2. Problems with Literary Bulk

2. Problems with Literary Bulk

As we will later see in part III of this essay, as readers and members of Western culture, we can easily meet familiar references to our mythology. Up to a certain point, Tolkien seems to establish an agreement between the writer and his readers, by which the story can be read as a self-consistent whole, independently from any other previous reference or influence, but it is also a challenge to literate readers, for whom their knowledge of myths makes reading more interesting and recognizable. Unfortunately, if we analise The Lord of the Rings just as readers, we become victims of the double side of the agreement, that is to say, we cannot isolate it from familiar references because we could "accidentally" add it any other we may find "suitable" to common wisdom. It seems that to make sure no one felt tempted to trespass the boundaries between literary criticism and subjective opinion, Tolkien "encoded" his work either creating his own mythology or revisiting others. Whatever the story was meant to be is in the story itself. Whatever is to be discovered starts and ends there. There's no record that Tolkien was aware of it, but this concept of "protecting" contents is similar to the analysing technique of "Close Reading" from New Criticism, resumed in that same concept ("Anything concerning the story is contained in the story itself"). Tolkien was known to insistently deny being a "traumatised author", and to refuse psychoanalitical approaches to literary analysis.

Neither his biography nor his experience at war would theoretically appear as such within the novel. He would not even, as it is known, permit neither political nor social intepretations of it, considering any similarity with his actual historical context a mere case of "applicability" (for which the reader ONLY was the responsible). No explicit allegories to the nuclear bomb, nor to Nazism, nor to WWII, not even to Capitalism. But maybe what really underlies behind metaphors or allegories are ethical, philosophical or religious concepts that re-emerged during the cathastrophic development of the 20th century in a similar way to Tolkien's revision..

On such particular matters, Joseph Pearce's preface to Tolkien. Man and Myth is the best summary on Tolkien's insights about biographical influences into the work of an author. Pearce summarizes the most significant excerpts of a letter Tolkien once wrote to Deborah Webster in 1958. Pearce observes that:

Accepting Tolkien's premise that the author 'knows more than any investigator' abour the important events in his life, his own 'scale of significance' has been employed as the starting point in the effort to unmask the man and unravel the myth.

Pearce, Tolkien, Man & Myth, Preface, XIII

This comment and the whole letter Pearce quotes are the starting point for this analysis (as they were for Pearce to discover the man behind the myth), insofar the aim of it is to reveal and make clear some of the qualities attributed to Tolkien's masterpiece just through his own scope, as Pierce says, by "his own scale of significance".

According to himself and later scholars such as Joseph Pearce, there was a concept Tolkien dealt with concerning the capacity of stories to filter and fulfill the spiritual expectations of readers: escapism (Pearce, Tolkien: Man & Myth, 144-149). How good would it be if Tolkien had forever condemned Nazism, Capitalism and the two world wars through The Lord of the Rings. Good because the story would have finally turned out to be a fix for History. No losses for Allies, who would have crushed the Axis completely. Good because at the end the story would have proven idillic life in the countryside, living by the fruits of the land, was better than choking on factory smoke. Good because every scholar would have only had to to point one of his hands to History and the other one to the story if he had wanted to find the symbolism of The Lord of the Rings. But how weak and poor and childish if such an instructed myth-connoiseur and creative philologist had limited his literary creativity to freely accuse humanity and supported an irrational permanent-living-in-the-past instead of reminding it about art, creativity and the power of imagination as adult tools to confront the emptiness of human existence. Tolkien was not of course the saviour of Western culture, but learned a lot about the illnesses and wounds of global imagination during and after a war. In part III of this analysis there is a quote from The Unfinished Tales in which Gandalf confesses the truth about his love for hobbits. The quote starts as follows: They had begun to forget: forget their own beginnings and legends, forget what little they had known about the greatness of the world. By this words, Tolkien unmistakably speaks through Gandalf: as an author, as an artist, he had the mission to remind spectators about the purpose of creativity through creation. Tolkien, as Gandalf for Leslie Ellen Jones, was the one to set events in motion.

Let's turn back to escapism. What's creativity got to do with escapism? Is escapism going back to the good old days of childhood and youth for an author who promised to regain a mythology for the past of England? It may have been his aim at the beginning, for the TCBS was a fierce conservative society of youngsters living an idillic life whose hardest matters were only discussing literature. Whether war made Tolkien less mistrustful/suspicious about sharing his 'secret knowledge' or not as to finally put it to the service of public mental relief and release is a matter of psychology. Truth to be said Tolkien achieved more than both his voluntary aim and his secondary one. He managed to create a fairy-tale so complete it had an entire self-sustaining context. He set the pattern for modern fairy-stories.

What is The Lord of the Rings, literary-wise?

Before trying to approach the gross of the story from the point of literary analysis, it is important to determine the kind of text one is to deal with, mainly because it is not conventional book, it is a legacy from previous literatures as well as a starting point for upcoming sub-genres, and several hipotetically uncommon points in literature are combined into it, making the text something exceptional. Concerning its textual nature, The Lord of the Rings is all at once a revisitation of Western mythology, a story of the Fäerie world and a long marvellous tale.

Such a complex story/imaginarium is transmitted by Tolkien every time one of the characters feels amazed by the marvellous materialization of things they thought were just a matter of imagination. Entire cultures with their own oral traditions and myths watching their stories come to life in front of their eyes. A meta-mythology, an imaginary world with its own myths and legends:

Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of Andúril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. 'Elendil!' he cried. 'I am Aragorn son of Arathorn and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!'
Gimli and Legolas looked at their companion in amazement, for they had not seen him in this mood before. He seemed to have grown in stature while Éomer had shrunk; and in his living face they caught a brief vision of the power and majesty of the kings of stone. For a moment it seemed to the eyes of Legolas that a white flame flickered on the brows of Aragorn like a shining crown.
Éomer stepped back and a look of awe was in his face. He cast down his proud eyes. 'These are indeed strange days,' he muttered. 'Dreams and legends spring to life out of the grass.

Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, 423

'We do not speak of dwarves or children,' said Gimli. 'Our friends were hobbits.'
'Hobbits?' said Éomer. 'And what may they be? It is a strange name.'
'A strange name for a strange folk,' said Gimli. 'But these were very dear to us. It seems that you have heard in Rohan of the words that troubled Minas Tirith. They spoke of the Halfling. These hobbits are Halflings.'
'Halflings!' laughed the Rider that stood beside Éomer. 'Halflings! But they are only a little people in old songs and children's tales out of the North. Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?'
'A man may do both,' said Aragorn. 'For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!'

Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, 423