Post by Andorinha on Jan 14, 2009 18:10:39 GMT -6
AdvOf TB ARCHIVE: The Sea Bell or Frodo's Dreme
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Message 1 of 13 in Discussion From: MSN NicknameIarwainBen-adar1
Sent: 8/19/2002 12:31 AM
This poem should be the last as it appears to have been written by someone other than Frodo and is the latest of the poems to have been written. As wriiten in the Preface Frodo's Dreme is scrawled above this piece, and I suspect Sam to have been the author, being so close to Frodo. It is a start towards the darker side of Tolkien's poems, and is attested to be based on the dreams that haunted Frodo on his return to the Shire.
I think reading this poem it may be of some help to consider what Gandalf had wondered at Rivendell regarding Frodo healing from his wound.
With this in mind, who's eyes would be able to see Frodo?
Do you find this verse as haunting as I?
How many Hobbits might have even seen the sea at this point, to even comprehend what is being told?
Are you ready for more of Tolkien's darker side?
Namárië,
Iarwain
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Message 2 of 13 in Discussion From: Glorfindle
Sent: 8/19/2002 12:47 AM
The last line haunts me most: "To myself I talk; for still they speak not, men that I meet."
Still mulling,
Glor
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Message 3 of 13 in Discussion From: MSN NicknameIarwainBen-adar1
Sent: 8/19/2002 4:29 AM
A good line to bring forward regarding this poem, it clearly states "Men" what of Elves then. It seems to me at the time of the scouring of the Shire, Frodo had already begun to fade.
"Still that must be expected", said Gandalf to himself. "He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can fortell. Not evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with clear light for eyes to see that can".
Do you think this qoute has any bearing upon this verese?
Namárië,
Iarwain
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Message 4 of 13 in Discussion From: AnnieLT
Sent: 8/25/2002 10:11 PM
When I first read the SEA Bell, I found only dissonance. After reading Iarwain’s introduction, I began to reconstruct the poem referring back to passages that would reveal some understanding of the dreams that haunted Frodo on his return to the Shire.
Images of Frodo’s journey began to take shape, especially his experience at Weathertop when pierced by a wraith’s poisonous sword and the desperate ride to Rivendell. Even after Elrond’s cure, Gandalf, as Iarwain notes above, already senses that Frodo is beginning to fade and wonders if he will ever really heal. This is before the real perils begin. As Sam and Frodo plan their homeward journey toward the end of ROTK, Arwen offers Frodo her place on the grey ship and gives him a star gem to aid him in times of darkness. Frodo says something curious in response to Sam’s reminiscences of everything they have seen. "Except the Sea," he says. And later, "Where shall I find rest?" Gandalf observes that "Some wounds cannot be wholly cured." Passing Weathertop, Frodo dreads to look and wraps his cloak around him. October 6, the anniversary of Weathertop becomes an ominous date as Frodo is haunted most grievously by the nightmares of that and ensuing horrors. But I think, there are glimmers of hope and healing throughout the dream that Frodo only begins to realize after he has been stricken the third time. He can only find rest by joining the elves at Grey Havens.
Something I find interesting is that these glimmers of hope and healing which occur in the SEA BELL reveal themselves to Frodo long before he enters Weathertop or learns about the elven ships and the lure of the sea. It is a visionary dream that Frodo has at Tom Bombadil’s house:
"Frodo heard a sweet singing in his mind: a song that seemed to come as a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a fair green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.’’
Frodo does not remember this dream until he is aboard the ship that carries him out into the High Sea and passes on into the west. (FOTR)
So, as dispairing and dissonant this poem seems on first reading, it gives me a deeper understanding of the suffering that Frodo endures and the freedom he must have felt when he was finally able to release the burdens he has been carrying.
Glor, I’ve been giving that last line some thought. "To myself I talk; for still they speak not, men that I meet." Could this refer to Frodo’s return to the Shire and his hesitancy or inability to talk about all that has befallen him on his journeys? Who would listen? Who would even begin to understand the horrors that even to Frodo seem unreal?
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Message 5 of 13 in Discussion From: Karo6
Sent: 8/26/2002 2:58 AM
I first read "The Sea Bell" a very long time ago. It baffled me then, and it still does now. I usually read it for the mood of high melancholy it provokes, but stopped trying to "understand" it in terms of deeper and internal meanings.
Reading Iarwain's and AnnieLT's treatments now has opened some new possibilities of assigning meaning to the various episodes of the poem. I can see that the mood of the thing has "applicability" for Frodo's wandering alienation at the close of LOTR, and its dream-dazed, or even nightmarish qualities would seem to fit well with MY idea of how a sensitive Hobbit mind would be confused and dismayed as it "faded" into the shadows.
But I am not convinced that Frodo is the protagonist and narrator of this poem, despite the prefatory statements on page 9 (1966 version "Tolkien Reader"). Tolkien himself seems unsure, though he mentions a pencilled scrawl -- "Frodos Dreme" -- as being appended to the manuscript. He also mentions in this preface that the "Sea Bell" COULD be about some other Hobbit who had chanced upon the Sea, that mysterious body of water that has so often been a metaphor for change, including the final great change of death.
Even so, my readings do NOT allow me to see anything in this poem that makes it especially a Hobbit poem. This bothered me enough that I paged through the works I have looking for some mention of this poem, hoping to discover that it was indeed written specifically as "back-story" material to supplement the LOTR or Silmarillion. What I found on page 268 of H. Carpenter's biography of JRRT leads me to feel almost certain now of my earlier suspicion that "The Sea Bell" has no real connection with the LOTR corpus, or even the Hobbit. The poem was originally published in 1934 under the suggestive title "Looney," in the Oxford Magazine vol. LII, #9, p, 340. This predates the publication of "The Hobbit" by three years, and the creation of even the first draught of LOTR (and the character Bingo Baggins who later becomes our Frodo) by at least ten years.
Apparently, in 1961 Tolkien was asked for more of his work, and by this time almost any thing he had ever written was assumed to have some saleable value (though after 1965 that value would increase 10 fold!). At this late date, 1961 JRRT knew that his fame in popular literature came from The Hobbit and the LOTR, and he tried make his earlier works conformable to these two great books. At this point he obviously felt that "Looney," suitably re-titled, had some applicability to Frodo's plight in the LOTR, and hence sent this poem in for re-publication in 1962 as "The Sea Bell" within the new volume of "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil." The preface to this slim volume then tried to project an anachronistic fiction over the entire lot, implying that these poems were back story materials from the "Red Book of the West March" written by Hobbits and about Hobbits.
Consequently, trying to find "Frodo relevant" themes and inner meanings from a reading of "The Sea Bell" may be doomed from the start... what we can perhaps recover validly here, from this poem, is an understanding of just what elements in it JRRT deemed to be applicable to his later character Frodo.
In Letter 235:p. 312, To Pauline Baynes -- Tolkien discussed this poem and apologized for including "The Sea Bell" in this new 1962 anthology:
"If I dare say so, the things sent to you (except the Sea-bell, the poorest, and not one that I should really wish to include, at least not with the others) were conceived as a series of very definite, clear and precise, pictures -- fantastical, or nonsensical perhaps, but not dreamlike!"
In Letter 295: pp. 378 -379, To W.H. Auden -- Tolkien mentions that Auden had read the 1966 version of "The Sea Bell" in "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" and found this poem (the one Tolkien thought his "poorest") to be especially good, in fact "wonderful." At this point the poem, which originally had nothing to do with Frodo at all, is subtitled "Frodo's Dreme."
I think all this tells us a great deal about the way Tolkien worked, and underscores for me the fact that the publishing industry had a powerful effect upon shaping the final product of Tolkien's pen. The publishers demanded Hobbit stories and Hobbit poems, and Tolkien, not as fast in writing as he might wish to be, often picked up unrelated bits and pieces of early material, re-worked them, or simply (as in the case of "Looney" which becomes "Frodo's Dreme") re-titled them to sate his publishers' ever growing demands for more Hobbit related stuff. This brings up another point, "The Silmarillion" had to be largely re-written to accomodate the Hobbit and the LOTR, both of which were originally beyond its scope and alien to it.
But if approached, on its own merits as a fantasy scene bit of poetry, I think Auden's view of "Looney" or the "Sea Bell" if you prefer, is more in tune with my own view of this poem, I too find it wonderful. But I do not try to make its episodes conform to Frodo Baggin's psycho-biological condition after the Quest of the Ring, however "applicable" such an interpretation may be!
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Message 6 of 13 in Discussion From: DaleAnn
Sent: 8/26/2002 5:38 AM
"In the original version of the poem, the traveller had at least kept the sea-shell of the last verse, in which he could hear the voice of the sea; in this version, he has lost everything. This does seem to mark a darkening of Tolkien's vision in later life, which we also find in other works; it is almost as if he realised that his dreams about elves and fairies will remain just that, dreams, rather than a permanent escape from so-called reality." www.uni-klu.ac.at/~jkoeberl/ pg 29 of Tolkien's Works.
If you look at the poem again, putting Tolkien himself within the poem...you had better have tissues handy.
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Message 7 of 13 in Discussion From: Karo6
Sent: 8/26/2002 11:44 AM
THANK YOU, DA! It is great to have your scholarship to lean on!
This becomes ever more intriguing to me. I had not thought to project Tolkien himself as the protagonist of this poem, and maybe this is still just another example of "applicability" rather than the author's intent (?), but to me it makes a lot more sense to apply the verses to Tolkien's own condition rather than attaching them "after-the-fact" to a post-created Frodo.
When I look at Tolkien's stated "self-portrait" as Niggle with his leaf, I think I see a sort of depression expressed that appears very similar in mood to the tone I find in "Sea Bell." The fact that he altered the poem, significantly increasing its depressive tone, by dropping the shell entirely is very eerie. I would like to know precisely when he altered the ending (presumably 1961, but maybe long before that?) and then see if there is some real life event that co-occurs with the alteration and might explain his deepening depression...
I can bring up Johan Koberl's home page, but my rickety computer will not down load his PDF file "Tolkien's Works." If you get the time could you summarize anything relevant he has to say regarding this poem and its possible interpretations? Thanks again, DaleAnn..
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Message 8 of 13 in Discussion From: DaleAnn
Sent: 8/26/2002 12:35 PM
Karo, I quoted all that Mr. Koeberl had to say about Sea-bell, but I went searching through my books. Shippey, in Road to Middle Earth and therefore I am assuming in Author of the Century spends about a page on the two poems, 'Looney' and Sea-bell. Verlyn Flieger in A Question of Time, spends about 18 pages on the two poems: a gold mine. One of the many things she states is that Sea-Bell is about twice as long as Looney. C. Tolkien believes that 'Looney" was written in 1932-3. I cannot find a date for 'Sea-Bell'. Both Shippey and Fleiger state that Sea-bell could be Tolkien mourning the loss of Faerie. I'm sorry Karo, but, I have a headcold and my brain would like to stop working now. ---DA
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Message 9 of 13 in Discussion From: Karo6
Sent: 8/27/2002 2:26 PM
So very sorry to hear that you are "under the weather," DaleAnn. A fervent wish for your speedy and full recovery -- er, since you seem to be on your last leg anyway, if this ailment should turn mortal, can I just forget about the three silver pennies I still owe you for my share of the bail money -- paid out in Bree after that highly unfortunate incidence at The Prancing Pony?
Shippey does treat the "Sea Bell" in <underline>AotC</underline>, pp 281 - 282, his other work I do not have, nor do I have the V. Fleigher volume, sigh another wad of my change soon to be transferred to amazon.com...
Shippey feels that "Looney" and its later re-working as "Sea Bell" are primarily concerned with understanding what would happen should a mere mortal ever enter Elvenhome. Without some VERY special dispensation, no mortal may intrude there, and though by chance a few individuals of our kind may briefly enter, they are found out and summarily expelled. The "shock" of such an experience would rattle the brain, and render any such ejected mortals "never the same again." Hence the narrator of "Looney," a traveller who DID somehow get to Aman, is made indeed a lunatic ever after, but at least he has one functional token of his trip, the Shell, in which he can still hear the echoes of Elven singing.
The 1962 version drops the identification of the narrator as the "looney," and adds the pencilled sub-title "Frodos Dreme." Shippey also concurs with my thoughts on this matter, that the person still found as protagonist in the poem is unlikely to be Frodo, despite the sub-title. Frodo after all does have an Elven "green card," and does not suffer the processes of rejection and forced deportation. Frodo, in LotR successfully stays in the Elven Realm seeking a long and healing cure. But the poem itself is still, in its "Sea Bell" version, so worded that its protagonist clearly does NOT get to stay in the Faerie Land -- he is eventually rejected, and returns to the Mortal Lands a "lunatic," a broken shambling form who cannot re-integrate himself with the mundane existence of his natal reality. And as you pointed out, DA, this traveller loses even his last tying thread of connection with the Blessed Realm, the Shell is gone, the singing only a faint and unsatisfying memory.
This, to my thinking, still leaves Tolkien himself as a potential "looney," (and maybe all of us?) a person whose imagination allowed him to construct, and "visit" Faerie, but JRRT finally realizes, toward the end of his own life, that he too will have a mortal's end and a mortal's fate: he will be shut away from Aman forever... Now that is depressing! Gosh, if a fellow cannot even write himself into a happy ending in his own fantasies, what's the use of day-dreaming!? There is indeed a thick, hard strand of pessimistic "melancholia" in Tolkien's nature.
All this said, I would like to point out that AnnieLT's interpretation of the poem is an excellent application of the verses to Frodo himself. It is a testament to Tolkien's skill in writing that his words do tend to have more meanings than just one, and they legitimately may be used in multiple patterns of explanation. I like the way, Annie, that you have researched particular events in the history of Frodo's deteriorating condition, especially his home-coming to the Shire, and shown how the poem can be a reflection of these experiences in his last days of life in the Mortal Realm. Nicely Done!
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Message 10 of 13 in Discussion From: AnnieLT
Sent: 8/30/2002 12:44 PM
Thank you, Karo6, for the kind comments.
And, I do have to agree that The Sea Bell could not have been written as "back-story" material to supplement the LOTR as the Frodo dreme scrawling was written later. My thought was that perhaps Tolkien sensed in it images and inner meanings that could be relevant to Frodo and was considering a rewrite to be included in the latter part of ROTK.
I also agree with both you and DaleAnn that it makes a lot more sense to apply the verses to Tolkien as protaganist. This, of course, would apply to everything Tolkien has written. Perhaps speculating on which hobbit might have written such-n-such, or how certain passages might refer to a particular character, place, or event gives us a deeper understanding of the madman or genius who brought all this into being?
I have thoroughly enjoyed your and DA’s scholarship in tracing the journey of "The Sea Bell" as it has given me reason to pause and focus more directly on the Author himself rather than his possible intended meanings.
But being somewhat a looney myself, I feel that fanciful speculation is much more fun. I am reminded here of James Thurber's "A Unicorn in the Garden" and am delighted that TR has become a place where we can hatch our boobies. (Still howling with laughter over that "Stone Troll" poem of yours).
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Message 11 of 13 in Discussion From: AnnieLT
Sent: 9/7/2002 10:12 AM
DA and Karo: Further reflections on seeing Tolkien as the protagonist in this and other poems.
In reviewing what you have given us thus far, DA says that "…both Shippey and Flieger state that Sea Bell could be Tolkien mourning the loss of Faerie." In Karo’s words, "…its protagonist clearly does NOT get to stay in the Faerie Land—he is eventually rejected, and returns to the Mortal Lands a ‘lunatic,’ a broken shambling form who cannot re-integrate himself with the mundane existence of natal reality."
In a review of Flieger’s book, "A Question of Time," John Ellison says that Flieger "makes an interesting comparison between the returned wanderer's inability to communicate the reality of his experience to those he meets, and the inability of the returned soldiers after the First World War, Tolkien and thousands like him, to communicate to those who had not experienced them the realities of warfare and existence in the trenches - the comparison is between two extremes which nevertheless seem related."
www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/book_reviews_4.html
This description is similar to the one that I made earlier but I was speaking of Frodo. Who is Frodo if not a part of the great mind who created him? Thank you DA and Karo6 for bringing my attention to the true author of these poems.
Annie
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Message 12 of 13 in Discussion From: DaleAnn
Sent: 1/22/2003 4:21 AM
I have come back to The Sea-Bell and read our thoughts again. I never did read Verlyn Flieger's treatment of this poem from A Question of Time after my headcold of August 2002. I think I will do that forthwith. In the meantime, I'd like to share what I read from her book Splintered Light, which I just finished reading the other day.
In the first reply to this thread Glor quotes: "To myself I talk; for still they speak not, men that I meet." From page 168 of Splintered Light (revised edition 2002), "A man whose lifework was predicated on the power of the word has envisioned a moment in which that power is negated." Further on the same page, "The speaker without speech is psychologically and spiritually in the dark. Shut out of heaven to which he voyaged, cut off from the world to which he returned, he has nothing with which to bridge the separation, no light to illuminate his path. He cannot communicate."
Flieger next points out the similarities among the words, communicate, communion (the Catholic meaning), and community and sees within the poem that Tolkien experienced "spiritual dispair" at this point. But, within a paragraph, she also points that the original concept behind these words was to change adding the prefix ko- meaning together. Therefore, (pg 170), "t is a world in which the farthest point from the Light is also the beginning of the journey back."
When I read her words, I felt such empathy for Tolkien. His whole life was built around words and his religion. We all felt the despair behind this poem but I didn't realize just how complete that despair was... ---DA
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Message 13 of 13 in Discussion From: Zauber
Sent: 1/22/2003 6:30 AM
Nice to see this study getting some activity!
I know you've read the Carpenter book on Tolkien, DaleAnn, and Carpenter did say how Tolkien was subject to deep depression or times of dispair. Seems to me this poem came out of one of those times. What exteme dispair, to feel that all you have spent your life with, language and words and communication, could ultimatley fail. Yes, I feel great compassion for the Proffessor also.
Zauber
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Message 1 of 13 in Discussion From: MSN NicknameIarwainBen-adar1
Sent: 8/19/2002 12:31 AM
This poem should be the last as it appears to have been written by someone other than Frodo and is the latest of the poems to have been written. As wriiten in the Preface Frodo's Dreme is scrawled above this piece, and I suspect Sam to have been the author, being so close to Frodo. It is a start towards the darker side of Tolkien's poems, and is attested to be based on the dreams that haunted Frodo on his return to the Shire.
I think reading this poem it may be of some help to consider what Gandalf had wondered at Rivendell regarding Frodo healing from his wound.
With this in mind, who's eyes would be able to see Frodo?
Do you find this verse as haunting as I?
How many Hobbits might have even seen the sea at this point, to even comprehend what is being told?
Are you ready for more of Tolkien's darker side?
Namárië,
Iarwain
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Message 2 of 13 in Discussion From: Glorfindle
Sent: 8/19/2002 12:47 AM
The last line haunts me most: "To myself I talk; for still they speak not, men that I meet."
Still mulling,
Glor
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Message 3 of 13 in Discussion From: MSN NicknameIarwainBen-adar1
Sent: 8/19/2002 4:29 AM
A good line to bring forward regarding this poem, it clearly states "Men" what of Elves then. It seems to me at the time of the scouring of the Shire, Frodo had already begun to fade.
"Still that must be expected", said Gandalf to himself. "He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can fortell. Not evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with clear light for eyes to see that can".
Do you think this qoute has any bearing upon this verese?
Namárië,
Iarwain
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Message 4 of 13 in Discussion From: AnnieLT
Sent: 8/25/2002 10:11 PM
When I first read the SEA Bell, I found only dissonance. After reading Iarwain’s introduction, I began to reconstruct the poem referring back to passages that would reveal some understanding of the dreams that haunted Frodo on his return to the Shire.
Images of Frodo’s journey began to take shape, especially his experience at Weathertop when pierced by a wraith’s poisonous sword and the desperate ride to Rivendell. Even after Elrond’s cure, Gandalf, as Iarwain notes above, already senses that Frodo is beginning to fade and wonders if he will ever really heal. This is before the real perils begin. As Sam and Frodo plan their homeward journey toward the end of ROTK, Arwen offers Frodo her place on the grey ship and gives him a star gem to aid him in times of darkness. Frodo says something curious in response to Sam’s reminiscences of everything they have seen. "Except the Sea," he says. And later, "Where shall I find rest?" Gandalf observes that "Some wounds cannot be wholly cured." Passing Weathertop, Frodo dreads to look and wraps his cloak around him. October 6, the anniversary of Weathertop becomes an ominous date as Frodo is haunted most grievously by the nightmares of that and ensuing horrors. But I think, there are glimmers of hope and healing throughout the dream that Frodo only begins to realize after he has been stricken the third time. He can only find rest by joining the elves at Grey Havens.
Something I find interesting is that these glimmers of hope and healing which occur in the SEA BELL reveal themselves to Frodo long before he enters Weathertop or learns about the elven ships and the lure of the sea. It is a visionary dream that Frodo has at Tom Bombadil’s house:
"Frodo heard a sweet singing in his mind: a song that seemed to come as a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a fair green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.’’
Frodo does not remember this dream until he is aboard the ship that carries him out into the High Sea and passes on into the west. (FOTR)
So, as dispairing and dissonant this poem seems on first reading, it gives me a deeper understanding of the suffering that Frodo endures and the freedom he must have felt when he was finally able to release the burdens he has been carrying.
Glor, I’ve been giving that last line some thought. "To myself I talk; for still they speak not, men that I meet." Could this refer to Frodo’s return to the Shire and his hesitancy or inability to talk about all that has befallen him on his journeys? Who would listen? Who would even begin to understand the horrors that even to Frodo seem unreal?
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Message 5 of 13 in Discussion From: Karo6
Sent: 8/26/2002 2:58 AM
I first read "The Sea Bell" a very long time ago. It baffled me then, and it still does now. I usually read it for the mood of high melancholy it provokes, but stopped trying to "understand" it in terms of deeper and internal meanings.
Reading Iarwain's and AnnieLT's treatments now has opened some new possibilities of assigning meaning to the various episodes of the poem. I can see that the mood of the thing has "applicability" for Frodo's wandering alienation at the close of LOTR, and its dream-dazed, or even nightmarish qualities would seem to fit well with MY idea of how a sensitive Hobbit mind would be confused and dismayed as it "faded" into the shadows.
But I am not convinced that Frodo is the protagonist and narrator of this poem, despite the prefatory statements on page 9 (1966 version "Tolkien Reader"). Tolkien himself seems unsure, though he mentions a pencilled scrawl -- "Frodos Dreme" -- as being appended to the manuscript. He also mentions in this preface that the "Sea Bell" COULD be about some other Hobbit who had chanced upon the Sea, that mysterious body of water that has so often been a metaphor for change, including the final great change of death.
Even so, my readings do NOT allow me to see anything in this poem that makes it especially a Hobbit poem. This bothered me enough that I paged through the works I have looking for some mention of this poem, hoping to discover that it was indeed written specifically as "back-story" material to supplement the LOTR or Silmarillion. What I found on page 268 of H. Carpenter's biography of JRRT leads me to feel almost certain now of my earlier suspicion that "The Sea Bell" has no real connection with the LOTR corpus, or even the Hobbit. The poem was originally published in 1934 under the suggestive title "Looney," in the Oxford Magazine vol. LII, #9, p, 340. This predates the publication of "The Hobbit" by three years, and the creation of even the first draught of LOTR (and the character Bingo Baggins who later becomes our Frodo) by at least ten years.
Apparently, in 1961 Tolkien was asked for more of his work, and by this time almost any thing he had ever written was assumed to have some saleable value (though after 1965 that value would increase 10 fold!). At this late date, 1961 JRRT knew that his fame in popular literature came from The Hobbit and the LOTR, and he tried make his earlier works conformable to these two great books. At this point he obviously felt that "Looney," suitably re-titled, had some applicability to Frodo's plight in the LOTR, and hence sent this poem in for re-publication in 1962 as "The Sea Bell" within the new volume of "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil." The preface to this slim volume then tried to project an anachronistic fiction over the entire lot, implying that these poems were back story materials from the "Red Book of the West March" written by Hobbits and about Hobbits.
Consequently, trying to find "Frodo relevant" themes and inner meanings from a reading of "The Sea Bell" may be doomed from the start... what we can perhaps recover validly here, from this poem, is an understanding of just what elements in it JRRT deemed to be applicable to his later character Frodo.
In Letter 235:p. 312, To Pauline Baynes -- Tolkien discussed this poem and apologized for including "The Sea Bell" in this new 1962 anthology:
"If I dare say so, the things sent to you (except the Sea-bell, the poorest, and not one that I should really wish to include, at least not with the others) were conceived as a series of very definite, clear and precise, pictures -- fantastical, or nonsensical perhaps, but not dreamlike!"
In Letter 295: pp. 378 -379, To W.H. Auden -- Tolkien mentions that Auden had read the 1966 version of "The Sea Bell" in "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" and found this poem (the one Tolkien thought his "poorest") to be especially good, in fact "wonderful." At this point the poem, which originally had nothing to do with Frodo at all, is subtitled "Frodo's Dreme."
I think all this tells us a great deal about the way Tolkien worked, and underscores for me the fact that the publishing industry had a powerful effect upon shaping the final product of Tolkien's pen. The publishers demanded Hobbit stories and Hobbit poems, and Tolkien, not as fast in writing as he might wish to be, often picked up unrelated bits and pieces of early material, re-worked them, or simply (as in the case of "Looney" which becomes "Frodo's Dreme") re-titled them to sate his publishers' ever growing demands for more Hobbit related stuff. This brings up another point, "The Silmarillion" had to be largely re-written to accomodate the Hobbit and the LOTR, both of which were originally beyond its scope and alien to it.
But if approached, on its own merits as a fantasy scene bit of poetry, I think Auden's view of "Looney" or the "Sea Bell" if you prefer, is more in tune with my own view of this poem, I too find it wonderful. But I do not try to make its episodes conform to Frodo Baggin's psycho-biological condition after the Quest of the Ring, however "applicable" such an interpretation may be!
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Message 6 of 13 in Discussion From: DaleAnn
Sent: 8/26/2002 5:38 AM
"In the original version of the poem, the traveller had at least kept the sea-shell of the last verse, in which he could hear the voice of the sea; in this version, he has lost everything. This does seem to mark a darkening of Tolkien's vision in later life, which we also find in other works; it is almost as if he realised that his dreams about elves and fairies will remain just that, dreams, rather than a permanent escape from so-called reality." www.uni-klu.ac.at/~jkoeberl/ pg 29 of Tolkien's Works.
If you look at the poem again, putting Tolkien himself within the poem...you had better have tissues handy.
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Message 7 of 13 in Discussion From: Karo6
Sent: 8/26/2002 11:44 AM
THANK YOU, DA! It is great to have your scholarship to lean on!
This becomes ever more intriguing to me. I had not thought to project Tolkien himself as the protagonist of this poem, and maybe this is still just another example of "applicability" rather than the author's intent (?), but to me it makes a lot more sense to apply the verses to Tolkien's own condition rather than attaching them "after-the-fact" to a post-created Frodo.
When I look at Tolkien's stated "self-portrait" as Niggle with his leaf, I think I see a sort of depression expressed that appears very similar in mood to the tone I find in "Sea Bell." The fact that he altered the poem, significantly increasing its depressive tone, by dropping the shell entirely is very eerie. I would like to know precisely when he altered the ending (presumably 1961, but maybe long before that?) and then see if there is some real life event that co-occurs with the alteration and might explain his deepening depression...
I can bring up Johan Koberl's home page, but my rickety computer will not down load his PDF file "Tolkien's Works." If you get the time could you summarize anything relevant he has to say regarding this poem and its possible interpretations? Thanks again, DaleAnn..
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Message 8 of 13 in Discussion From: DaleAnn
Sent: 8/26/2002 12:35 PM
Karo, I quoted all that Mr. Koeberl had to say about Sea-bell, but I went searching through my books. Shippey, in Road to Middle Earth and therefore I am assuming in Author of the Century spends about a page on the two poems, 'Looney' and Sea-bell. Verlyn Flieger in A Question of Time, spends about 18 pages on the two poems: a gold mine. One of the many things she states is that Sea-Bell is about twice as long as Looney. C. Tolkien believes that 'Looney" was written in 1932-3. I cannot find a date for 'Sea-Bell'. Both Shippey and Fleiger state that Sea-bell could be Tolkien mourning the loss of Faerie. I'm sorry Karo, but, I have a headcold and my brain would like to stop working now. ---DA
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Message 9 of 13 in Discussion From: Karo6
Sent: 8/27/2002 2:26 PM
So very sorry to hear that you are "under the weather," DaleAnn. A fervent wish for your speedy and full recovery -- er, since you seem to be on your last leg anyway, if this ailment should turn mortal, can I just forget about the three silver pennies I still owe you for my share of the bail money -- paid out in Bree after that highly unfortunate incidence at The Prancing Pony?
Shippey does treat the "Sea Bell" in <underline>AotC</underline>, pp 281 - 282, his other work I do not have, nor do I have the V. Fleigher volume, sigh another wad of my change soon to be transferred to amazon.com...
Shippey feels that "Looney" and its later re-working as "Sea Bell" are primarily concerned with understanding what would happen should a mere mortal ever enter Elvenhome. Without some VERY special dispensation, no mortal may intrude there, and though by chance a few individuals of our kind may briefly enter, they are found out and summarily expelled. The "shock" of such an experience would rattle the brain, and render any such ejected mortals "never the same again." Hence the narrator of "Looney," a traveller who DID somehow get to Aman, is made indeed a lunatic ever after, but at least he has one functional token of his trip, the Shell, in which he can still hear the echoes of Elven singing.
The 1962 version drops the identification of the narrator as the "looney," and adds the pencilled sub-title "Frodos Dreme." Shippey also concurs with my thoughts on this matter, that the person still found as protagonist in the poem is unlikely to be Frodo, despite the sub-title. Frodo after all does have an Elven "green card," and does not suffer the processes of rejection and forced deportation. Frodo, in LotR successfully stays in the Elven Realm seeking a long and healing cure. But the poem itself is still, in its "Sea Bell" version, so worded that its protagonist clearly does NOT get to stay in the Faerie Land -- he is eventually rejected, and returns to the Mortal Lands a "lunatic," a broken shambling form who cannot re-integrate himself with the mundane existence of his natal reality. And as you pointed out, DA, this traveller loses even his last tying thread of connection with the Blessed Realm, the Shell is gone, the singing only a faint and unsatisfying memory.
This, to my thinking, still leaves Tolkien himself as a potential "looney," (and maybe all of us?) a person whose imagination allowed him to construct, and "visit" Faerie, but JRRT finally realizes, toward the end of his own life, that he too will have a mortal's end and a mortal's fate: he will be shut away from Aman forever... Now that is depressing! Gosh, if a fellow cannot even write himself into a happy ending in his own fantasies, what's the use of day-dreaming!? There is indeed a thick, hard strand of pessimistic "melancholia" in Tolkien's nature.
All this said, I would like to point out that AnnieLT's interpretation of the poem is an excellent application of the verses to Frodo himself. It is a testament to Tolkien's skill in writing that his words do tend to have more meanings than just one, and they legitimately may be used in multiple patterns of explanation. I like the way, Annie, that you have researched particular events in the history of Frodo's deteriorating condition, especially his home-coming to the Shire, and shown how the poem can be a reflection of these experiences in his last days of life in the Mortal Realm. Nicely Done!
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Message 10 of 13 in Discussion From: AnnieLT
Sent: 8/30/2002 12:44 PM
Thank you, Karo6, for the kind comments.
And, I do have to agree that The Sea Bell could not have been written as "back-story" material to supplement the LOTR as the Frodo dreme scrawling was written later. My thought was that perhaps Tolkien sensed in it images and inner meanings that could be relevant to Frodo and was considering a rewrite to be included in the latter part of ROTK.
I also agree with both you and DaleAnn that it makes a lot more sense to apply the verses to Tolkien as protaganist. This, of course, would apply to everything Tolkien has written. Perhaps speculating on which hobbit might have written such-n-such, or how certain passages might refer to a particular character, place, or event gives us a deeper understanding of the madman or genius who brought all this into being?
I have thoroughly enjoyed your and DA’s scholarship in tracing the journey of "The Sea Bell" as it has given me reason to pause and focus more directly on the Author himself rather than his possible intended meanings.
But being somewhat a looney myself, I feel that fanciful speculation is much more fun. I am reminded here of James Thurber's "A Unicorn in the Garden" and am delighted that TR has become a place where we can hatch our boobies. (Still howling with laughter over that "Stone Troll" poem of yours).
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Message 11 of 13 in Discussion From: AnnieLT
Sent: 9/7/2002 10:12 AM
DA and Karo: Further reflections on seeing Tolkien as the protagonist in this and other poems.
In reviewing what you have given us thus far, DA says that "…both Shippey and Flieger state that Sea Bell could be Tolkien mourning the loss of Faerie." In Karo’s words, "…its protagonist clearly does NOT get to stay in the Faerie Land—he is eventually rejected, and returns to the Mortal Lands a ‘lunatic,’ a broken shambling form who cannot re-integrate himself with the mundane existence of natal reality."
In a review of Flieger’s book, "A Question of Time," John Ellison says that Flieger "makes an interesting comparison between the returned wanderer's inability to communicate the reality of his experience to those he meets, and the inability of the returned soldiers after the First World War, Tolkien and thousands like him, to communicate to those who had not experienced them the realities of warfare and existence in the trenches - the comparison is between two extremes which nevertheless seem related."
www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/book_reviews_4.html
This description is similar to the one that I made earlier but I was speaking of Frodo. Who is Frodo if not a part of the great mind who created him? Thank you DA and Karo6 for bringing my attention to the true author of these poems.
Annie
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Message 12 of 13 in Discussion From: DaleAnn
Sent: 1/22/2003 4:21 AM
I have come back to The Sea-Bell and read our thoughts again. I never did read Verlyn Flieger's treatment of this poem from A Question of Time after my headcold of August 2002. I think I will do that forthwith. In the meantime, I'd like to share what I read from her book Splintered Light, which I just finished reading the other day.
In the first reply to this thread Glor quotes: "To myself I talk; for still they speak not, men that I meet." From page 168 of Splintered Light (revised edition 2002), "A man whose lifework was predicated on the power of the word has envisioned a moment in which that power is negated." Further on the same page, "The speaker without speech is psychologically and spiritually in the dark. Shut out of heaven to which he voyaged, cut off from the world to which he returned, he has nothing with which to bridge the separation, no light to illuminate his path. He cannot communicate."
Flieger next points out the similarities among the words, communicate, communion (the Catholic meaning), and community and sees within the poem that Tolkien experienced "spiritual dispair" at this point. But, within a paragraph, she also points that the original concept behind these words was to change adding the prefix ko- meaning together. Therefore, (pg 170), "t is a world in which the farthest point from the Light is also the beginning of the journey back."
When I read her words, I felt such empathy for Tolkien. His whole life was built around words and his religion. We all felt the despair behind this poem but I didn't realize just how complete that despair was... ---DA
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Message 13 of 13 in Discussion From: Zauber
Sent: 1/22/2003 6:30 AM
Nice to see this study getting some activity!
I know you've read the Carpenter book on Tolkien, DaleAnn, and Carpenter did say how Tolkien was subject to deep depression or times of dispair. Seems to me this poem came out of one of those times. What exteme dispair, to feel that all you have spent your life with, language and words and communication, could ultimatley fail. Yes, I feel great compassion for the Proffessor also.
Zauber