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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
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.
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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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).
Sorry I do not know what the name of the program was.
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..
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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...)
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
Discounting chairty and reviewer previews,
Tuesday midnight is the first show.
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.
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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."
Hmm, I don't think this is actually provable at the moment. There are some overlaps between Arthurian stuff and the Mabinogion, as well as other Welsh poetry, but much of the Arthurian material was newly-written, especially the stories concerning the French knights, and the Grail.
And for online *Arthurian* texts, take a look at the Camelot Project at:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm
We've got all sorts of Arthurian stuff up that you can't find copies of. A lot of it's 19th century crud, but it's at least interesting, and gives you an idea of what modern Arthuriana is coming out of. And yes, this is the second time i've posted the URL. I'm a very bad person.
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.
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 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.
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
Yes... I think Tolkien also was one of anglo-saxon romanticists (or whatever proper term is... there was such a movement on early 20th century), hoping to get some of the already forgotten anglo-saxon words to be 'resurrected' (major reason for 'downfall of anglo-saxon language' was William the Conqueror et al conquering England, french becoming the "civilized language"... and as a result, tons of new words were imported from latin via french, often replacing 'native' words, sometimes just adding... in some cases there still exists 3 varieties of words, like 'regal', 'royal', 'kingly', from latin - french - anglo-saxon... and supposedly going from most formal/prestigious downwards).
In addition, Tolkien was interested in quite a few other (european) languages. I think I read somewhere that finnish was actually a big influence in elvish (whatever the language was called...). Thus, it might be that yet another book that may have been influencing some of Tolkien's books would be 'Kalevala', which is based in finnish (fenno-ugrian, actually) folklores, and was compiled in late 19th century by a finnish scholar. There is an english translation available (which seems kind of decent, too, although translating mythical epic books is always difficult), I read it a year ago. Because of the vastness of Tolkien's production, it's not surprising that there are parallels (and of course even Kalevala draws heavily from bible, christian legends mixing with existing folklores in medieval times). Wonder if someone has already studied these similarities. Hmmh, got to check Google for that. :-)
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The grammar is terrible for a non-Finn to learn, but some have!
See my journal, I write things there
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.
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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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.
Journey to the West is, by contrast with LOTR, a pretty straightforward allegory. Each character represents an aspect of the Buddhist's struggle for enlightenment. Monkey, for example, represents the undisciplined, egotistical, emotional mind; Piggy is lust and gluttony.
What makes it charming from a modern reader's perspective is that these characteristics aren't just obstacles to be overcome, but are the very means of the Buddhist's victory. The message is not that ambition, covetousness and carnality are evil, but that they are necessary part of everyone's journey. This gives Journey to the West a kind of psychological sophistication usually lacking in allegory.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Actually, it's based on the book "Grendel" by John Gardner? which is just what you mentioned, a retelling of Beowulf from the other side.
:)
Not quite as good as the retelling of the three little pigs from the Wolf's point of view
Oh yeah...Marillion as rubbish - bollocks.
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.
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
\i{Sauron is a maiar, but Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast, etc. are not of that stature}
quotes not exact, but...
"Olorin in my youth in the west that is now forgotten" -- \i{Gandalf, Return of the King}
"Olorin was the wisest of the Maiar" \i{Valaquenta}.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
It almost seems like too much for one man to create!
<HUMOR>
You're right. The triology was written by Sir Francis Bacon.
</HUMOR>
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Calling Gandalf an angel outright would have religious nuts going mad.
;). I think Tolkien did not even consider to dare calling his own creatures in his own "sub-creation" after the name of what he believed to be quite real, sacred servants of the living God even if they were the closest analogy.
;) No really that is a bit of trolling. It's not like these alleged "southerners" couldn't get their hands on Tolkiens books of they really wanted to burn them. I am sure there are plenty of fundamentalists who think Tolkiens works with their pagan and mythological subject matter are veiled satanism. Yet most evangelicals and even a lot of fundamentalists quite like Tolkien and compare it favorably with the Harry Potter books precisely because Gandalf is (analagous to) an angel. His powers are according to his nature and granted to him by God... Er, Illuvitar; not occult magic acquired by striving for power and occult learning. In the christian mind and indeed in Tolkiens world such striving for power beyond that granted by God (or in Tolkiens sub-creation: Illuvitar) is precisely what makes Satan and satanists (and Melkor, Sauron, and Sauraman) evil.
About calling Gandalf and angel would have had religious nuts going mad: true. But J.R.R. was himself something of a religious "nut" and decided not to use the word "angel" not only because he did not want LOTR to become a religious work but also because he himself have felt it to be sacreligious (perhaps even worthy of burning
(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..)
That's an incendiary comment
The Silmarillion explicitly indicates that the Istari are Maier.
As for Tom Bombadil, that character remains an enigma, and J.R.R.T. intentionally left it that way. Every myth needs at least some mystery. The character is based upon an old rag doll (dressed in yellow and green) which belonged to J.R.R.T.'s son. He made up stories and poems about the doll, predating the LOTR. Some of this material was recycled for LOTR early on in the righting, when the story was still viewed as a light-hearted sequel to The Hobbit rather than a monumental and somewhat darker toned epic.
It is unlikely that Tom is one of the Maier, for the Ring has no power over him, yet the known Maier are susceptable to its influence (even Gandalf felt the temptation of the Ring). Tom cannot be one of the Valor, for he stated that he was in Arda before the coming of the Great Enemy, yet we know from The Silmarillion that Melkor was the first of the Valor to enter Arda. Perhaps he is Illuvatar himself, in the same spirit as God's appearance as a crazy old hermit in Douglas Adams' writing. Or perhaps he is some sort of nature spirit. My personal theory is that he is a one-of-a-kind creation meant to provide an example of perfect and blissful love, as manifested by Tom's love for the Daughter of the River....
*** Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made ***
Bull pucky. While OE is obviously closer to Modern English than Greek is, it's very opaque if you're not taking a course in it, and it's not reasonable to ask everyone who wants to appreciate Beowulf in some form to do that.
For the general reader, here's the first 11 lines of Beowulf in the original. Somehow I don't think most English-speaking readers will find the meaning immediately obvious.
Hwæt! We Gardenain geardagum,
eodcyninga,rym gefrunon,
hu ða æelingasellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefingsceaena reatum,
monegum mægum,meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas.Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden,he æs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum,weorðmyndum ah,
oðæt him æghwylcara ymbsittendra
ofer hronradehyran scolde,
gomban gyldan.æt wæs god cyning!
Mind you, you're not actually wrong. It takes a very competent translator working very hard to make a translation of a poem that reflects both the structure and mood of the original. But it's not really easier on the reader.
If you insist on your point, I expect to hear that you've learned Old Norse before tackling the Icelandic sagas.
And the brethren went away edified.
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.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu