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Tolkien's sources: Icelandic Sagas and Beowulf
Beginning in the 9th century, settlers from Norway created in Iceland a society of fiercely independent farmers, fishermen, and traders; in the 13th and 14th centuries their descendants wrote a whole series of stories about them. These family sagas tell of feuds, duels and battles, legal conflicts, love affairs, travels and raids to Norway and the British Isles and further afield, and the attempted settlement of Vinland. The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is the first complete coordinated translation of these into English, containing all forty family sagas and fifty shorter tales.
The focus of the sagas is always on individuals and their relationships. They offer us strong men and outlaws, legal experts and tricksters, poets and warriors serving Norwegian kings, respected leaders and arbitrators -- and powerful matriarchs, faithful wives, and trouble-stirring women. The saga writers never venture directly into the minds of their protagonists, but they produce vivid, distinctive portraits of individuals caught up in memorable events: Egil, imprisoned in York by King Eirik Bloodaxe, with one night to compose a poem to save his life; the final ridge-top stand of the outlawed Gisli; Askel working for peace, to the point of trying to arrange in advance the settlement for his own death; Kormak's life-long obsession with Steingerd; Gunnar turning back from going into exile, moved by the beauty of the landscape; the imperious Gudrun, revealing at the end of her life which of her men she had loved the most; the burning of Njal and his family and the protracted legal and armed struggle to revenge them; and many others.
The sagas draw on local family stories, older myths and legends, and the broader body of medieval literature, along with a good deal of invention and original creation. While some are awkwardly structured, others rework their sources in sophisticated ways and some are literary masterpieces. In some, unity is provided by a biographical focus, sometimes ending with a peaceful death at the end of a long life, sometimes building with tragic inevitability to a climactic killing and the resulting resolution. Others are almost political studies, tracing the shifting balance of power between leading figures in a particular region. And while this genre of sagas is defined by a realistic treatment of early Iceland, many are (or incorporate) comic stories, fantastic tales, and romances.
In their attention to the actions of individuals within social networks, and the working through of their consequences, the Icelandic sagas are important precursors of the modern novel. They directly influenced many writers, among them Walter Scott and J.R.R. Tolkien. The sagas are also a valuable source of information about medieval Iceland, a subject of interest to more than medievalists. One of its notable features is that it had a sophisticated legal system but no executive government, which makes it a magnet for political theorists -- if you search the web for information on medieval Iceland, you'll find a running fight between the libertarians and anarchists over who can best claim it as an exemplum.
Some aspects of the sagas do take a little getting used to. They are episodic, sometimes covering events over several generations and jumping across decades to continue the story of a feud or the history of a region, and they alternate between periods of tension and relaxation. Characters are often introduced with a paragraph or two of genealogical information unrelated to the main story; and the sheer density of names, often shared by several characters, can be confusing. Though they never replace human actions and decisions as explanations of events, elements of foretelling and prophecy are nearly ubiquitous in the sagas. And obviously much of the cultural context is foreign to the modern reader. One soon becomes accustomed to these things, however, and overall the sagas are among the most accessible of medieval genres.
Unless your library has a copy or will obtain one for you, The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is probably not practical for a newcomer to the sagas; cheap paperback editions of any of the better known ones should be easy to come by. But if you become seriously interested in the sagas - and I should warn you that they are addictive -- then it's hard to go past The Complete Sagas.
Firstly, the translations are good. My academic friends assure me they are mostly of high quality, accurate enough to be usable for scholarly purposes. More importantly for the lay reader, they are lively and readable, avoiding inappropriate archaism or colloquialism. The sagas are each preceded by a brief note on when they were written and their manuscript sources, but otherwise they are clean, mostly unburdened by unnecessary commentary or annotation. The only regular exceptions to this are marginal glosses for the "kennings", highly figurative stock phrases in the poetry embedded in some of the sagas, and some explanatory notes where texts are partial or put together from different sources.
For readers who do want some background information, The Complete Sagas has a really good general introduction, a glossary of terms which are likely to be unfamiliar, some maps, and an index of characters. A minor complaint here is that the maps could show more detail and that they are all at the end of volume five, instead of in the appropriate volumes - and the index of characters is useful enough that it could almost have been repeated in each volume.
Perhaps most importantly, this is the only uniform, coordinated translation of the family sagas available. Collecting alternative translations of them all would be a lot of work, if it is even possible, and the result would not offer as coherent a presentation of the genre. Places, characters, and events often feature in several sagas, and motifs, stock phrases, and thematic elements often recur; a uniform translation scheme makes these connections easier to follow. On the other hand, the sagas do vary in style, mood, and structure, and this too is easier to appreciate when not obscured by variations in translation approach.
Finally, The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is beautifully produced. The leatherbound volumes find an elegant balance between attractiveness and austerity, and are of a size, shape and heft that makes reading them a pleasure (unlike some "great books" editions which are obviously designed to look impressive on shelves rather than to be read).
One minor caveat is that the title The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, while technically accurate, may mislead some: all the sagas about early Iceland (the "family sagas") are indeed included, but not any of the "fantasy" sagas such as the Saga of the Volsungs (based on older legends) or "romances" (based on continental models) from the same period. We will just have to hope that Leifur Eiriksson Publishing takes on the translation of those as a future project. A paperback edition would obviously make The Complete Sagas much more accessible; barring that, it would be nice if the volumes were available separately, so people could collect the set over a period of time.
Purchase The Complete Sagas of Icelanders at FatBrain or Leifur Eiriksson Publishing.
Beowulf author Seamus Heaney, translator pages 106 publisher Faber & Faber rating 9 ISBN 0-571-20376-0 summary An effective verse translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic.
For those unfamiliar with Beowulf, it is a late first millennium Anglo-Saxon epic about the hero Beowulf's fights with three monsters: Grendel, Grendel's mother, and, fifty years later at the end of his life, a dragon. Since its rediscovery in the early nineteenth century, it has become a recognised classic, translated scores if not hundreds of times. Not being able to read Old English, all I can say here is that Heaney's translation gave me a better understanding of why people rave about the poem than any of the others I have read.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of Heaney's Beowulf is that it can be read almost as if it were prose - and then mined more deeply for the poetry. Heaney writes in his introduction:
"I came to the task of translating Beowulf with a prejudice in favour of forthright delivery. I remembered the voice of the poem as being attractively direct, even though the diction was ornate and the narrative method at times oblique."So he captures something of the Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse form, but not at the expense of "the sound of sense;" he doesn't inflict awkward archaisms on the reader and is never difficult to read. Here is a brief sample, from the wait after Beowulf dives to attack Grendel's mother.
"Immediately the counsellors keeping a lookoutAn immense body of critical work on Beowulf exists. In his introduction Heaney very briefly touches on this, offering a few hints to understanding and interpreting the work. He also discusses some translation issues, feeling obliged to justify his use of one or two obscure Irish words.
with Hrothgar, watching the lake water,
saw a heave-up and surge of waves
and blood in the backwash. They bowed grey heads,
spoke in their sage, experienced way
about the good warrior, how they never again
expected to see that prince returning
in triumph to their king. It was clear to many
that the wolf of the deep had destroyed him forever."
Scholars may cavil at Heaney's liberties ("an interpretation and not a translation") and there are certainly better translations for scholarly purposes. Translation is always a balance between competing concerns, however, and a verse translation that attempts to convey something of the power of the original as a poem must inevitably deviate from the literal. Tolkien's seminal essay "The Monsters and the Critics" urged scholars to approach Beowulf not just as a philological curiosity or a source document for Anglo-Saxon language and history but as a poem and a story -- and Heaney offers lay readers a chance to appreciate something of that too.
Purchase the U.S. edition of the Heaney's Beowulf from FatBrain
I know this won't be a popular post to most slashdotters, but Tolkien was a devout christian (he converted CS Lewis to christianity), and several theologists suggest that his stories parallel many christian stories/tales. They even suggest that Gandalf was an "Angel" more than a "wizard" (which almost sounds like an excuse, so they can read the books and watch the movie, but I digress).
I don't have any links right now, nor do I necessarily believe that this is the case, but I thought it might add to the discussion.
Please no religion flames here, its just a point
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
It's interesting to note that with the long established link between Tolkien and Beowulf how stories any myths have changed little through the ages.
What is worrying is that now business is trying, through the ever tightening web of copyrights, to take ownership of what seem to be demostrated to be universal human myths.
.sig
My 12yo daughter is reading Heany's book now... I highly recommend it!
All about me
One of the most tolkienesque things I've read in Norse literature is "The Lay of Volund" in the Poetic Edda. The first part is a bit vague, and the rest is rather grim, but it's short and well worth reading if you're in to this kind of thing.
And of course, it might lead you on into some other great literature.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I heard on NPR this morning that Tolkien was a philologist and that he first devised the languages used in the trilogy, then built the rest around that. It almost seems like too much for one man to create!
I don't know how anyone can review the Heaney Beowulf without mentioning his Irishness (whose vernacular is used to capture the flavour of the original). For a less superficial review, try this one or this one
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I pick up a lot of Mediveal Stuff from used book stores
I strongly recomend
Beowulf a verse Translation bt Micheal Alexander Published by Peguin books ( I picked it up for 1$)
They also publish a lot of other medieval text's, some in period language, some in modern British. The most i have ever paid was $5.00 For a book of English Mystery plays (7 years later I still from it once or twice a year)
I have never found a good verse translation of the original Welsh tales (Mabinogion et al). that also inspired the Tolkien mythos, so if anyone has a suggetion
D.A.K.D.A.E.---- Deny all Knowledge, Destroy All Evidence
this is all well and good, but isn't it rather more likely that ol' j.r.r. just got his ideas from playing dungeons and dragons and stuff?
Well, I guess the studio was clever to run the movie first in countries such as The Netherlands and Iceland. The reviews are raving.
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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
You should also check out the fairy tales by Chrétien de Troyes (which include a ring that makes the wearer invisible) and Marie de France.
There are stories that are a part of who we are as humans. Several societies have legends/myths/religious texts that mention a great flood or deluge. And every society seems to have their heroic epics. Over time, these stories are retold and rehashed, divided and distrubited into digestible parts for frequent/easy consumption.
In the western world, be it Frankish, Saxon, Norse, Gothic, etc., these primordial stories were kept alive in fairy tales and folk tales. Tolkein knew these (especially Celtic and the like) and was able to take pieces of them and weave them into a coherant story.
So, when a teenager in Nebraska, or a 30-something in New York, reads the trilogy, there is something with which they identify - something rings true.
It's stories we've been telling for ages, retold and preserved by a master of the trade.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
The online Medieval & Classical Library (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/) has Njal's Saga and some of the other Icelandic Sagas.
I am sure that if you spend some time searching, you should be able to find at least Beowulf, and probably most of the Icelandic Sagas on-line.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Other good background is Malory's "Arthur" (Le Morte D'Arthur?), which is pretty much readable by a modern audience, and is a good romp through most of the Arthurian myths that you know and love - lots of magic, knights, and the rest. Much of the original Arthurian legends can be traced to "Layamon's Brut", which was an early pseudo-history of Britain, and it not easy to read if you're not into Middle English, though there are some good translations of parts of it. Of course, once your Middle English and Anglo-Saxon are up to speed, you'll be able to read Elvish with no problems (it's what Tolkein based the language on).
My BA is in English Lit and my first love is languages. I actually read Tolkein for the first time while studying in Germany. I was turned on to him by a professor after we had studied some other scholarly works by Tolkein. The connection between Tolkein and the old Norse Edda's or Old English poetry such as those found in the Exeter Book or Beowulf seems very obvious. Especially when you read of the Rider's of Rohan who lived in large halls (think of the "happy mead hall" motif which appears quite a bit throughout many Anglo-saxon texts).
I know many point to the Christian allegorical points in the stories, but I seem to be drawn more to the linguistic and scholarly points of the tales. They are like a modern day Volsungasaga or Beowulf...
Sorry I do not know what the name of the program was.
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Rings?
Tolkien discovered Finnish and with the help of a Finnish grammar he began to translate the Kalevala (he had already read the English translation) but he never learned Finnish enough to work on more than part of the original. He said 'It was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine of a kind and flavor never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me.' This must have influenced his undertaking to create a private language heavily influenced by the Finnish language. This was the language that would eventually emerge in his stories as 'Quenya' or High-Elven.
Gutenberg has txt's of, beowulf and the icelandic sagas iirc..
- - -
giftedu
Good literature is a great thing. A fairly obvious statement, really, but worth saying every once in a while.
That said, I have had an ongoing discussion with my circle of friends. The quick summary is: How do the Tolkien books compare with Lewis' Narnia books and more recently, Rowling's Potter books. Now, before you jump and defend/attack, the question is in reference to the way the stories are constructed. I have learned a great deal talking this out with my friends. It would be interesting to see what you all have to think.
That said, Beowulf is a very interesting book to add into the mix. Beowulf, being one of the older stories known to exist from Europe, has proven its worth by sheer existance today. I also think that it is interesting to note that several other pieces of literature have based directly from it. Grendle, by John Gardner, is a great retelling of the Beowulf story. A great read for those of you familiar with Beowulf.
So, another question to ask in light of all of the views posted already, what literature has been created directly based on the LoTR books. (Or, do modern copyright laws just make this a moot point...)
(Also, see "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard if you like re-tellings...)
Anyone read David Drake's "Northworld"? It's a cool scifi-fantasy book based on Norse legends. Kind of hard to explain- it starts off as a sci-fi book, but when the main character travels to investigate this one world it gets rather odd and almost mystical and it's a neat cross between hitech in a very primative and low tech society.
A great read! Just ignore the totally gimpy looking cover on the paperback edition!!
One of its notable features is that it had a sophisticated legal system but no executive government, which makes it a magnet for political theorists -- if you search the web for information on medieval Iceland, you'll find a running fight between the libertarians and anarchists over who can best claim it as an exemplum.
Yes, indeed...it's entertaining to read swashbuckling epics that spend a great deal of time discussing property rights, the complications of joint ownership, legal machinations surrounding property...some selections from Njal's Saga:
"There was a man called Mord Fiddle, who was the son of Sighvat the Red. Mord was a powerful chieftain, and lived at Voll in the Rangriver Plains. He was also a very experienced lawyer..."
"Thorarin lived at Varmabrook, which he owned in common with Glum, who had spent many years trading abroad. Glum was tall and strong and very handsome. The third brother, Ragi, was a great warrior. The three brothers jointly owned Eng Isle and Laugarness, in the south."
"At the Thingskalar Assembly in the autumn, Kilskegg made his claim to the land at Moeidarknoll; Gunnar named witnesses and offered to compensate the people of Thrihyrning with money or another piece of land lawfully assessed at the same value. Thorgeir then named witnesses and charged Gunnar with breaking their settlement.
And you thought that Monty Python was making all that stuff up... :)
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
Another cool epic is the Nibelungenlied which I haven't completely read but I remember a week in which my dad and I watched Wagner's The Ring on PBS. I'm not a big opera fan but that was definately worth watching.
Just my 00000010 cents.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
"Strong resemblance to Germanic mythology"? Heheh. Try "exact resemblance" in some cases. One of my close friends- who, like me, is a fantasy/ mythology addict and is currently in the midst of working on a grad degree in lit.- was poking through a book of Norse mythology, came up a listing of the dwarves present at some major point in the mythology, and realized that Tolkien had lifted the list wholesale to be the names of the dwarves in "The Hobbit". Beautiful, that. :) Really quite cool, and a smart way to avoid the annoyance of trying to make up realistic-sounding names.
Tolkien's own translations of medieval English literature, such as "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and "Pearl" are worth mentioning, too.
Discounting chairty and reviewer previews,
Tuesday midnight is the first show.
would be a library?
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Good reading for those seeking the myths behind the Middle Earth is Kalevala which is the saga and tales of the Finnish people. Tolkien was greatly impressed and influenced by the Kalevala, specially Silmarillion has many similarities to Kalevala. Tolkien also studied the Finnish language and used it to create the Elf language.
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton. The movie "13'th Warrior" is loosely (very, and badly) based on this. The plot is that an Arab Scholar of the 9th century wrote a report of his travels with a Viking who was fighting neandertals in Scandanavia.
Best Slashdot Co
Chretien's not fairy tales!! It's Arthurian lit! It's a legitimate literary tradition! RRARRG!
Sorry, Arthurian lit.'s kinda important to my existence; in fact it's a major aspect of my job- take a look at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm
Unfortunately our server seems to be having major issues right now, but it's a GREAT resource if you want to learn more about this literary genre.
And to keep this on-topic: hmmm, interesting point about the ring of invisibility in, i think, the Yvain story. Tolkien would almost *certainly* have known it; he was a medievalist, and it's rather difficult to be a medievalist and escape those darn French authors, even if your main focus is Anglo-Saxon.
Actually the original Arthurian myths, including Merlin et al. are from Welsh and other early Celtic cultures.
And incidentally, Elvish was actually based on Welsh and one of the Scandinavian languages (Finnish?), although he borrowed words from other languages as well. It's the hobbit & common languages that were based more on Anglo-Saxon.
I really wish that I didn't know the above BTW.
Masks of Odin
by E Titchenell
is a great book on the why where when of the ancient norse mythos.
A really great in depth look at the grand stories of the norse peoples
back in the day we didnt have no old school
let us not forget that Tolkien hated allegory in all its forms. He has repeated stated that while inspiration comes in many forms, he never meant LoTR to parallel the bible, nuclear arms race, or any of the dozens of theories that people with degrees love to speculate on.
Why look at Heaney's Beowulf ? He's an Irish poet. Tolkein was one of the finest philologists of the 20th century and an expert in old English. His translation of Beowulf was and still is definitive. Read Tolkein's version instead.
There's a difference. Of course, Catholicism is a form of the religion called Christianity. However, when one says "a devout Christian," at least in the U.S. and increasingly in the U.K., it carries a connotation of a certain type of person, one who feels compelled to consider Halloween "of Satan" (even though it's one of the earliest Christian holidays), to state that when the Bible mentions "wine" it's really unfermented grape juice, and above all to make every creative work a footnote to the Bible.
In contrast, Catholicism was truly catholic, because it engulfed and incorporated all of the myths of the cultures it touched. Tolkien saw no conflict at all between being a devout Catholic and being fascinated by the mythology of various places in Europe. He referred to the world in LOTR and The Silmarilion as "sub-creation" and didn't think it conflicted with his religion at all. He asserted more than once that Middle-Earth was the Mediterranean, only very long ago.
Tolkien attempted to convert C.S. Lewis to Catholicism and was by all accounts really ticked off when it didn't work, and Lewis instead adopted something much more in line with the connotations with "devout Christian." Hence The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is the sort of blatant Christian allegory that such people like. Tolkien himself said he detested allegory, although he wrote a little allegory in his youth. He would certainly have considered the assertion that Gandalf was somehow "really" an angel to be absurd and simplistic, especially as the name, borrowing from a pastiche of Northern European languages, means "wizard-elf."
Do many of Tolkien's ideas parallel stories that some call "Christian?" Of course they do, just as they parallel similar stories in just about every culture on the planet. What Tolkien wrote made use of what might be called "archtypes." These stories are basic stories that human beings tell because they are human beings. To say that Gollum was really Coyote is just as accurate and just as silly as to say that Gandalf was really an angel. The value of an archetypal story is in the telling, not the plot, and Tolkien told it very well.
When modern apologists make these assertions, they're dealing with their own internal conflicts, not Tolkien's.
You *must* also check out Dream of the Rood; a fantastic short piece that neatly captures the crossover between Christianity and Norse Paganism. It's just insanely nifty, because you can see how the early Church decided to present itself to the norse...
Also, Tale of the Wanderer is useful in how it describes the norse worldview.
That's *Tolkien*, folks.
Not "Tolkein". Not E-I.
I-E. Got that?
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.
I can't believe the number of so-called "fans" that can't even spell his name.
Stumbling in the dark
I hear slavering of jaws
Eaten by a grue.
"I figure you're here 'cause you need some whacko who's willing to stick his finger in the fan. So who are we helping?
Perhaps I should like to enlighten you that there are several ancient Chinese novels that wrote about Chinese God and Godess. I will list their names here in Chinese spells and pseudo-English pronunciation:
/sh-an h-i j-in/
/sh-ee you j-ee/ "A quest story to the west" by a novelist living in Qing dynasty.
/f-en sh-en y-an y-ee/ "A story of Chinese Gods"
"Shan Hai Jing"
In Ming and Qing dynasties (the last two Chinese dynasties), many Chinese novels were written, one of which is the most famous LOTR-ish style:
"Xi You Ji"
Another novel that has less public attention, but more interesting IMO, is named
"Feng Shen Yan Yi"
These are some really fun books to read.
Together, we are strong; Apart, we are stronger.
From this link:
From Letter #142:
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like `religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.
From Letter #269:
With regard to The Lord of the Rings, I cannot claim to be a sufficient theologian to say whether my notion of orcs is heretical or not. I don't fell under any obligation to make my story fit with formalized Christian theology, though I actually intended it to be consonant with Christian thought and belief, which is asserted elsewhere.
From Letter #320:
...I think it is true that I owe much of (the character of Galadriel) to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary....
nor Marillion - they're bloody rubbish
Ok, I just have to defend my favorite band, Marillion. If you're basing your opinion solely on their single, Kayleigh, from the mid-80s, they're not the same band anymore. With current lead singer Steve Hogarth, they sound very distinct and modern, and are still putting out progressive (and not in the Yes sense of the word) and interesting music.
Sure, they did start out rather pretentiously, taking on the name Silmarillion (which was soon shortened to Marillion for copyright reasons), and releasing a somewhat Genesis-influenced 20 minute epic, Grendel, which was sung from the sympathetic point-of-view of the monster in Beowulf (See, this post is on-topic!). But they evolved and adapted with the times, and their current output (see: Anoraknophobia) is miles away from the early days. Not that I don't still love all of the 80s output headed by frontman and lyrical mastermind Fish, mind you. Simply different eras. Both have the ability to move a listener and alternately rock hard-core. Ok, I'm done defending my favorite band now. Carry on.
I remember when the Matrix came out there was a similar debate about the influences and the deeper meaning behind it. Some people associated Neo with Jesus; others noticed the Simulacra and Simulation book in the movie and applied that; still others applied the teachings of Jung and the collective unconscious.
The point is that there are probably several things that influenced Tolkien both directly (or consciously) and indirectly (or unconsciously). This holds true for everything and anything ever written. Really one of the best places to look at this is religion. We are all fairly familiar with the similarities between Greek and Roman Gods (because the Roman's were greatly influence by the Ancient Greeks) but the correlations occur with many other distant religions. Virgin (or miraculous) births, sibling rivalry, great floods etc. appear in many different religions.
In summary, we are all the product of thousands of years of collective ideas and experiences. While the names in Tolkien's works may be from Norse or Germanic mythology, the ideas are from all of World History.
Or a beowulf of tolkiens, each of which is a beowulf of hobbits, each of which is a beowulf of tolkiens itself?
Fairy Tales are a "legitimate literary tradition"
I mean some of the oldest aspects of Western lititure are Fairy Tales.
It is just in the last couple of centuries that they have whitewashed and made dull insepid little stories. much like what is going on right now with the Arthurian legends....
D.A.K.D.A.E.---- Deny all Knowledge, Destroy All Evidence
Tolkien's puts his "Land of Terror" Mordor in the same geographic location as is the Middle East and Central Asian is to England. Traditionally these areas have been a source of invasion: the Huns, the Jihads, the Mongols, the Crusades (in reverse), the Turks, and the new Jihads. I've seen some newspapers refer to bin Lauden as the "Lord of Terror" and Sauron analogies spring to my mind, especially this month.
And what about a TolkienRing network?
...
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
> I have never found a good verse translation of the original Welsh tales (Mabinogion et al). that also inspired the Tolkien mythos,
> so if anyone has a suggetion
Could it be because the Mabinogion & related stories *weren't* written in verse but prose?
Helpful information follows:
I have two translations of the Mabinogion in my library: one by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones in the Everyman's Library series, & a more recent translation by Patrick K. Ford. Of the two, Ford's is done in contemporary American English, & I remember finding it slightly more readable. Both contain a translation of the related tale ``Culhwlch and Olwen", which contains the earlier Welsh description of Arthur before the late Medieval poets recast him as the ideal monarch.
Speaking of Arthur, there are translations of Aneiryn's ``Gododdin", the earliest Welsh poem which mentions Arthur in the middle of describing an unsuccessful North Country battle against the Saissons, aka Anglo-Saxons. K.H. Jackson's translation is useful for the extensive notes.
And if you want to get truly serious about Welsh traditions, hunt down a copy of Rachel Bromwich, _Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads_ (2nd, ed., University of Wales, 1978), ISBN 0-7083-0690-X. Bromwich's edition is a treasure trove of information, aswell as including an index of most of the personages of Welsh legendry.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Christian mythology follows a pattern. LotR follows the same pattern. This does not mean that LotR is based on or incoporates the Christian Mythology. Tolkien hated allegory: Peas are vegitables and so are carrots. This *does not* mean that carrots are based on peas. There is no doubt on the influence religion has played however the stories are no more of an allegory on christianity than on Tolkien's own ww1 experiences.The key is influence and not allegory.
>Gandalf was an "Angel" more than a "wizard"
Gandalf is a wizard and that means he is a Maiar-- not that he is more of wizard. His name in valinor is Olorin (Look it up in the silmarillion. Last paragraph of 2 or 3rd section). Sauron is a Maiar a so are balrogs.
It sucks when people try slap christianity (or any religion) onto something great and then use it to proselytize.
The stories in the bible are wonderful in there own right. So are the stories in LotR and silmarillion.
Jonathan
The author's name is Viðar, not Viar.
That squiggly little character is an eth, coded in HTML as ð. When you can't type it, a "d" is a suitable replacement.
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
In college, I took a one-semester course on Old English. One of the things we did was read Beowulf in Old English. I highly recommend it for those who can find a course like that nearby (I have no idea how rare that is).
As several here have noted, the goal of a good translation is to retain some of the alliteration and stylistic sense of the original verse. In my experience and my opinion, it's easier to learn enough Old English to appreciate the original than it is to have a translation do it.
I mean, we're not talking Greek here. OE isn't that hard to a modern English speaker (I actually found it easier in some ways than Chaucer's Middle English).
...Tolkien's scholarly works: his essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" and his brilliant edition of The Fight at Finnesburg. Some kinowledge of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Latin required, but all Slashdotters are polymaths, right? Anyway, it's a waste of time to read the lame translations they have nowadays.
I haven't actually read it, but Saiyuki, also known as "Journey to the West", might be the closest thing.
To explain this to the Slashdot crowd, the first story arc of Dragon Ball (not Dragon Ball "Z") is a sort of a modern-day parody of it. The story, written centuries ago, is about as important as Shakespeare's works to countries like Japan and China.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
The grammar is terrible for a non-Finn to learn, but some have!
See my journal, I write things there
The story of Turin Turambar was taken directly from Kalevala. You might call it plagiarism except that J.R.R. never published the Silmarillion.
See here.
J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (T. A. Shippey) is a great read for those who want even more background into where Tolkien's ideas came from for LOTR. The author looks at the book from both a literary and linguistic point of view, and makes a case for LOTR to be included in "high" English literature, while it's mostly been scoffed at by intellectuals as fluff. The author is Tolkien's successor in the chair at Oxford that he once held, so he might be a little biased, but it's still a great read, especially if you are interested in the etymology of the names and places used in the books.
...where they played recordings of Tolkien discussing the stories. Go to npr.org to get to the site. Once there, you must navigate to the specific show. It's called 'Morning Edition.' I've read the books but was never aware of their Icelandic roots. By pure synchronicity, I picked up a new CD at lunch by a group called Sequentia called "Edda, Myths from medieval Iceland." Imagine my suprise when I got back and came across this thread!
I want to be alone with the sandwich
I know this was posted by an Anonymous Coward but how something so informative and relevant to the thread can have a score of 0 is beyond me.
Also to all the people saying:"No LOTR does not reflect christian thought but ancient European pagan mythology" - well of course it does. But it is interesting to look at how Tolkien treated the ancient pagan mythology he loved in light of the influence that Lewis and Tolkien had on each other and Lewis's belief in the mythopeoic nature of God. Basically Lewis believed that the actual nature and actions of a real God (which he, and Tolkien, belived was the christian God of the bible) was echoed in God's creation and resonated with the human imagination. Thus there are "corn king" gods that die and are resurected for the salvation of their people in the mythology of every people. This mythology comes from the natural cycle of "death" and "resurection" in nature and has a powerful hold on human imagination. But Lewis belived that God created nature in that way and that it resonated with man's imagination because God was communicating a truth about himself to man - and that truth was forshadowing what Lewis called the "true myth" of an actual historic incarnation of God who died and was resurected for the salvation of his people.
I don't know if Tolkien had similar beliefs but I suspect that even if he did not hold those beliefs precisely as Lewis expressed them he was certainly influenced by them. It is even possible that he was the one influencing Lewis By Lewis's own testimony this understanding of the mythopoeic nature of God was instrumental to his becoming a christian - and Lewis also said that his conversations with Tolkien were instrumental to his becoming a christian. It is not too much to imagine that the idea that was pivotal to Lewis's conversion came from the conversations with Tolkien that were pivotal to Lewis's conversion.
Hrothgar = Rutger [Sw] = Roger [En]
as in one of many resemblances between these languages.
Actually, Beowulf is the story telling how the Swedes concquered the Geaths. But who the Geaths are remain a disputed matter.
Modern Sweden is divided into three parts - Norrland (land of the North), Svealand (land of the Swedes) and Götaland [Goetaland](land of the Götas [Goetas]).
There is no unequivocal Saga telling the story how Svealand came to dominate Götaland (Goetaland). However, there are two ancient royal burial places in Sweden. One in Uppsala north of Stockholm and one outside Skara in southwestern Sweden, but no one knows for sure when the Skara kings ceased to rule.
One popular belief is that Beowulf actually tells us that story, and there are several indications that it actually may be so.
The crap film Beowulf from 1998 went with the mythological monster Grendel stuff and therewith ruined a good story.
I second (third? fourth?) the nomination for Journey to the West, though I haven't gotten to read that one yet, and I'd also like to put in a hearty recommendation for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, sometimes just titled Three Kingdoms, but don't confuse it with The History of the Three Kingdoms. It's not exactly fantasy. More like historical fiction, but I guess it falls in parallel with the Icelandic Sagas. It's about the fall of the Han dynasty, with a focus on the extended military campaigns of the three major competing successor dynasties. It's got warfare, political intrigue, loyalty, betrayal, strategy, virtue, and a damn good story to boot. A 400 page abridgement was released this past year, and other editions may be available at used book stores, but I don't believe any are in print. (I could be wrong)
Or if your not into strategy/intrigue stuff, and would rather go for a story of wandering badasses, check out Outlaws of the Marsh, sometimes titled Heroes of the Marsh or Water Margin Outlaws.
They're both incredible. Both very long (roughly 1500 pages apiece) but worth every page.
I then reccomend The Once and Future King. It's 3 stories from the Sword in the Stone, all the way to Arthurs death, when Camelot falls apart. It's a very intresting read if you're into the whole knights and magic type setting.
Hmmm. Not according to Everything2; Finland can be considered to be part of Scandinavia, it just depends on your criteria.
>The grammar is terrible for a non-Finn to learn,
>but some have!
Tolkien, for a start.
BEYOND THE FIELDS WE KNOW: Tolkien's magical world unconnected to ours
Beyond Tolkein's literary sources, it is important to understand the "open source" nature of the collaborative environment he had with "The Inklings" (including C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams). Also, it is crucial to know his literary software development methodology, which he called "subcreation." I believe that many deep software projects are examples of "subcreation" --including all Role Playing Games, much literary hypertext, and the sense in which any coder is a god-like subcreator of an complete, consistent, imaginary yet interactive world.
"Beyond the Fields We Know" is a haunting phrase by Lord Dunsany.
This is (as Baird Searles, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin point out ["A Reader's Guide to Fantasy", New York: Avon, 1982] a fine description of tales in which all the action happens in a magical world unconnected to our own by space or time. "The Lord of the Rings", by J. R. R. Tolkein, is a superb example. Tolkein said that the author of such fiction is engaged in "subcreation" of the other world, with an inner consistency and conviction:
"To experience directly a Secondary World, the potion is too strong, and you give to it Primary Belief, however marvellous the events. You are deluded -- whether that is the intention of the elves (always or at any time) is another question. They at any rate are not deluded. This is for them a form of Art, and distinct from Wizardry or Magic, properly so called" [J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories", in "Tree and Leaf", 1964].
David Hartwell [Age of Wonders, New York: Walker, 1984, p.14] summarizes this genre as "Tolkienesque fantasy, in the manner of Lord of the Rings -- carefully constructed worlds as the setting for a heroic quest."
Here we mean tales of a world sufficient unto itself, with its own history, geography, cultures, races, and nonhuman beings. There is a greater or lesser degree of magic, sometimes central to the action, sometimes part of
the taken-for-granted background, but always as something distinguishing this world from our technological one.
When we read such fiction, we feel ourselves drawn into the other world, and taking it as real, so that when we close the book, it is hard to wrench ourselves away from that world and reluctantly return to home. To capture the dream, we read the book again, or perhaps look for others that will produce the same magical emotion. Beowulf and the Icelandic Sagas certainly qualify.
For a list of 90+ such books, see my web page (from which this posting is drawn):
http://magicdragon.com/
then click on "Science Fiction", then
"Genres", then "Beyond the Fields We Know."
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Cymraeg am Byth!
Mmmm... Pistol Whip...
For an interesting question, speculate on where Tom Bombadil fits into all this. Is he maiar? Valar? Illuvatar him(it)self?
But I'll set a few things straight, that might not have been yet. (You see, I have to go to class shortly and have no time to check every message.)
Tolkien was a Christian, yes. He insisted that he wasn't trying to influence his writings with any religion or current events, however (Sauron is NOT Hitler. Nor is Morgoth, for that matter.). Verily, but he did note that Galadriel's character was highly inspired by the virgin Mary. You make the call.
On Gandalf being 'more an angel'. He *was* more like an angel than a 'wizard'. Tolkien hated the word wizard, but found nothing else more similar to what Gandalf was. Gandalf was in fact Maia. Maia were, in fact, similar to angels as we tend to think of them. However, he ran around as an old fart, consuming the British with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse.
Err. Anyway, the word wizard wasn't arguably the most similar word for what Gandalf was - however, I think Tolkien was consciously trying to keep the LotR from being thought of as a religious work. Calling Gandalf an angel outright would have religious nuts going mad (Especially at that time, but it's not like we don't have people living in the Southern US trying to burn Tolkien's works nowadays..). It also lended itself to the theme of the story more.. Gandalf the Wizard escorting a bunch of hobbits seems more, well, uncertain, than Gandalf the Angel.
Also, I don't believe Tolkien ever settled the argument as to whether or not Balrogs had wings. In the Fellowship, it denotes a darkness *like* wings surrounding the Balrog. Tolkien was a man who chose his words, thus, we of the, "Balrogs do *not* have wings." camp insist that, well, Balrogs don't have wings. (Insert various references about Balrogs *walking* when it'd make more sense for them to fly here.)
On topicness: Yes. Read these books. Mythology and such is gooooood.
does anyone know if tolkein's books, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, etc have had any of the difficulties with banning by christian fundamentalists that the Harry Potter books and c.s.lewis' Narnia books have had?
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Gandalf wasn't Maia.
Sue me, I've been up for over fourty hours.
Bastards. Just go read the Silmarillion, and you'll figure things out.
Or be totally confused.
In which case, you can read it aloud with friends and take a shot everytime the following happens.
1. A sentence starts out with, "Of the".
2. The word verily is used.
3. Each time you come across a sentence you have to reread three times.
It looks interesting, but $390.00 is a commitement.
My brain has a mind of its own.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
For those of you who enjoy Norse/Icelandic/Northern type stories and sagas, besides all the good info given here by other posters I'd recommend Eaters Of The Dead, by the guy who wrote Jurassic Park (yeah, I know). They made it into a movie (The 13th Warrior), which in most respects does do justice to the book, mainly because it's a short story.
Still, it's good reading.
Actually it's not Indo-European, but Finno-Urgic, which also includes Hungarian and Estonian.
Well, there are points of similarity and differences.
I think the extremely original thing that Tolkien did, the thing that revived fantasy as a literary genre, was to give the saga a geographic and historical context. This underlies their "geek appeal" to be sure -- without the languages, the appendices etc, LOTR would not be anything like the phenomenon it is.
Aside from it's geek appeal, the huge amount of backstory and geography accomplishes something very important: it makes a tale of magic plausible to a literate, modern reader. Things (to a modern mind) don't simply happen some vague place and time lacking geographic, cultural, political, and historical connections. It isn't enough anymore to simply explain how the hero falls into the world of magic, but the author must also arrange a vehicle to take the reader along too.
In this, I think there is a strong parallel to Rowling's work. On the whole Rowlings work is very different (in some ways better, in other ways not) from LOTR. But the innovation in her writing is the way she encourages the reader to dovetail their world with the world of wizardry. Hogwarts is, if you read carefully, clearly in Scotland -- where else would you be if you travelled north from Kings Cross for five hours? There is a ministry of magic that reports to the prime minister. You buy your wizarding supplies in London in a magically hidden street. Magical folk live quietly near non-magical folk and do their best to avoid attracting attention.
The Narnia stories, by contrast, are more pure fairy tale (which does not to my mind denigrate them, or the Hobbit for that matter). The heros enter the world of magic through the simple device of clibmbing through the back of an old wardrobe. This is not a criticism, but it limits full enjoyment to the kind of person who can enjoy himself by climbing into a closet and pretending it is a door to some magical place (e.g. children and very child-like folk). Perhaps a better comparison would be Lewis' space trilogy, which holds much more appeal to an adult reader.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No, Finland(sp?) is a country, Finish(sp?) is a language, and along with Hungarian, belongs to the Ural-Altaic family of languages, not Indo-European.
The question of what literature has been created directly from LOTR can be a complicated one.
For example, if I mention a story about a guy with a huge black sword that terrifies everyone, particularly because the person with the sword has the bad habit of killing off friends. This man is ever seeking revenge and is often tricked into performing great evils. In the end, the sword reveals it can speak.
Now, who do you think I am referring to? It could be Elric of Melnibone by Moorcock or it could be Turin Turambar from the Silmarillion. So, who stole from who? I find it hard to believe that these two didn't know of each other, Moorcock's influence in modern fantasy is pretty heavy (check the alignments in Dungeons & Dragons, for example).
Who wrote theirs first? Silmarillion was started around 1914 but not published until the 1970s. Elric first appeared in the 1950's, shortly after LOTR. So I don't think the question can be answered definitively. Is this a case of ripoff or parallel development?
... on the whole shebang, check out Mark Henderson's list on Amazon of Norse sagas, most of which are Icelandic and $10. -jm
Some less kind Russian friends have commented that Finland is what remains of a Russian-Swedish argument. Certainly a large part of Finland used to be a part of Sweden (which is why Linus Torvalds is Swedish-Finnish) so certainly part (the West) can be said to be originally Scandinavian by any definition.
I'm impressed but not surpised that Tolkein could speak Finnish though. He certainly knew enough of the other Northern-European languages and in their ancient form.
Changing the subject, I would love to know what he was like as a teacher. With such a background, he must have seemed a little formidable.
See my journal, I write things there
>The grammar is terrible for a non-Finn
>I'm impressed but not surpised that Tolkein could
>speak Finnish though
Actually, it seems that Tolkien loved Finnish grammar. Check this essay out that I just googled.
a department of redundancy department?
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
I read a translation of Snorri Sturlesson's Prose Edda back in my college days, and remember running across a catalogue of the names of the dwarves. Among them (with apologies for the glitches in my now middle-ages neurons) were: Fili, Kili, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Ori, Nori, Oin, Gloin, Thorin Eikenskjalde (literally, "with-oak-shield"), and Gandalf (literally, "sorcerer-elf").
For an ass-beating Icelandic saga, try Njal's Saga, a rich source for Icelandic history and a great read.
-tyriphobe
Because it's vaguely on topic and vaguely in season, here for your reading amusement is an Old English translation of the wonderful old Christmas chestnut:
http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/oe/rudolph.html
Merry Christmas!
Professor Tolkien made a brilliant early reputation as a scholar of Early and Middle English. Many English courses assign his Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Pearl. His most significant critical essays are collected in the volume: The Monsters and the Critics, including his discussion of Beowulf.
For those of you who consider academic texts painful to read, give Tolkien's scholarly work a go. You'll be surprised by how readable they really are!
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
Read Tolkien's essay Beowulf, "The Monsters and the Critics"
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Random example:
"It is therefore a question of whether a word used (in a vast number of cases) as '(abstract) principle of life', occasion as 'living being', can be used of any thing or actual part of a body essential to life, as we say 'life-blood'. Certainly it can--vaguely; we have 'waes in feorh dropen' (smitten in the vitals) in Beowulf 2981, 'feorh geraehte' in Maldon 142. Feorhlast in 'feorhlastas baer' (B. 846) is curious: 'life-tracks'? but Grendel was going home to die--and the 'lastas' were visible; and note 'blode' 847. One would like 'tracks stained with life-blood'. Cf. ON 'fjor' in verse, and Finnur Jonsson's note in Lexicon Poeticum: "in many of these instances 'fjor' is treated as something substantial...probably the blood is thought of as identical with life; this sense is clear in Voluspa 41, 'fyllisk fjorvi feigra manna, rythr ragna sjot rauthum dreyra''". One may add 'fjorsegi' (Fafnismal 32) meaning 'life-muscle (blood-muscle!)', i.e. heard.
Interesting, and useful in understanding the Anglo-Saxon text he is discussing, but not light reading. The man was a professional Germanic philologist, and he makes certain demands on his audience.
To get the most enjoyment form Heaney's translation, can I make a suggestion? Buy the CD of Seamus reading it.
He has a lovely voice, and delivers on the lyric quality which the reviewer above (and myself) so admire.
If you like this translation, you might also want to go on to read some of Heaney's other work. I'd particularly recommend the anthology of poetry "Opened Ground". He won the 1995 Nobel Prize for literature, and his work has echoes (for me) of Yates, Elliot and Joyce.
But I want a Beowulf cluster of these.
Fellowship 9/11
I am just wondering where he got the name Rohan (the Riders of Rohan) from (since it is my family name). Anyone know?
I looked at your medieval page. It's funny how Tolkien modified the focus on medieval history in America... For Frenchmen I'd say that the first things that come to mind are not Beowolves or Germanic myths like the Nibelung and Elves... I'd say that the fantastic is really less present. The Normand/Frank phenomenon of the chevalery and its "codes" are much more present for instance. The crusade expeditions, the myths about templars and their treasures, the hundred year war, the siege of towns and castle in the everlasting wars between dukedoms, the black plague...The society clearly divided into Nobles (Warriors), Clerics (Theology/Education), the Peasants but also the slowly growing population of towns that build a new scale of values through a complex trade network... Here are some of the old texts of legends, romans, poems that can come to mind to a French guy and you might not know: "Chanson de Roland" translated by something like "Roland's Song" Story of the back guard of Charlemagne when its army crossed the Pyrenees mountains. The original facts are historic but were considerably modified with the time and reflect a part of the culture of this time (Loyal knight, Individual heroism...) "Roman de Renart" ~ "Roman of the Fox" "Le Roman de Tristan" "La ballade des pendus"and other poems from Villon (~ ballad of the hunged ) "Arthur" legends (of course). ...
I wish you could find some translations.
A good source is Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson.
By the way, did you know Gandalf is a dwarf? Check out "The Catalogue of Dwarves" in the Voluspa, in the Poetic Edda. Apparently his name means "magical elf"... there's also dwarves that are the four cardinal directions, the waxing and waning moon, and a number of names you might recognise as dwarves from LOTR...
Beowulf has been studied a lot. Check out the names and ancestries of the characters. The epic Beowulf is not English literature, but literature in English, very old English. The action takes place in southern Scandinavia with the southern tip of what is now Sweden actually being Danish at the time.
If you're looking for a more general dead-tree version of Beowulf, then Howell D. Chickering, Jr. 's Beowulf, Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York, 1977 was a good one with both the transcribed Old English version and the modern English version side by side.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Frans G. Bengtsson's book, The Long Ships : A Saga of the Viking Age, is a great piece of historical fiction from about the same part of Scandinavia as Beowulf. It's probably available at Borders or Amazon and almost certainly in any medium or large public library. The original title is Röde Orm. It and his other writings are considered execellent works of literature. ) by Frans G. Bengtsson is a great piece of historical fiction from about the same part of Scandinavia as Beowulf. It's probably available at Borders or Amazon and almost certainly in any medium or large public library. The original title is Röde Orm and it and his other writings are considered execellent works of literature as well.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
The Age of Fable aka Bullfinch's Mythology is online for free. It covers some basic European stuff with special sections for Aurthurian legends and Charlemagne. Of course, the first volume has the obligatory chapter on Beowulf.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Tolkien's denials aside, I always thought it painfully obvious that the dark riders were called "Nazghuls"... "Nazi Ghouls?"I don't think the Nazis were in the same league. The Nazis were just basic Human wickedness, the kind of which we have seen several instances just this century. The Nazgul and Sauron are supposed to be a whole order of magnitude worse.
The Silmarillion is hardcore Tolkien! That's where you go when you've finished the LotR appendices. The best thing about LotR is the back-story (not the florid dialogue, the two dimensional characters or the numerous other literary flaws ;-) ... and The Silmarillion is pure back-story.
Can anyone comment on Christopher Tolkien's large body of work containing the various drafts and revisions of The Silmarillion and other stories (Unfinished Tales, History of Middle Earth, etc.)? It seems to me that Tolkien only wrote three actual Middle Earth stories, and a large amount of extra material has been "generated" to fill the demand.
Ade_
/
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
:) HAAHAHAH :O HAAHAAHA HAHAHAAH! :} :o AHAHAHHAHA HAH AHA!!!! Thanks for "humoring" me! ;/ :) Whoa, now I'm "killing" myself with funny!!!!! HO HO HA!
"sting!" HA HAHAHAHAHAA HAHAHA
You just "slay" me, bitrott!
HA HAH AHA
ha.
'The Water Margin' was made into a TV series that was shown in the UK about 25 years ago. I think it was originally made in the far east somewhere, but was dubbed into English.
I watched it when I was a kid, but I didn't realise it was based on a classic tale. Does anyone else remember this?
Also, who could forget the great, the amazing - MONKEY!
The 2 most famous epics from India certainly qualifies.
1. The Ramayana is the journey of Rama to rescue his wife Sita who was abducted to Lanka by a demon. We also get to meet Hanuman who may be an ancestor to the Monkey King (in a literary sense) in Journey to the West. This can be enjoyed as mostly an adventure story with a clear good vs evil view.
2. The Mahabharata is a sprawling saga of the feud between two families for control of Bharat, the Hindhu name for India. Among other gems, it contains the Bhagatvha Gita which is the philosophy given to Arjuna by Krisna in the midst of the battle field. This is a much more philosophical and thought provoking work.
Those less inclined to read it may enjoy Peter Brook's NINE HOUR film! And that's an extremely condensed version!
From Plato's Republic, Book VII, Glaucon speaking to Socrates (Trans. Francis MacDonald Conford):
Hobbits, in fact, were the only creatures who had the kind of spirit to resist the lure of the One Ring, and even they broke down eventually.
I learned the above excerpt back in a class I took in UC Davis, an english class studying the medieval origins of J.R.R. Tolkien's and C.S. Lewis's work. Very interesting overall.
Poop.
Ignore...
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Tolkien was a devout christian (he converted CS Lewis to christianity)
Catholic, from memory he converted Lewis from tepid Anglican to Catholic.
They even suggest that Gandalf was an "Angel" more than a "wizard"
Elves are more angelic (long lives,...), the Valar being high-rank anges (Thrones and Dominations are the Christian names, methinks). The Istari are sorta archangels.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
There is a part of the Silmarillion inspired by the rape of Kullervo from Kalevala.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
While there may be some religious similarities in Lord of the Rings, most of Tolkiens imagery and ideas came from his own experiences. He was in ww2 (or maybe it was ww1) and saw many horrible things. By his own admission many of his war time experiences were used in the story as a kind of a backdrop. He would definitely categorically deny any alegorical comparisons to religion. He became obsessed with death at an early age (23?) as a result of all the people he knew who were killed in the war and personally saw many people killed. This is the easiest explaination for the death theme in Lord of the Rings.
I have heard him in his own words in a taped interview say as much. He was a professor of old english (something like that, but maybe not exactly, going from memory here) and as such he was very familiar with all kinds of works of literature from that time. Doesn't mean his work was based on, or even influenced by, works such as beowulf.