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Post by Andorinha on Feb 4, 2011 9:59:00 GMT -6
From our 2011 Anniversary Chat I realized just how little I know about this JRRT manuscript. I have read a bit "about" The Notion Papers, but never yet got around to reading it. With the opening of this thread, as time and interest permit, I hope we can share what we know regarding this work which is kind of tucked into the middle of HOME IX, pp 145 - 222 for part one, and pp 222 - 327 for part two. Perhaps closely related to The Notion Papers, is part three of HOME IX, The Drowning of Anadune, listed as the "Third Version of the Fall of Numenor." As a part of the Numenor mythos, maybe it can be dealt with here as well? Alternatively it might form a separate discussion thread?
In the effort to understand The Notion Papers, we have Christopher Tolkien's editorial material that stands as an introduction to the work, and his helpful notes, sometimes scattered throughout the text, but mainly concentrated at the ends of parts one and two. Additionally Michael Drout's Tolkien Encyclopedia, and Scull and Hammond in The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, Readers' Guide, have some sections devoted to The Notion Papers. There are also several letters in Humphrey Carpenter's collection, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, that shed useful light upon this unfinished Numenorean cycle.
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 5, 2011 9:13:18 GMT -6
I'm glad we talked about this at our Anniversary Chat. Although I had seen "The Notion Club Papers" listed in the Sauron Defeated HoME book, I didn't realize what it was about and haven't gotten to this book yet in my reading. I have been curious about Númenor and did read the part about it in Unfinished Tales, but Notion Club will be rather interesting, I'm guessing.
Yes, let's open this thread up for discussion! Great idea, Andorinha.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 5, 2011 13:44:44 GMT -6
Hi Stormrider, yeah I think this can be a very interesting topic of discussion! Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien, ed. Bradford Lee Eden, 2010 Peter Wilkin -- "Songs of Exile in the Mortal Realms" "The themes of longing and exile are the basis for Peter Wilkin's contribution as he researches the 'Cottage of Lost Play' texts and 'The Notion Club Papers,' especially the central character Eriol. The music of the otherworld in literature and in Tolkien is compared as well." p 4 ___________________ Verlyn Flieger, Interupted Music, the Making of Tolkien's Mythology, chapter 6 "The Otherworld" Represents the 1936 inception of the Time Travel theme with CS Lewis as "science fiction" rather than fantasy; followed by the revision of the old Eriol saga into "The Notion Club Papers" of 1946. "Notion Club Papers" are Infused with concepts of re-incarnation, and/or "transmigration of memories," remembered past lives, travel back through time along the lines of your own ancestry. The "Sea Longing," and "The Forbidden Realms" concepts are also used in "The Notion Papers." Additionally the themes of Atlantis/ Numenor; The Sea Bell Poem; the Celtic imramn or "Voyage to the Otherworld," including Tolkien's version of the poem of St Brendan's Voyage. The poetry of the Eriol saga and the Notion Papers, has, in Fliger's estimation a pronounced Celtic connection, despite Tolkien's later professions of disliking anything Celtic. With the following URL you can back page to the start of this chapter and read a considerable amount of it, if people don't have the book. books.google.com/books?id=Q6zgmCf_kY4C&pg=PA131&dq=%22Notion+Club+Papers%22&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22Notion%20Club%20Papers%22&f=false__________________________________ In Michael Drout's Tolkien Encyclopedia, 648 ff two short articles on "Time" and "Time Travel," by Verlynn Flieger, have important material regarding the "Notion Papers" and the Numenor stories.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 5, 2011 15:13:35 GMT -6
In his book, The Watcher by the Threshold, John Buchan, in 1902 published a story that Tolkien read, and was considerably influenced thereby: "The Far Islands." The entire book, and especially this story are available online free at: books.google.com/books?id=clNaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA100&dq=John+Buchan+%22The+Far+Islands%22&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=falseTolkien's important, haunting poem, The Sea Bell (later inappropriately renamed "Frodo's Dream" to give it a Hobbitish flavour) is based on the ideas JRRT gleaned from Buchan, and earlier Celtic sources that told the tales of mortal men making journeys "out west" across the sea to faerie lands. Of course, in LOTR, Bilbo, Frodo, and eventually Sam make just such a voyage. The Earendel story is another such example of a "voyage to otherworld." Such a voyage also figures in "The Notion Club Papers."
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Feb 7, 2011 0:01:13 GMT -6
I haven't read "The Notion Club Papers" but I wanted to comment on Tolkien's rejection of anything Celtic. I find this to be a very telling aspect of his personality.
Due to my interest in Arthurian legend (and a story that I'm writing), I've been doing research into 5th and 6th century Britain and have learned a lot about the cultural conflict between the original Celtic Britons, who eventually became the Welsh, and the Anglo-Saxon settlers, who eventually became the English. It seems like some of this may be manifesting in Tolkien's work.
To give a little background -- in the 5th century, the native population of Britain was a Celtic people who spoke a language called Brythonic (ancestor of Welsh). As the Roman Legions withdrew from Britain, the island became a target for Germanic tribes of Angles and Saxons who invaded or simply resettled there. Over time, the Anglo-Saxons largely displaced the Britons and became the dominant force in the country (giving rise to the English culture and language).
Tolkien constantly drew from Anglo-Saxon and Norse sources to create Middle-earth and claimed distaste for Celtic stories and myths. Granted, he was creating a "myth for England" so that makes sense. But I've often wondered if this was simply a matter of taste or if his nationalistic English pride caused him reject Celtic elements. Was Tolkien's Anglophilia a remnant of the English/Welsh rivalry that still exists somewhat today?
Valinor and "The Notion Club Papers" seem to be the only Celtic-influenced aspects of Tolkien's mythology. They're similar to Celtic stories of Otherworld lands like Tir na Nog (a paradise across the sea where people are forever young). I find this Anglo-Saxon vs. Celt element of Tolkien's work fascinating and an interesting possible insight into the author.
That said, I might be being unfair to the Professor. To an extent, I'm as biased as he may have been, but in the other direction. I'm part Irish and feel a strong connection to Celtic culture. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 7, 2011 9:17:23 GMT -6
Ah, you've got some great points here for research/ discussion, Freddie. I'm going to be running far down town this morning to get some blinds repaired, but this afternoon I'll be able to add my two cents worths on this.
As I recall it, JRRT did not start out with an anti-Celtic bias, even considered doing an "Arthurian Cycle" of his own, but somewhere as he developed, he moved away from the Celtic motifs and transfered his "allegiance" to the Nordic/ Germanic. I'll see if I can find some sources on this transition, maybe even some guesses as to why it occurred.
I'm thinking here in a preliminary way, that the mechanism used in Eriol, and Not. Pap, and Numenor tale, was "memory regression" through past ancestors (sometimes seen as a reincarnation of the self). So, when JRRT started thinking of himself as "ancestrally" tied to the Midlothian Old English, maybe he felt at that time a sudden identification with the Germanic, and he started rejecting the Celtic as being "foreign?"
I think chapter 6, "The Otherworld" in V. Flieger's Interrupted Music, may have material on this very issue. Hit the Google Book connection I gave above, then page back to 121.
Back later!
Thanks, Freddie!
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Feb 10, 2011 19:07:08 GMT -6
Very interesting link, Andorinha. It seems there were more Celtic influences in Tolkien's work than I remembered (or that he admitted!).
That may lend credence to my theory that his rejection of Celtic themes was motivated by that centuries-long English/Welsh rivalry. He clearly knew Celtic sources but being so proudly English and so immersed in Anglo-Saxon myths and language, he likely did view Celtic elements as "foreign."
Perhaps he occasionally drew from them in the way that modern writers sometimes draw from Greek myths, even if they themselves are not Greek. It's good source material but the writer has no innate connection to it. As such, Tolkien might have dabbled in Celtic stories now and then but didn't feel as strongly about them as his own people's Anglo-Saxon roots.
As for Tolkien's quote about the "fundamental unreason" of Celtic myths, I've often wondered what he meant. This is again just me theorizing. I wouldn't want to put words in Tolkien's mouth. But maybe he's referring to the fact that Celtic mythology came down to us in pieces. It doesn't have as defined a structure as Greek or Norse mythology.
This is for two reasons, I think. One, because there is no single "Celtic people." It's a term applied to many races (Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, etc.) and each group had its own variations on the stories and characters. And two, most Celtic countries were already Christian by the time the stories were written down. As such, many of the gods were recast as heroes or ancestors and there was a lot of revisionism by the authors. This does give Celtic myths a sort of mad, piecemeal feeling where you aren't sure who's a god, who's an immortal, or who's a human and where the Otherworld can be simultaneously underground, across the sea, or in another dimension.
Celtic myths are kind of nutty like that and not as orderly and structured. That could be what Tolkien meant and why he didn't like them. But I'm not sure.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 11, 2011 20:25:10 GMT -6
Hmmm, very interesting thoughts you present here, Fredegarh!
RE Fredegarh's: "That may lend credence to my theory that his rejection of Celtic themes was motivated by that centuries-long English/Welsh rivalry. He clearly knew Celtic sources but being so proudly English and so immersed in Anglo-Saxon myths and language, he likely did view Celtic elements as 'foreign.'"
I think you raise an important point here, Fredegahr, and now I'm leaning the same way, especially after doing a little history review of Great Britain's culture before World War One.
Tolkien was in so many ways a solid conservative fellow, a product of a solid, conservative tradition. His formative years were spent in Eduardian England, a period of extreme "nationalism" and even "localism." I think this is reflected in his construction of the Shire society which he based on real-life English models, especially those taken from the quiet townships and rural regions. The hobbits saw all other "races" (Big Folk, Dwarves, Elves) as uncanny, foreign, if not dangerous outsiders. Within that "hobbitism" there were then further divisions by "sub-locality," so that the people of Hobbiton considered the other hobbits, especially the Tooks and the Bucklanders as "outlandish" folk. Why, some of these other hobbits were absolutely strange in their ways (even so weird as to learn the unnatural accomplishments of swimming and boating).
I think this "localism" in the fictional hobbit situation, reflected well the traditional, real life of the English countryside, with its strong local attachments and its xenophobic mistrust of "outsiders." A folkloric system of stereotypes soon developed in England, wherein "bloodlines" and birthplace attachments were elevated to the level of racism. Racism in the sense that there was felt to be a special set of traits that could be defined as belonging to the English, inborn traits passed on by genetics; and another set of traits that were characteristically Scottish; one for the Irish; one more for the "strange" folk of Yorkshire, and then yet one more set of race characteristics belonging to the Welsh. True "foreigners," like Germans, Russians, Chinese, and Zulus were even more distant, weird, and often inscrutable/ incomprehensible.
At a fairly early age, JRRT was himself caught up in this system of dividing the peoples of Great Britain into "sub-races" based on place of origin, language, dialect, accent, and bloodlines. He seems to have felt that he inherited his group identity through his DNA. Today, modern science downplays all such notions, preferring to see group identities as cultural, not genetic. But for Tolkien, and most of the global population in the 1890s - 1940s, "ethnicity" was deemed to be a matter of inherited genes. Hence, he identified himself with the ancestral locality of his bloodline, and with the "race-spirit" of his ancestors who had for centuries been located in the West-midlands district of England. Tolkien, in a 1955 Letter to W.H. Auden,* even seems to have felt that he had a "blood memory" of the ancient language of the West-midlands, so that he learned its dialect of Middle English with tremendous ease, because it was his rightful "birth language."
"I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)..." JRRT also associated his preference for even the very atmosphere and climate of the Midlands with his genetic inheritance -- "the 'North-western air' appeals to me both as 'home' and as something discovered." (Letter # 163, pp 211-17, see p. 213)
From these concepts of "genetic" identity, and "race Memory," Tolkien would create the mechanism of his Atlantis/ Numenor tales, his Notion Papers being the final manifestation. Here his heroes would be drawn into time travel precisely because they were the direct blood-line descendants of the Numenorean/ Atlanteans. They start dreaming in their ancient native tongue, and travel back in time to the home of their first ancestors, where they see again the destruction of that home by the Great Wave.
For Tolkien, with his self-identification as an English West-midlander, I think it very likely that he gradually started to become somewhat "prejudiced" against any tradition to which he could not trace a direct blood relationship. Apparently his own family, German and English, had no prominent Celtic ancestors. Consequently, as he further developed this sense of "bloodline" nationality, I think he started to turn his back upon what he felt was a foreign tradition. In his early studies he had imbibed a great deal of Celtic knowledge, as you point out, Fredegahr, so he always could draw upon Celtic themes and styles. But as he grew older, so his antipathy for the "foreign Celtic culture," seems to have solidified. Nonetheless, due to his childhood and school-days exposure to Celtic tales, I think more Celtic material crept into his supposedly Germanic / English mythologies than even he was conscious of.
Also, as you say, Fredegahr: "Perhaps he occasionally drew from them in the way that modern writers sometimes draw from Greek myths, even if they themselves are not Greek. It's good source material but the writer has no innate connection to it. As such, Tolkien might have dabbled in Celtic stories now and then but didn't feel as strongly about them as his own people's Anglo-Saxon roots."
Yeah, that works for me!
Another question you bring up, is whether JRRT really had a good idea what he himself meant by the term "Celtic," and why he found it "offensive." Certainly today, we find it difficult to strictly define Celtic as one thing or another. It is indeed a very complex culture, and I think the English 19th century stereotypes JRRT developed about Celtic literature might fall apart if studied objectively today.
____________________
*Tolkien to W.H. Auden, 7/ June/ 1955, Letter #163, pp. 217, especially page 213, and 214
On page 214, Tolkien boldly states, in his opinion, one's "linguistic tastes, ... are as good or better a test of ancestry as blood-groups."
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 12, 2011 8:32:00 GMT -6
Fredegarh and Andorinha:
I do not know much about these cultures and influences and I am enjoying your discussion and speculations. Keep it up because this is a nice way to prefix the study of The Notion Club Papers.
I think that a small smattering of all cultural influences is important in building a world because there are so many different types of peoples and races you would want to include in your story. It would not surprise me to have a few of those Celtic traits show up in one (or more) of the races because you both seem to think that it has such an erratic history that is all over the place!
It is interesting about Tolkien believing his blood lines had an influence on some of his ability to learn the early Middle English easily. It almost sounds like breeding animals to be a certain way. For instance, herding dogs have that instinct to nip at the heals and move sheep or cows around.
Probably why Royalty wanted to keep the bloodlines in the family or to make royal alliances through marriage with other royal bloodlines.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 12, 2011 15:50:26 GMT -6
So far as I know, Letter #19, dated 1937, is the earliest published statement by Tolkien that can be interpreted as, in some way, "anti-Celtic." It is connected from the start with a "feeling" shared by Tolkien and one of his critical reviewers, Edward Crankshaw, that there is something in the Celtic tradition that is fundamentally antithetical to proper English tastes.
Crankshaw disliked JRRT's poetic material The Lay of Luthien and Beren, feeling it would not be marketable. But, he did like some of Tolkien's prose pieces from the Silmarillion material: Crankshaw "praised the prose narrative for its 'brevity' and 'dignity,' though he said he disliked its 'eye-splitting Celtic names.' His report continued: 'It has something of that mad, bright-eyed beauty that perplexes all Anglo-Saxons in face of Celtic art.' These comments were passed on to Tolkien." (Letter #19, p. 25)
JRRT Reply to Crankshaw's criticisms:
"I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste, largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact 'mad' ... but I don't believe I am." (Letter # 19, To Stanley Unwin, Dec. 16, 1937, pp. 25-27, esp 26)
Tolkien's reply to Crankshaw's criticism shows that, at this date, 1937, Tolkien shared and agreed with the basic, stereotyping interpretation of Celtic art/ literature as being "bright" but "somewhat mad." Like fredegahr, I am uncertain what this really means, and skeptical that it really is a valid categorization of Celtic literature. I find the perfectly English works of the Bronte sisters to be full of "unreason," "high emotions," and "mad beauty," Wuthering Heights being my main example here. I find the fantastical elements, and the surge of action-narrative in that most English of productions, Beowulf, to likewise be replete with "wild, unreasoning, mad beauty." The English language but "Scottish influenced" poetry of Keats, Byron, and Coleridge may have represented a wholesale movement of "Celtic" themes and manners of expression into the English mainstream a good while before JRRT was born. So, certainly for Tolkien's period of school-boy learning, he should have imbibed a good deal of Celtic "feeling," and should have understood that it was now a solid part of his own modern English literature. From these sources, one would think JRRT, by 1937, would have accepted the idea of a cultural mosaic for English literature, and would not have thought of "wild beauty," and "unreasoned emotion" as being particularly "Celtic" and particularly "un-English."
As Stormrider put it: "I think that a small smattering of all cultural influences is important in building a world because there are so many different types of peoples and races you would want to include in your story. It would not surprise me to have a few of those Celtic traits show up in one (or more) of the races because you both seem to think that it has such an erratic history that is all over the place!"
Certainly, from my own reaction to The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and even The Lord of the Rings (especially the Tom Bombadil chapters), I find all of JRRT's works to be surcharged with an emotional turbulence, a wild, and sometimes "mad beauty." I did not, however, view this "wildness" as particularly "Celtic," rather than just another feature of English literature. But, somehow or other, both Tolkien and Crankshaw seem to agree that this "wild, mad, unreasoned beauty" is only, or at least primarily, found in Celtic literature. I suppose their examples of Celtic fantasy mythos were the "Lays of Finn McCool" (Irish) and the Mabinogeon of the Welsh tradition. Unfortunately, for JRRT's interpretation, I think his own Silmarillion material, both poetic and prose versions, and even parts of LOTR, have many such moments of a "wild/ mad beauty," a wild beauty that is, for me, very reminiscent of the Welsh-Celtic Mabinogeon, and the somewhat synthetic productions of the "wild/ mad/ unreasoned" Finnish Kalevala. But, somehow or other, the early 20th century, some of the English, Crankshaw and Tolkien included, seem to have found the idea of "wild/ mad/ unreason" to be non-English, non-Anglo-Saxon. How strange.
The only explanation I can think of, is that Tolkien, Crankshaw, and others were trying to apply a Victorian/ Edwardian stereotype of what these times felt was "English," they were trying to "purify" English literature of its supposedly, "mad but Beautiful" Celtic influences?
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Feb 12, 2011 18:11:03 GMT -6
The only explanation I can think of, is that Tolkien, Crankshaw, and others were trying to apply a Victorian/ Edwardian stereotype of what these times felt was "English," they were trying to "purify" English literature of its supposedly, "mad but Beautiful" Celtic influences? That would be my guess. Chances are that in Tolkien's more conservative era, the stereotype of the prim and proper Englishman was considered the norm and English literature was expected to follow suit. As such, any story with wild, fanciful ideas, epic sagas of battle and mythical creatures, and exotic and distinctly non-English-sounding names would seem foreign. It might have gotten the "Celtic" label because Celtic stories shared those traits or simply because the Celts were the English's most immediate frame of reference for the "other." The English share the British Isles with Celtic peoples (the Irish, the Scottish, the Welsh) so they'd be more exposed to them than to any other "outsider." Tolkien's quote about Celtic myths seeming like a "broken stained glass window reassembled without design" seems to back up my thoughts on what was so mad and unreasonable in them. There is indeed a lot of reassembly at work, partly due to them being pagan myths reinterpreted through a Christian lens. I'm not sure that you can fault the myths for this though. It's more to do with how they were passed down to us, not anything innate to them in their original forms. I wonder if it was something else that Tolkien found unreasonable or broken in Celtic myths.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 14, 2011 23:42:57 GMT -6
Yes, I think we're dealing with an "artificial" bias here: That would be my guess. Chances are that in Tolkien's more conservative era, the stereotype of the prim and proper Englishman was considered the norm and English literature was expected to follow suit. As such, any story with wild, fanciful ideas, epic sagas of battle and mythical creatures, and exotic and distinctly non-English-sounding names would seem foreign. 1) The English of Tolkien's day, seem to be deliberately looking for ways to distinguish themselves from the "other." __________________ It might have gotten the "Celtic" label because Celtic stories shared those traits or simply because the Celts were the English's most immediate frame of reference for the "other." The English share the British Isles with Celtic peoples (the Irish, the Scottish, the Welsh) so they'd be more exposed to them than to any other "outsider." 2) In this attempt to define themselves against "the other," the English became blinded by their own prejudices: the very qualities Tolkien "dislikes" in Celtic mythology, are present in the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon mythology he does like. Fantastic beasts and strange actions that are based on the mutual clashing of many unreasoning passions, etc, etc. _____________________ Tolkien's quote about Celtic myths seeming like a "broken stained glass window reassembled without design" seems to back up my thoughts on what was so mad and unreasonable in them. There is indeed a lot of reassembly at work, partly due to them being pagan myths reinterpreted through a Christian lens. I'm not sure that you can fault the myths for this though. It's more to do with how they were passed down to us, not anything innate to them in their original forms. I wonder if it was something else that Tolkien found unreasonable or broken in Celtic myths. 3) Yes, excellent point, almost all the old texts of mythology (not just the Celtic) are reworked, fragments, the chance leftovers of historic preservation, so that we get different flavors all mixed up as we move from one version to the next. Beowulf has both pagan and Christian elements from its being re-edited several times as the centuries passed. But, Tolkien seems to ignore this, though, as a philologist, he should have been able to see that this "fragmentation" is the case with the Norse material, and the Anglo-Saxon myths. All these ancient/ medieval literatures and texts are "broken shards," reset many different times, until they finally reach us as kaleidoscopic reconstructions. Thanks, Freddy, lots to chew on here!
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Feb 15, 2011 18:17:58 GMT -6
You are right that most if not all ancient myths are fragmented and reworked by later writers. That evolving nature is part of what makes them myths, I think. As I said though, I'm not 100% positive that that's what Tolkien found distasteful about the Celtic stuff. If he could look past (or even embrace) that pagan/Christian fusion in Anglo-Saxon mythology, there may have been something else distinct to the Celtic myths that he disliked. Would have to find some more specific quotes from him to be sure.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 15, 2011 20:03:14 GMT -6
An excellent suggestion, Fredegarh: that we look at Tolkien's own statements in greater depth to see if we can figure out more precisely what standards of judgment he was using, and whether these standards were his own personal reactions, or represent his acceptance of a wider system of thought, perhaps derived from some "English ethnic" condemnation of what many people from 1850 - 1950 thought Celticity was all about."
I'm also interested in some statements JRRT made, and some of his earliest works, where, if I've got this right, he seem at first to have been something of a Celtophile, devouring Celtic works like The Mabinogeon; the Arthurian Romances; the Celtic Imramm tales of "journeys to the otherland of faery;" the Celtic St. Brendahn material he researched; his Celtic-style poem "Looney," later renamed "The Sea Bell;" his Earendel mythos (based on the Irish Imramm tales); his absolute childhood love of the Welsh language and his creation of the Elven tongue, Sindaran, which was based on this Welsh; he even, in his early days, wrote a "fairy poem" in which the fairies were diminutive, thumb-sized creatures with gauzy wings, something he much later condemns as a Celtic abomination.
So, maybe in gathering the Tolkien quotations in his Letters that refer to the Celtic tradition, both in a celebratory mode and then in a disparaging one, we can, perhaps, find out what Tolkien meant by "Celtic," just when he became "anti-Celtic," in what ways he was anti-Celtic, and maybe even puzzle out why?
I'll hit the books!
As late as 1938, when the success of The Hobbit had him scrambling about for more publishable material, JRRT told C.A. Furth of Allen & Unwin (publishers) that he did have on hand "an unfinished pseudo-Celtic fairy-story of a mildly satirical order, which is amusing so far as it has gone, called King of the Green Dozen." (Letter #33, p.40)
Apparently JRRT had no great reservations about writing in the "Celtic" mode at the time he composed this unfinished manuscript, some time, I think in the 1920s. So what happened to change him from a Celtophile into a grumpy, at least moderately disparaging critic of the Celtic tradition?
Back Later!
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Feb 16, 2011 1:22:37 GMT -6
he even, in his early days, wrote a "fairy poem" in which the fairies were diminutive, thumb-sized creatures with gauzy wings, something he much later condemns as a Celtic abomination. Minor point but that's not Celtic. The tiny, gauzy winged fairies are mostly a Victorian English tradition, made popular by storybooks and artwork of that era. In actual Celtic mythology, the fairies are mostly human size. The Irish fairy race, the Daoine Sidhe ("theena shee"), was a tall, noble, demi-godlike species. More like Tolkien's Elves in fact. One could argue that that's another Celtic influence in his work (especially given the Welsh flavor of Sindarin). But more likely, he based his Elves on the Elves of Norse mythology, who were also of human-like dimensions. There are a few miniature species in Celtic legend like the Cornish pixies (who had no wings) and the Welsh ellyllon (miniature elves). But no gauzy insect wings.
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