[ilds] Of course Tolkien was not being truthful

[Bruce Redwine]

David, it’s worth keeping in mind that J. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) was a prominent Medievalist at Oxford and originally known for his scholarship on Old English and early Germanic literature.  His area of great expertise undoubtedly led to his Ring trilogy (1954-5).  Tolkien’s background is similar to C. S. Lewis’s (1898-1963), another famous Oxford scholar, known for his work on Medieval and Renaissance literature.  Lewis also drew upon his background to produce fiction.  A major genre of those two periods is allegory.  Lewis’s most famous book is The Allegory of Love:  A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936).  Tolkien and Lewis wrote allegorical fiction with strong Christian “colorings.”  Colorings is a term of art in Medieval studies typically used to identify Christian influences on pagan works such as Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon epic Tolkien worked extensively on.

Re Lawrence Durrell and these two, it’s probably that Durrell was familiar with both of these scholars and their work.  He was also well read in the writers those scholars specialized, namely, Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare.  We also might want to throw in Milton.  Those were the “big four” when Durrell was at public school.

Allegory is a Christian convention.  I would argue that Durrell puts it to his own religious purposes.  The Dark Labyrinth is clearly an allegory, and it seems to hold an important position in his development, that is, it seems to presage what follows.  We might want to say that both the Quartet and the Quintet have allegorical “colorings.”  

Bruce





> On May 16, 2015, at 12:47 AM, <dtart at bigpond.net.au> <dtart at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> 
> LOTR is worth a read. In the preface Tolkien denies the charge of allegory of which he is clearly guilty. people have wondered at the absence of apparent religion in the books, given Tolkien's devote catholicism. It does not need to be there there, the whole cosmology is grounded in his beliefs. then there is obviously allegory to the evil industrial revolution versus the rural past, the fallen age of man etc etc. A Tolkien buff and friend of mine said Tolkien discovered orcs on the western front in WW1. Why Tolkien denies allegory has always baffles. it is almost as bad as Orwell saying Animal Farm isn't an allegory. I wonder is Larry read Tolkien. He was certainly interested in creating alternate universes.
> 
> David
> 
> 
> ---- Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net <mailto:bredwine1968 at earthlink.net>> wrote: 
>> David,
>> 
>> Interesting what you say about allegory.  I haven’t read Tolkien’s Ring, but I once submitted a novel with a religious theme (or what I thought was one) to a Catholic publisher and was duly rejected because the editor didn’t find it religious.  She then said I should read Tolkien for his religious content.  I should have recommended to her The Dark Labyrinth or perhaps Monsieur.
>> 
>> Bruce
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On May 15, 2015, at 4:26 PM, dtart at bigpond.net.au wrote:
>>> 
>>> Tolkien, whose work I enjoy, told enormous porky pies. What I never bought was that LoTR was not an allegory. Yeah, sure mate. But it is the story that matters. writers are very fond of smokescreens. Dylan Thomas once said 'confuse the bastards'.
>>> 
>>> David
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ---- Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net <mailto:bredwine1968 at earthlink.net> <mailto:bredwine1968 at earthlink.net <mailto:bredwine1968 at earthlink.net>>> wrote: 
>>>> For some reason I didn’t get Richard Pine’s recent message (below) to the ILDS Listserv.  Anyway, I agree with Ken’s implications, namely, an author’s intentions or motives bear looking into.  Seems to me it’s all fair game, that is, how one chooses to look at a piece of literature:  as an autonomous unit in the spirit of the New Criticism (the “Verbal Icon”) or as a creation deeply indebted to its creator and his/her motives (conscious or not).  “Sink or skim,” as Durrell himself says.  I prefer to sink, but that’s simply my preference.  I can now hear Bill Godshalk’s voice interrupting me about the utter impossibility of determining anyone’s “intentions.”
>>>> 
>>>> Bruce
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On May 15, 2015, at 9:21 AM, Kennedy Gammage <gammage.kennedy at gmail.com <mailto:gammage.kennedy at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> When he denied a connection to Wagner he was being defensive and disingenuous, lying in other words - just like you know who was wont to do!
>>>>> 
>>>>> I enjoyed re-reading this piece from the NYT about the Wagner-Tolkien connection: 
>>>>> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings><http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings>><http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings><http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings>>>
>>>>> 
>>>>> Cheers - Ken
>>>>> 
>>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>>> From: <mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org <mailto:mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org> <mailto:mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org <mailto:mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org>> <mailto:mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org <mailto:mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org> <mailto:mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org <mailto:mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org>>>>
>>>>> Date: Fri, May 15, 2015 at 1:04 AM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 97, Issue 13
>>>>> To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca> <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca>> <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca> <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca>>>
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Concerning the "origins" or "models" for various characters in fiction, there are, of course, many obvious sources for LD's characters and many more oblique. One has only to look at real-life names of the Quartet period such as Scobie and Maskelyne to realise this. But I tend to take Humphrey Carpenter's observation about searching for Tolkien's  sources, that "one learns little by raking through a compost heap to see what dead plants originally went into it.Far better to observe its effect on the new and growing plants that it is enriching". Or Tolkien's own remark when asked whether his "Lord of the Rings" and Wagner's Nibelungelied had anything in common: "both are round, and that's where the similarity ends".
>>>>> Richard Pine
>>>>> 
>>>> 

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