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Fantasy
Dec 13, 2004 21:38:28 GMT -6
Post by Stormrider on Dec 13, 2004 21:38:28 GMT -6
From: Majah 2/1/04 the next section i want to read is the one titled Fantasy. it is a short section but i feel the essay starts to become more interesting here. Starlight posted a thread with a link to a site that lists the sagas and myths and stories that formed the background of Tolkien's work. it might give us all a little more insight on him. i have only skimmed the main page of the site but it looks very promising! enjoy! www.sacred-texts.com/ring/index/htmMajah Actually the site i linked above is AMAZING... they have the literature archives so that you may read it without having to buy them. they have the complete english version of The Kalevala which is one of JRR's main influences! as well as the other sagas and poems he loved so much! i am sooooo impressed! i may be AWOL for awhile!!! just kidding! be sure to check it out
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Fantasy
Dec 13, 2004 21:40:04 GMT -6
Post by Stormrider on Dec 13, 2004 21:40:04 GMT -6
From: Majah 2/7/04 ok i know i have dragged this out probably longer as was needed. i am sure we all agree that JRR took a long way around to get to the point in this essay. but this was a lecture he gave so i supposed he had to cover all bases? but i took a little detour this week and read a bit on the Finnish epic The Kalevala that influenced him so. (you can find it at the link above) it really is interesting to see some of the themes that JRR found important are also in The Kalevala and there is even some similarity in names that he created. The Finns seemed to be nature loving (and this epic was based on that) and since JRR was himself, i imagine it touched something in him i am so not versed in language but i can see where Finnish would have fascinated him and can see some influence there in his elven languages. (i did have a Finnish client and since i am Norweigan she would speak some to me. all i remember is when she said Sauna (which most of us say Sawna) hers came out as Sooowna!) anyhoo...i will just add my two bits worth on the Fantasy section of his essay. He does make a very convincing debate or explanation i guess is better on what makes it Fantasy and i thought i was understanding where he was going. but then i came away with a couple of questions...? he seems to be a bit down on Drama..ie plays and i cannot tell if he liked Shakesphere or not? (Fang you are a Shakesphere fan...what do you think?) And here is my biggie question. He sounded like the mind can suspend the belief of Faerie to then move to the Secondary World where Faerie lives...as one is reading it! But he made me feel he thought visualizing it (like in artwork) would then change that! How do you think he would view the movies then? would the fact that PJ put ME into a visual world take away the suspension of belief ...therefore as we are watching the movie, we know it is a movie but we do not believe it is a real happening? man o man as if the essay didnt tax our brains enough? lol any thoughts my fellow explorers? Majah
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Fantasy
Dec 13, 2004 21:40:57 GMT -6
Post by Stormrider on Dec 13, 2004 21:40:57 GMT -6
From: Jerseyshore 2/7/04 Yes, I think Tolkien did appreciate Shakespeare, although he obviously had reservations about the production of some of his plays. I can imagine him being very annoyed with "Midsummer Night's Dream" with its portrayal of fairies and a man with the head of an ass. This would be an excellant example of what he is saying about how fantasy loses its way when it is put into visual representation. But Tolkien speaks in an admiring fashion about Shakespeare and is obviously influenced by "Macbeth" in particular. (Eowyn's answer to the Nazgul about being no man is definitely derivative. And when the Ents marched on Helm's Deep, my husband immediately came out with "Ah, Burnam Wood comes to Dunsinane!") I really don't think Tolkien would have had any strong objection to the movies we have just seen. What he deplored was the attempt to make fantastic things happen on a stage where it was too easy for us to see the "strings", so to speak. Picture grown men on stage trying to look like hobbits, and I think you'll see what he means. How could anyone 30 years ago have portrayed Gollum and made him completely convincing! But there's a whole new world out there of special effects and computer assisted animation that Tolkien probably had no experience of. I think we're closer to the enchantment of the elves than he would have seen possible.
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From: Gythia 2/8/04 Yes, I think that's it exactly. When Tolkien sailed from these shores in 1973, the art of the motion picture had not yet progressed to the point of being able to portray "realistic" looking fantasy images. When I was at the movie theater seeing ROTK again a few weeks ago, I overheard someone ask their companion, "Where did they find so many small people?" The special effects had them totally fooled about the hobbits. And the first time my mom saw Gollum on my video of TTT, she said, "Is that a real person? He looks like a concentration camp survivor!" I already knew he was a special effect before I saw the movies, but for those who hadn't been following it in the news before the movies came out, the special effects were totally convincing.
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Fantasy
Dec 13, 2004 21:41:37 GMT -6
Post by Stormrider on Dec 13, 2004 21:41:37 GMT -6
From: Merlin The Mad 2/9/04 Tolkien had scornful attitudes toward movies and stage plays. He was VERY hard to please. He used the witches in Macbeth as an example of how a drama acted out can jerk the viewer right out of their "secondary belief" stage. But I agree, the state of the art is so very good these days, and getting better all the time, that I believe that Tolkien would be blown away by how beautifully PJ et al portrayed the imagry of Middle-earth: he most certainly would take exceptions at the way certain elements of his story were altered or dispensed with altogether, but I don't think he would find much fault with the visuals. It is getting close to becoming an alternate universe, these movies anymore: you can sit back and get pulled right in if you want to: and even sometimes when you don't want to. Not too long from now, this "elvish" art of the secondary world will partake of the virtual reality technology perfected. Then where will we be ? Star Trek holodecks, here we come !
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Fantasy
Dec 13, 2004 21:44:19 GMT -6
Post by Stormrider on Dec 13, 2004 21:44:19 GMT -6
From: Sparrow 2/10/04 OK, I'm going to go way out on a limb here (sparrows sometimes do that, you know). I don't have my books with me at work, so I can't even check my reference. I just feel like I read, I want to say in Letters, that Tolkien was critical specifically of Shakespeare, not withstanding the obvious parallels. OK I'm going to go hide and watch the fallout now. Sparrow scurries back into her nest and ducks.
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From: Fangorn 2/12/04 To object to how some Shakespeare is done, is understandable. To object to Shakespeare is crazy. Tolkien was not crazy. Hence we can assume, Tolkien liked Will, but may not have been enamored of some of the portrayals he has seen. Fang
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From: Jerseyshore 2/13/04 In the section of this essay that we have just been discussing, the tone of Tolkien's remarks about Shakespeare definitely sound to me to be of a positive nature. "in a country that has produced so great a Drama, and possesses the works of William Shakespeare..." "To be dissolved, or to be degraded, si the likely fate of Fantasy when a dramatist tries to use it, even such a dramatist as Shakespeare..." I don't think it is Shakespeare himself or his works as they are on the page that Tolkien is objecting to here. I think Fangorn is right in saying that he is too intelligent to dismiss Shakespeare as an icon of English literature. What he objects to is the visualization on stage of some of his stories, which he feels would be better left to the imagination of the reader.
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From: Fangorn 2/13/04 Did your husband really say: (And when the Ents marched on Helm's Deep, my husband immediately came out with "Ah, Burnam Wood comes to Dunsinane!") If so, I envy your relationship. To have such a literary relationship is rare, but must be extremely rewarding. Most of MY other halfs were more along the line of "Out, out damn spot". lol. Fang
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From: Merlin The Mad 2/14/04 On pages 88, 143, 185 and 213 of "Letters", JRR makes his most obvious comments upon the Bard. He was obviously an admirer of Shakespeare as a writer with a scholarly background, whose imagination was unrivaled, and whose plays have been and continue to be thrashed. Also, JRR did not like some elements in Shakespeare's plays; notably elves. And he did not like having to read Shakespeare in school: but what kid ever did ?
MtM
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From: Fangorn 2/14/04 I did. lol, Fang
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From: Jerseyshore 2/15/04 Yes, Fang, my husband really did say that! The funny thing is that he was an engineer with minimal interest in literature when we met 'way back in college. I was an English major, and he took it on himself to keep up with my reading list, so that he could carry on a conversation with me. ( I tried studying Physics, but some of us don't change gears quite so easily!) Anyway, after 35 years of marriage, I still know I got a rare gem!
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From: Fangorn 2/16/04 That is utterly fantastic, that an engineer major learned Shakespeare to impress his girl....there is definately a story here. Perhaps thou art more lovely and temperate, then we assume. With love's light wings, did he o'er perch the walls to your heart? For stoney limits cannot hold love out. Congrats on such a fine relationship. Many of us envy you. Fang
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From: Airëlire 2/17/04 Fang lol, i love shakespeare. the stories of what i've heard about you as a kid are reminding me, of me. JerseyShore! Isn't it a great feeling, my guy of about a year now, learned how to say i love you in elvish... gotta love it when you find one! Airëlire
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Fantasy
Dec 13, 2004 21:45:05 GMT -6
Post by Stormrider on Dec 13, 2004 21:45:05 GMT -6
From: Majah 2/18/04 this has been a great discussion...thanks everyone! i felt that Tolkien admired Shakespeare as a writer or he may not have mentioned him as much but, i do agree that he did not like the fantasy elements in Mr S's work ie: the elves and witches... which is part of what i like about Shakespeare. the sorta over-dramatic over-the-top stuff makes his plays more fun to me BUT that is probaby why they are not under Tolkien's description of Fairy Tales because we just can't suspend belief when viewing them. and i also think the old man would have been impressed (for the most part?) with the movie versions of his trilogy. i could completely believe in the world i saw on the screen and feel that it was there as a real piece of history. not sure how that makes it as a Fairy story but it defintely made Middle Earth come alive to me! good on ya Majah
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Fantasy
Dec 13, 2004 21:45:46 GMT -6
Post by Stormrider on Dec 13, 2004 21:45:46 GMT -6
From: Merlin The Mad 2/20/04 ...not sure how that makes it as a Fairy story but it defintely made Middle Earth come alive to me! Well, that is the point, I thot, of JRR's essay: if watching the movies, or reading the books, makes you believe in what you see/hear, then it succeeds in engaging your secondary belief, ergo, it is part of the corpus he is defining as a fairy story. Without, of course, those silly talking animals and pixies and other "kid stuff" elements (which actually irritated me as a child: give me nasty giants and beanstalks, and even nastier pirates and flying kids, but leave the Tinkerbells out of it). I disagree, however, in JRR's limiting ethos: I believe that a fairy story can be in a modern setting, e.g. Mythago Wood, Bones of the Moon (sleeping to get to another world, but it overlaps with this RL one in creepy ways) and Weaveworld, also Prince Ambra. these are all modern in setting and yet very believable premises to me. MtM
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