|
|
Post by Stormrider on Jan 14, 2009 7:33:42 GMT -6
Later on in our study, we will discuss this decay. Tolkien is very descriptive in the passages where he describes Minas Tirith. Try to picture it in your mind as you read the passages. What image are you reminded of? What is the significance of this image? While I found Lothlórien very beautiful, I was as amazed and just as dazzled as Pippin when I read these passages. How grand this City must have been in its glory days of old!Do you feel the beauty of this great city? What descriptive passages do you find appealing? |
|
|
|
Post by Stormrider on Jan 14, 2009 7:36:56 GMT -6
From: DaleAnn Sent: 4/1/2003 6:01 PM
I went back and re-read this section from Pippin's first sighting of the city. The way Tolkien described it, reminded me of the city of Oz, of all things (movie version), when Dorothy and company first saw it. I really don't know why...perhaps it was the "startle" factor of it just appearing. I enjoyed reading that passage again.
I can't shake the vision of Gondor and Minas Tirith as ancient Rome, nearing the end of the empire. Shippey makes this comparison in Author of the Century and Road to Middle Earth.
Merlin the Mad has made reference in other threads to a similarity of Constantinople and Gondor. I am very rusty on that part of history, so I can't say for certain that I am more in favor of one "model" than the other. --DA
* * *
From: galenas Sent: 4/1/2003 7:50 PM
Well, this may sound strange, but I felt Pip's awe and wonder in......Las Vegas. If you've never been there, or haven't been there lately, the architecture is absolutely breathtaking. The thought kept running through my mind.....this is what the peasants in the days of ancient Rome felt like.Okay, try and push aside the neon signs for Cher or Zigfried and Roy :)Galenas
* * *
From: Orgulas_Lostlindëion Sent: 1/30/2004 9:35 AM
From Hobbit's eyes, Minas Tirith must seem unearthly. The tallest buildings in the Shire had only two floors, and most houses had only a single floor. Then Peppin sees a city as tall as a mountain, something that must have been impossible to be buil by mere men. Peppin of course had seen Orthanc, which was already incredibly high, but that is still only a small building compared to Minas Tirith. And because the city is build upon the slopes of a mountain, it gets even more volume, as the houses reached higher and higher after each ring.
This reminds me on how my little sister (not Lanyare but the other one lol) said the trees were flying on a holiday in Luxembourg when she was 3 or 4. Belgium is very flat, and in our part we even haven't got the smallest hills. But then in Luxembourg my little sister saw those hills covered with trees for the first time in her life. And because those trees were standing on hills, they seemed to reached unpossibly high for her. So she tought they had to be flying. Must be somewhat the same impression as Peppin had, but then with a forest .
Orgulas
|
|
