although he admitted that he would be spending time on at least three of the circles on his next visit (after death).
Really the only hero who actually went into Hell and came back didn't do any destroying; He just rescued certain souls. Which probably falls under the heading of "escape through divine intervention." I don't count Odysseus or Aeneas or Orpheus as the Greek Hades is not equivalent to the Christian hell. But we sure do have a lot of stories these days that qualify as "infernal," it seems, which says a lot about our current mindset.
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.
- James Hillman, Healing Fiction
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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sevilodorf
Tol Eressea
Mar 16 2011, 11:54pm
Post #5 of 12
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Similar question to NE Brigands's
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I just finished a class on Dante’s Divine Comedy. My professor in that class was a student of Louise Cowan, who saw in Dante a re-imagining of the genre of “comedy.” Up until Dante most people thought of comedy as Aristotle saw it: pretty much the lowest form of writing. He based that opinion on the Greek comedic plays, which were a lot like the current man-boy cinema, full of toilet and sex jokes and pratfalls. But to Dante, the genre held many more possibilities. Cowan credits him with separating out, in the three cantica of the Comedy, the elements of three kinds of comedy: infernal, purgatorial, and paradisical.
The basic difference between comedy and tragedy is that comedy moves towards union while tragedy moves towards isolation of the individual. Or as Dustin Hoffman’s character puts it in “Stranger than Fiction,” in comedy the hero gets the girl; in tragedy, he dies.
Infernal comedy is just barely over the line from tragedy in that the hero is often the only one left standing at the end, but he lives. Other features of infernal comedy:
· The landscape is dark, poisonous, and dangerous.
· The feminine is absent, perverted, or abused.
· Character does not change; nothing changes, because everything is fixed in time.
· Individuals are isolated even when in groups. (In the fifth circle of hell, the wrathful lie in a swamp and fight each other, which seems to me a pretty exact description of way too many discussions on the Internet . . .)
· Evil is omnipresent and everyone is either actively promoting it or passively cooperating with it; no one takes responsibility but blames all their woes on others or an outside force.
· The goal for the hero is to destroy as much of the evil as possible.
· Escape is not possible except for through a miracle.
· The action ends with retribution (often with the hero standing alone on a field of destruction). Because for some reason my mind immediately jumped to ALIEN with Sigourney Weaver when I read that description. Dragging my tangential self back to Tolkien.... the fatalism here... escape is not possible save through a miracle. ... Frodo had it in spades. As it seems to me did most of those "in the know"... Denethor, Theoden ... Will ponder more if reality allows me time.
Fourth Age Adventures at the Inn of the Burping Troll http://burpingtroll.com
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Mar 17 2011, 1:33am
Post #6 of 12
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By the way, did you know there was a video game loosely based on Dante's Inferno which turns the story into a quest to destroy evil?
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Discuss Tolkien’s life and works in the Reading Room!
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
How to find old Reading Room discussions.
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Annael
Immortal
Mar 17 2011, 2:44pm
Post #7 of 12
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Some nice visuals.
I thought more about this, and I think in a "classical" sense the goal for the hero traversing hell would be just to survive until the miracle happens and you get out. Modern audiences tend to want the hero to win over evil, even a little bit. Frodo didn't destroy Sauron, he just set him back for a while - a long while to mortal minds, but I'm pretty sure Tolkien figured his evil would take shape and grow again eventually.
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.
- James Hillman, Healing Fiction
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Annael
Immortal
Mar 18 2011, 4:00pm
Post #8 of 12
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is there a link between these types and worldviews? Might someone create or prefer to read/watch one of these kinds of stories because it echoes their person view of how the world really is? Not saying they want it to be that way, but that they believe the world is like that. Artists paint what they see, but they also paint what they can imagine. Personally I think the way we see the world-as-it-is and imagine other worlds is highly dependent upon our Weltanschauung, our worldview.
What's Tolkien's worldview?
Just for fun, how about some other writers? I think the reason why I can't get into A Song of Ice and Fire is that Martin's view is primarily infernal, and my worldview is more purgatorial.
And do these attitudes come into play in our politics? I think they do . . .
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.
- James Hillman, Healing Fiction
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
(This post was edited by Annael on Mar 18 2011, 4:01pm)
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Wraith Buster
Gondor
Mar 18 2011, 5:23pm
Post #9 of 12
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Very interesting.
I didn't know about the different types of comedy until now.
Pedich Edhellen? Lau? Hria cuilë.
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MatthewB
Bree
Mar 20 2011, 2:54pm
Post #10 of 12
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You better post a link to your dissertation
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Or at least provide us with a free copy.
It is nice to see someone else who can apply academic standards to Tolkien's work.
I had not previously thought of it in terms of Comedy (as defined by Aristotle, for whom I have a great admiration, but a great contempt for many who still hold his work to be the last word on many issues), and I can certainly see that it exists....
I am a former student of Joseph Campbell BTW (I use that term very loosely. I had him as a guest lecturer for all of 18 days, but he was a central figure of my work in school when I was younger - I have returned to school to finish a degree, although a different one than I had at that time.
I have been examining Tolkien through the lens of modern day Science as well as Philosophy. I have been greatly saddened by what I have learned about Tolkien, as a person, in the process. Although it has been tremendously enlightening in critically examining his work. It seems that Tolkien was very much in denial about the influences of his own life on his work. I do agree with him that WWII had nothing to do with the LotR. One needn't look any further than the Battle of the Somme to get an understanding of his distaste for industrialization and modernity (The assault of Thiepval Ridge with 800 artillery pieces raining some 30,000 shells on the battlefield could not have not left an impression. Many people with PTSD deny having it, especially from his day and age. And, let's not forget the massing of Tanks for the Battle of Fleurs-Corcellette would probably not have been missed by him.).
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Annael
Immortal
Mar 20 2011, 3:58pm
Post #11 of 12
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Several of my profs worked with Campbell, including our Literature prof who was a grad student under him for a year and got to travel with him to Britain and Brittany, and one of my sister students worked at Esalen in the years that Campbell was often there. By all accounts (and the videos I've seen) he was a marvelous raconteur who could hold a room spellbound. I love his work, even thought he has the faults and blind spots of a man of his generation and experience (as does Tolkien . . . and who doesn't have their faults and blind spots?).
I hope to publish my dissertation as a larger work (and yes, I know that rarely happens, but I have a publisher who's expressed interest). In a couple of years you should be able to read it at the Pacifica Graduate Institute library at the Lambert Road campus for free.
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.
- James Hillman, Healing Fiction
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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