Julie on Time

Like Chris, I have been reading Verlyn Flieger lately, “Splintered Light” and “A Question of Time”. I’m currently in Lothlorien in my LOTR re-read. Flieger’s book on Time has really enhanced the experience of reading that episode. Tolkien was significantly influenced by J W Dunne’s “An Experiment with Time”, which was astonishingly popular from its publication in 1927. My copy is second edition 1929 and it’s ex libris the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, which shows how seriously it was taken at that time. There are many examples in LOTR of Tolkien describing movement through the landscape in terms of the characters standing still whilst objects move towards them or away from them, which accords with Dunne’s theory. I don’t recall any in either “The Hobbit” or any of the material which makes up the ginormous body of writing which is loosely called The Silmarillion. Is this something specific to LOTR?

Laura’s comments on Tolkien and Thompson

SOUTHFARTHING READING GROUP

FRANCIS THOMPSON: his poem “THE HOUND OF HEAVEN” (Pub. C 1893)

Laura

I was reminded of the poet and this poem in particular when reading a crime novel in which “The Hound of Heaven” was mentioned – I can’t remember the context!

We came across Francis Thompson when we were discussing Humphrey Carpenter’s biography and his compilation of Tolkien’s letters.

Thompson (1859 – 1907) was brought up in the Catholic faith in Preston and educated in a seminary near Durham. His father wanted him to be a doctor and he studied medicine for 8 years in Manchester but he preferred writing poetry. He ran away to London and had a miserable poverty-stricken life, becoming addicted to laudanum. Publishers of a poetry magazine recognised his great talent and took him into their home. They sent him to a priory in Storrington, West Sussex, to regain his health but he later died of TB and is buried in the Catholic Cemetery Kensal Green, North Kensington. Interestingly/horribly, one researcher into Jack the Ripper lists Francis Thompson as a possible contender for the murderer.

You may remember that “The Hound of Heaven” is an extended image of Thompson running away from God who is portrayed in the form of a hunting hound. This may be an unpleasant image in the hunt context so I prefer to think of a soft-mouthed bloodhound! The idea rather reminds me of C S Lewis who was trying to escape God but returned to Christianity. Thompson describes himself as running and hiding in nature but nothing helps him because he is running from love and God can give him what he has lost in his life. Of course, God finds him.

I don’t want to discuss the poem in detail (wrong Reading Group!) but it is rich in detail and language, more Silmarillion than LOTR.

The first few lines:

 “I fled Him down the nights and down the days

I fled Him down the arches of the years

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind, ………………………”

reminds me of Manley Hopkins’ poem “The Mind Has Mountains” in which he describes depression. Also his creature being chased by Frankenstein. Also, rather more loosely, the description of the Door of Night.

Carpenter wrote in his biography that Tolkien became an expert on Thompson from 1910. In March 1914, Tolkien delivered an essay on Francis Thompson to the Exeter College Essay Club in which he described him as being amongst the greatest of all poets although did not allude to his life. Christopher, Carpenter, Dimitra Fimi and John Garth have discussed Thompson’s influence on Tolkien, particularly Tolkien’s poem “Wood-sunshine” and Thompson’s Sister Songs (written to two sisters). Both these poems refer to fairies dancing or perhaps visions from dust motes and the beauty of the sight.

Even in a letter to Christopher in 1963 about lapses in devoutness, Tolkien refers to the Hound of Heaven in that the Hound is not coming for him.

Yesterday’s Zoom

25.10. 20

Thanks to Ian’s techological wizardry we had a Southfarthing meeting on Zoom yesteday, following on from the successful trial he organised a few weeks ago. Seven of us were in attendance, and it was lovely to see, actually SEE, everyone.

As a result of this latest Z-meeting we have a topic for our next one. That will be 14th November. Our topic is to be Tolkien’s Poetry. As was acknowledged, we have looked at this before (obviously!) but this is a test to see how best to organise our Z-meetings as regards contributions, presentations, ‘discussion’, etc. so a familiar topic seems like a good idea.

The process starts with the creation of a list of those poems each of us wants to say something about. Then anyone else in the group who wishes can indicate their interest in contributing to the discussion on any particular poem. This will hopefully prevent a disorganised ‘free-for-all’.

I suggested we might use the Chat function as well so that any of us can indicate relevant thoughts, ideas, and opinions that can be addressed by the speaker at the time.

It’s so good to have this option for what looks like being a long haul through the winter, but we are not giving up on the prospect of meeting again in the seminar room in the Central Library as soon as the world is less infectious.

‘First meeting in October’

Some thoughts on Zoom and other things

Ian’s proposal that we should get together via Zoom was a wonderful opportunity to see everyone who could manage to join in. Whether it would lend itself to the kind of discussions we used to have, it is a great way to keep in touch, and I hope the dates Laura circulated will be acceptable. I’ve put them in my diary! As for ideas for the future shape of things, maybe we just need to try out a few ideas.

Picking up Chris’s previous suggestion that we might consider some of the critical works dealing with Tolkien, or including Tolkien – I have been reading some academic articles, including one with the extravagant title: ‘What’s wrong with medievalism? Tolkien, the Strugatsky Brothers and the Question of Ideology in Fantasy’. The brothers in question are Russians who wrote fantasy novels that were subversive responses to mid twentieth-century Communism, but it is the opinions offered regarding Tolkien that are interesting on a number of levels. The author assembles a number critical opinions to compare attitudes to the treatment of history, including Mark Twain condemning Walter Scott for ‘the inflated speech and the jejune romanticism of an absurd past.’

The author of the article, Irina Ruppo Malone, alludes to the ‘hostility towards the historical consciousness’ which was prevalent in the decades before the First World War. She concludes of Tolkien’s work: ‘The newly added elves, trolls and orcs, among whom nineteenth-century heroes and villains continue to wage nineteenth-century wars, are creatures born in a fight over the proper control of the past.’ The idea that Tolkien was participating in that fight for the past can perhaps be set in the context of what other writers were doing, including T.S. Eliot, and R.G. Collingwood, and had done, in the case of William Morris.

But Malone declares too that ‘one can easily misread the past by idealising it or reducing it to schemata and stereotypes.’ This led me to wonder about the extent to which the critics are culpable in reading Tolkien’s work according to their own perceptions of the history from which he apparently derives some of his sources, and whether we can distinguish the ideology behind those sources and whether that influences the critics’ opinions, or they simply reflect their own cultural ideology. My only perception at this moment is that Mark Twain in USA inevitably operated within an ideology that was radically different to that of Walter Scott, but both were taking up positions in relation to European history.

I am aware that this piece is not well thought through yet, but I would be glad of any responses to the general idea of Tolkien’s role in the ideological fight over history.