III. MYTHOLOGY, RELIGION AND LITERATURE
Characters and Mythology
The following points get their headings from the most noticeable myths parallel to Tolkien's characters. All comparisons are based on similarities established by the author himself or by later scholars. One of the most recent and in-depth approaches to Tolkien's mythology has been developed by Leslie Ellen Jones in her book Myth & Middle-Earth. Taking her viewpoints as a starting point, this whole section is a contrasting revision with the already existing counterpart-models for Tolkien's main characters in The Lord of the Rings.
Also - and here I hope I shall not sound absurd - I was from early days grieved
by the poverty of my own beloved country; it had no stories of its own (bound up
with his tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an
ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance,
Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing
English, save impoverished chap-book stuff. Of course there was and is all the
Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized,
associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace
what I felt to be missing. For one thing its 'faerie' is too lavish, and
fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it
is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion.
For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story
must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and
religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the
primary 'real' world. (I am speaking, of course, of our present situation, not
of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days. And I will not repeat what I tried to say
in my essay, that you read.)
Tolkien & Carpenter, Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 144
© 1996-2006, Universitat de València Press
© Ignacio Pascual Mondéjar, 2006
© a.r.e.a. & Dr.Vicente Forés