Chris’s Summary, Last Meeting in June

Chris has responded to my posted comments on Tolkien and Fairies by sending a fascinating summary on the topic and its wider implications drawn from Verlyn Flieger’s book.

VERLYN FLIEGER

SPLINTERED LIGHT

LOGOS AND LANGUAGE IN TOLKIEN’S WORLD

 

Chapter 1  A Man of Antitheses

 

The first chapter concerns itself with the reasons why Tolkien is a man of antitheses as well as discussing his views on the significance of words.

 

Flieger claims that Tolkien’s works are built on contrasts – hope and despair, enlightenment and ignorance, light and dark. Humphrey Carpenter suggests that this can be traced back to Tolkien’s experiences in his early years. Firstly there was the separation from his father and then his death. Secondly and perhaps more significantly was the death of his mother when he was just twelve years old. It is suggested that Tolkien thought her death was caused by the stress his mother was under being estranged from her family in order to be a Catholic. Yet Tolkien’s Catholicism was linked to his mother but in his view it was her adherence to it that caused her death. This was seen to be the main reason for the pessimistic side of Tolkien’s character.

 

The author claims that a Christian acceptance of the Fall leads inevitably to the idea that imperfection is the state of things in the world and that human action cannot rise above that imperfection. Tolkien wrote that he did not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’. It is this idea that makes the alternation between light and dark the essence of Tolkien’s works. Flieger claims that light and dark are interdependent as light cannot be known without darkness, similarly hope needs the contrast of despair and freewill opposes, yet is defined, by the concept of fate.

 

The author then discusses Tolkien and the importance of words. She states that Tolkien had  the view that an author cannot be understood if the reader does not understand the meaning of the words as they were known at the time of writing. She describes Tolkien’s essay on Chaucer’s Reeves Tale to prove this point. In this essay Tolkien shows that it was not the case that many words were misspelt but that these words were dialect ones. With this knowledge Tolkien shows how they are used to add a satirical effect which changes the previous understanding of the tale, as now it shows how the country folk get their own back on the town folk. Verlyn Flieger then goes on to describe how Tolkien employs the use of dialect to equal effect in the Lord of the Rings with each group of people having their own style of speech.

 

Flieger then goes on to show how words were not simply a window on the past for Tolkien but the key to that lost relationship between humanity and God of which a sense of the Fall is the only memory. She quotes Tolkien’s letter 231 where he writes “I have long ceased to invent … I wait till I seem to know what really happened.” It is as though how the story unfolds is created by what the words suggest. Although not stated by the author, is this the case with the famous inspiration for the Hobbit when he wrote a few words on an examination paper?

 

Chapter 2 Dyscatastrophe

 

In this chapter Verlyn Flieger demonstrates how Tolkien’s use of light and dark can be seen in his critical essays but in a different mode, for his essays use these words to mediate and explain where his fiction embodies them and makes them real.

The chapter then analyses Tolkien’s two ground breaking essays The Monsters and the Critics and On fairy-stories.  These appear to be in contrast to each other as Beowulf ends in defeat (dark) whereas a fairy story has the joy of a happy ending (light). Yet the fairy story does not deny dyscatastrophe, (i.e. sorrow and failure) as the possibility of this is needed for the joy of deliverance. Flieger claims the difference between the two essays is that in The Monsters and the Critics dark outweighs light whereas in On Fairy-stories light is victorious over dark (sorrow).

 

Flieger then discusses the allegorical ending of Tolkien’s The Monsters and the Critics. Tolkien describes the scene of someone inheriting an accumulation of old stones which were part of an older hall. Some of these had been used in the building of a new house but the rest were left where they lay. The man then used these stones to build a tower. However other people thought this silly and could see no purpose in it so they pushed it over. Tolkien then adds But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea. Flieger compares this to Frodo’s dream experiences in Crickhollow in which he sees a tall white tower, standing alone on a high ridge. A great desire came over him to climb the tower and see the sea. Flieger suggests for Tolkien this was a real attribute of the human psyche: the desire to seek something without knowing what it is. In regard to Beowulf people who want to push over the tower will be unable to see the structure and purpose of the poem and so have no opportunity to be carried beyond themselves.

 

Flieger then shows how this enables us to understand how Tolkien reads Beowulf as the view from the tower leads outwards not upwards so the illimitable vision carries no promise of hope or salvation. Tolkien’s view is that Beowulf’s final defeat is inevitable and that the poet has taken care that there is no suspense or uncertainty about the outcome. The fact that his opponents are monsters makes the poem more significant as no mere struggle with another man would carry this weight of meaning.

 

Yet Flieger says that Tolkien adds a further modern perspective as his reading of the monsters is psychological rather than allegorical. Grendel and the dragon are both monsters but not the same kind of monster. Grendel has a human shape and so Tolkien suggests that the monsters are within us as well as outside us. Beowulf is victorious over Grendel but the inner darkness is always there to be battled.

 

Flieger finishes by saying that the pull to darkness fits with Tolkien’s view of the Fall and its consequences and that no battle would ever be won.

 

Chapter 3 Eucatastrophe

 

In this chapter Flieger discusses Tolkien’s attraction to Beowulf and fairy stories. She shows how this attraction to two such opposing outlooks displays the tension in his own psychology.

 

Flieger states that it is through the “near-asides” in his On Fairy stories essay that it is possible to see windows into Tolkien’s own imaginative principles and affords a look at his creative process. Flieger says that Tolkien tried to answer three questions; What are fairy stories? What is their origin? What is the use of them?

 

Tolkien begins by correcting misapprehensions, mainly the main characteristics of fairies is not size but power of enchantment as people wander into the world of enchantment. By “Faërie” Tolkien means fay-er-ie the place of enchantment. To find the origin of fairy stories you need to ask what is the origin of language and of the mind.

 

Tolkien sees the question “What is the use of fairy stories?” as the most important and the answer is Fantasy, Recovery, Escape and Consolation. Flieger then discusses Coleridge’s theories on this subject and how Tolkien differed in his view of Fantasy. For Tolkien successful Fantasy is the conscious subcreation of a Secondary World by Man. The other three items – Recovery, Escape and Consolation – describe the effects of successful Fantasy.

 

Recovery is getting back to what was originally there. By experiencing the fantastic one can recover a fresh view of the Un-fantastic. It should enable us to regain, to recollect what what we have already known but have forgotten to see.

 

Escape and Consolation are interconnected, for through Escape we experience Consolation. Flieger claims that for Tolkien Escape is a longing for a simpler world and quotes the following from Tolkien’s essay: “On this desire, as ancient as the Fall, it largely founded the talking of beasts and creatures in fairy-tales and especially the magical understanding of their proper speech”. Flieger claims the mention of the Fall is key in this part of the discussion as Tolkien sees it as humankind’s longing for its own past, the childhood before the Fall. The magical speech of beasts in fairy-tales is evidence of our sense of separation and our longing for reunion but he also says “we have a sense that it was severance; a strange fate and a guilt lies on us.” Flieger says this statement is more theological than literary as it refers to original sin.

 

Consolation is when fairy stories provide the happy ending and for this Tolkien provides a new term eucatastrophe. This is made up of the Greek “Katastrophe” and “eu” which means well or good so the word now means “the good overturning”. However the joy of eucatastrophe is dependent on fear of the opposite, dyscatastrophe. Flieger says that Tolkien saw this last escape, such as the kiss which wakes the sleeping princess as “the oldest and deepest desire, the Great Escape, the Escape from Death”.

 

Tolkien says that The Lord of the Rings is “mainly concerned with Death and Immortality”. Elves have immortality which Tolkien sees as a bondage to the world without hope of renewal and eternal life which transcends death and leads to God. Flieger says  Tolkien sees that the escape from death is through death to eternal life. In this way she says that he connects the fairy story directly to the Gospels. The birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. For Tolkien the story of Christ is the greatest fairy story of them all because for him it is not fiction but fact. It bridges the gap between the Primary and Secondary Worlds.

 

Flieger says that Beowulf and the fairy story essays are the keys to Tolkien’s mythology as both contain the opposites – dark and light. Doubt is fundamental to both essays as, if Christ felt forsaken on the cross, doubt is therefore permissible. So Faith needs doubt as light needs dark.

Last ‘meeting’ in June

In an attempt to keep on track with Tolkien reading and the planned dates for our meetings, ready for the moment when we can get together again, I’m offering a short piece for comment and taking pot shots at! At some point Eileen will contribute more on The Man Who was Thursday, and I’m happy to post anything for our intellectual stimulation. In the meantime:

Tolkien: Away with the fairies

We agreed that in the time between finishing The Man Who was Thursday and the resumption of our meetings we could use the opportunity to post on things related to Tolkien that we would like to explore. At the risk of saying nothing, because this hasn’t been properly thought out and researched, I’d like to explore the following ideas and will welcome any comments.

The title of this piece refers to the way Tolkien shifts his vision of the ‘metaphysical’ race of beings in Middle-earth, doing away with the name ‘fairies’, and all that signifies. He tries out ‘Gnomes’ for one of the ‘tribes’ of the race, but this plays across two perceptions of Gnomes. From Tolkien’s point of view it signifies the wisdom that should characterise this group, and I confess that I haven’t explored this further, but none of the groups that become the Elves shows exemplary wisdom, I think. The problem with ‘gnomes’ is that wisdom is not the first thing that occurs to most people anyway, but I suspect that this was not Tolkien’s motivation for change. Again, I haven’t read enough on this to be sure.

The concept of fairies would have been acceptable to much of late Victorian and Edwardian society – Tolkien’s immediate wider cultural environment accepted them in various ways and had a love of fantasy built round the concept. We have considered the Cottingly fairy phenomenon and Conan Doyle’s involvement as indications of the social acceptability at least, and even the belief in this fantasy, but it does not seem to me that Tolkien goes this far, or in this direction, but like C.S. Lewis much later, he likes to hear ‘the horns of Elfland’ in his work. This elfland is not his at this point, prior to the development of the Simarillion material in its later forms, but refers, as CSL intends, to the undercurrent of ‘fairy fantasy’ which made Tennyson’s poem acceptable, because that’s where ‘the horns of Elfland’ quote comes from. It seems significant for Tolkien’s wider vision that those horns are ‘dying, dying.’ I expected to find Dimitra Fimi commenting on this, but she doesn’t seem to.

So Tolkien began work on his great myth in the context of social and cultural attitudes that make inclusion of references to ‘fairies’ acceptable. When he describes Lúthien as a fairy he also draws in medieval and early modern beliefs in another realm of metaphysical beings, although as a fay the description shades more towards the dangerous dimensions of Morgan le Fay and the Sidhe.

We have all remarked on the ‘fairy’-like Elves laughing at Bilbo from the trees in Rivendell in The Hobbit, and noted that the story was made for children. We rarely mention the creation of the household of The Cottage of Lost Play where there is a hint that the ‘Gnomes’ are very small, but this seems to mean innocent, and visitors have to achieve this ‘smallness’ to get in.

I find it a hard read, perhaps because it condenses so many matters that are more familiar in their Simarillion forms, but of interest here, among references to ‘the Path of Dreams’ (picked up later in The Notion Club Papers and Ramer’s dream journeys), and to Earendil, the storyteller speaks of a time ‘when the fairies left Kor’. Christopher T. dates this version 1916-17, but Kor derives from the Kortirion poem first written in 1915, and of course Kortirion was Warwick. Thus Tolkien echoes the concept of fairies in the familiar landscape, but giving it a special beauty and atmosphere.

It is worth noting that the pre-1937 version of the Kortirion poem mentions ‘fading fairies and most lonely elves’. Half a century later it is the Edain who built Kortirion and the ‘Immortal Elves’ who built Kortirion.

I would willingly agree that any writer will find their ideas maturing and changing as they mature, and this may account for the changes Tolkien makes to the naming and characterisation of his metaphysical folk. They remain an essential part of his concept of Middle-earth and its mythology. But, as I’m sure other people have already commented (and I know we have discussed The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien’s ‘war memoir’), it seems pertinent to consider to what extent the changes in naming and associated concepts reflect the changes in social attitudes that were taking place after WW1. When T.S. Eliot is wandering through the Waste Land, and D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf are demythicising social and personal relationships, Tolkien can apparently no longer sustain the older ‘fairy fantasy’. His vision shifts as the darker world of myth dominates, a process we can see imperfectly realised in the structure of The Hobbit. In comparison to his treatment of the environment of the ‘fairies’ of his first creations, the introduction of Elves perhaps acknowledges his own sense of ‘Lost Play’.

It feels as though there is a lot more to say about all this, but it also feels as though it’s time to invite comments on any aspect of this. It’s not intended for publication outside of our group because it would require a lot more research and I don’t have time for that yet. It’s also such an obvious topic that there must be masses of critical work already done, but it’s something I don’t think we have done as a topic, so I thought I would see where it went.

Eileen’s comments on Chesterton (part 1)

The Man Who Was Thursday

By the time we meet the character, Gabriel Syme, at Saffron Park, he has already been enrolled as a ‘new recruit’, in the police detective corps near Scotland  Yard. He is also a poet, and soon he will become a member of ‘the anarchists’, whose ultimate aim is to abolish god, and all he stands for. Lucien Gregory, the established poet, and an outspoken member of the group, is instrumental in Syme joining and seemingly becoming an anarchist too. Syme will also, of course, become a member of a deeply fanatical group called the ‘European dynamites’; a group set up in a private room in a restaurant in Leicester Square. So Syme is a poet, a policeman will become a member of two groups, one farcical, and one deadly serious, and he will also become a spy!
Gregory struck me as ineffectual, and holding on to ideas that can’t work.
Syme sees through his naievity, and develops a liking for him as a person. The description  by Chesterton is vivid and slightly mocking, i. e. ‘the young man with the long auburn hair…was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem’. This wit and gentle mockery is language that we can absorb, because it is meant kindly. There are other times when the language is ironic, satirical when the occasion arises. The author’s command of the English language is one of the novel’s qualities that make for enjoyable reading. Of course, there is also his gentle, telling sense of humour, that occurs when the situation is enhanced by it.
The description of others in the group is slightly surreal, and ironically ‘the old gentleman, with the wild white beard, and the wild white hat, the venerable humbug, was not really a philosopher,  but at least he was the cause of philosophy in others. The scientific gentleman with the bald egg-like head had no real right to the airs of science that he assumed. The reader here is sensitive to the whole set-up by now, as the author remarks, ‘a man who stepped into its social atmosphere, felt as if he had stepped into a written comedy’. Here, there are examples of the mastery of language that involves a sense of ridicule.
When Gregory goes off in a sulk over the subject of poetry, and the group is breaking up, Syme wanders off into the street, and there in the darkness encounters Gregory, who invites him to join ‘the anarchists’. To prove to Syme how serious he is about the agenda of his group Syme agrees, and off they go. A cab took them to a dingy pub, where a table at which he was sitting began to revolve, and both he and his companion shot up, as if through a factory chimney, and then down, landing with a bump at the bottom at a door. Down a narrow passage they came to a door, which Gregory struck five time. He gave the password, ‘joseph chamberlains’, and was admitted. Syme was aware of guns and revolvers hanging from the walls and in a steel chamber there were bombs on the walls. Gregoy then told him of the many disguises he wore to achieve his aim, a Bishop, a millionaire, and a humatarian! then tellingly tells Syme ‘I hope I have enough intellectual breadth, to understand the position of those, who like Nietzsche, admire violence.’
Syme was informed that the members were known by the days of the week, Sunday being the president. Gregory admitted he hoped to be elected as Thursday. We can imagine the bewilderment, and anger on Gregory’s face when Syme first objected to the election of Gregory as Thursday, (so saving him), but Syme himself was duly elected Thursday.
In the next episode we learn about the rather complicated man who became Thursday, how his rather fractured upbringing gave him a hatred of anarchy, and influenced his life to get rid of anarchy, wherever he was aware of it.
The novel is about good versus evil, and so has links with OSP and Tolkien. The imagery, the strand sunset, is reminiscent of OSP, as is the Lunar-like landscape. These have links with OSP. The unsettling moments of deja vous in Leicester Square reflect perhaps what many have experienced.

Lynn’s final comments on Chesterton

Final thoughts on The Man Who Was Thursday (with apologies for taking so long)

The prospect of finding links between Tolkien and this book by Chesterton seemed highly unlikely as I was reading and any three-way connection seemed vanishingly remote, but then it occurred to me that I was looking too closely. The first impression of Chesterton’s thesis in Thursday was simply that he posits anarchy as the effect of the German nihilism of which his devil is the epitome. But his response to nihilism – probably that of Schopenhauer, almost certainly that of Nietzsche – is reassertion of The Law as he as a Christian understands it, not just the microcosmic version, which becomes a metaphor for the greater Law, but the Patriarchy and the overpowering terror of Christian religion which gives the microcosmic law its legitimation. Hence all the fear linked to Sunday, who recruits all the policemen, whose identities are unstable until He shows a more benign aspect as resolves them.

In contrast to the ‘German pessimism’ that seems to preoccupy Chesterton and his characters, the reestablishment of The Law in the strange shape of Sunday and his transformed agents can be read as a triumphant eucatastrophe. No doubt this appealed to JRRT and CSL as men of their time. We know Tolkien’s feelings on eucatastrophe, and CSL is content to send Ransom off to the pub for a reassuring pint and reassertion of ‘normality’. Chesterton shows us the nihilism of anarchy giving way to a beautiful dawn and a girl picking lilacs as The Law has put all (male) identities beyond question through the comparative image of the girl as that which establishes ‘normality’ through domesticity in this world. It can be read differently, though. Until/unless we all learn to serve and accept The Law our identities are not secure but merely performances, always open to the threat of anarchy.

In all three writers, English settings offer the initial sense of familiarity, but this quickly breaks down in the face of disruptions which all carry the stamp of nihilistic impulses and interventions. Weston and Devine, Sauron and Saruman, and the mob on the French beach are all ready to kill those who symbolise the familiar. Finding the eucatastrophe they clearly desire leads each writer to construct it in accordance with his vision. Tolkien’s in The Lord of the Rings is epic, Lewis’s is homely, and Chesterton’s is Romantic, but each is in keeping with the times and the genre in which they write.