Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many now has a publication date -- 12/12/2023 -- and an ISBN: 9781606354711.
A feature of special note is that the book will be published in paperback, in order to make it more readily available to readers.
It is available for pre-order from most of the usual suspects. As more are rounded up, I will add links here. But to begin with:
Amazon.fr
Amazon.com/mx
Amazon.com.br
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| 'The Faun's Bookshelf' by Emily Austin Design. |
In my forthcoming book, Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many, I discuss Tolkien's use of the Greek word ἁμαρτία (hamartia) in his essay Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics (17). He mentions the word there in connection with 'doom' as alternative factors effecting the tragedy we often see in human life and portray in stories. He is clearly thinking about Aristotle's use of ἁμαρτία in The Poetics, where it refers to the 'mistake' or 'flaw' in action, understanding, or both that causes the reversal of fortune and downfall of tragic protagonists like Oedipus. As the many mistakes and flawed choices made by characters such as the doomed character Túrin show, Tolkien saw both fate and choice as significant questions in the mythic world he created.
In view of the spiritual harm mortal Ring-bearers
suffer from possessing and using the Rings of Power, and the significance we have
already attached to how they begin their possession of it, both of which have a
bearing on pity especially in this wider context, we should recall that another
meaning of hamartia was available to Tolkien’s mind. For in the
writings of early Christianity hamartia commonly means ‘sin.’[i] Yet in recalling this
particular meaning we must not ignore that, though mistakes and misdeeds abound
within the legendarium, Tolkien eschews the word sin in telling of them.
It never appears in The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, or The
Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, or in any of the
original texts published in the eleven volumes of The History of
Middle-earth. The three occasions in The
History of Middle-earth where we find ‘sin’ used are editorial – once Christopher
Tolkien, once C. S. Lewis, and once Tolkien himself –
and serve only to emphasize how far from direct contact with his legendarium
Tolkien kept the word and the concept.[ii]
Similarly, in The Nature of Middle-earth three of the four uses of ‘sin’ are also
editorial. In his appendix on the Metaphysical and Theological Themes found within the legendarium, Carl
F. Hostetter discusses Death and the Fall of Man as related
by Andreth in connection with the Roman Catholic view on
‘original sin’ (Nature
408-09). Tolkien himself, in a note from the 1970s speculating on life-cycles of the Elves, comments that it was ‘uncertain’
whether the fading of the Eldar was always a part of their nature or a
‘“punishment” for the sins of the Eldar’ (Nature 156). Finally, however,
in a text written in the mid-1950s from the perspective of someone within the legendarium the unnamed author states that the Eldar did
not regard eating the flesh of animals as ‘sinful or against the will of Eru’ (Nature
271). Indeed the closest
engagement with ‘sin’ comes in his translations of the Hail Mary and the Our
Father into his Elven tongues, a feat which blends his ‘secret vice’ with this
personal devotion and gives it expression through the once widespread practice
of translating English verse into ancient tongues, whether as a lark or a
lesson.[iii] Tolkien’s contemporary,
Maurice Bowra, may have produced a
brilliant rendering of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan into Ancient Greek verse,
but he didn’t have to invent Greek, too.[iv]
From what we can see, Tolkien generally avoided categorizing
the misdeeds and mistakes of characters as ‘sins,’ despite ample opportunities
across decades of writing; or, if he did so name them, as we have seen him do
on rare occasions after he finished The Lord of the Rings his practice
resembles the editorial comments of his editors, like Christopher Tolkien and
Carl F. Hostetter, or the mock editorial engagement
of C. S. Lewis with The Lay of Leithian. Morgoth and Sauron,
for example, and their works may be called evil, but neither narrator nor
character within the legendarium calls them sinful or their deeds sins.
So much for what we find in Tolkien’s writings in or on the legendarium.
What of ‘sin’ in his letters, which are likely the single most important source
for the legendarium that is not itself a part of it?
Of the ten letters which speak of ‘sin,’ six use the word
wholly in connection with Tolkien’s personal faith and his life in this world,
with no mention at all of his writings.[v] Of the remaining four, one
is a bit of a joke to his son, Christopher, about the RAF planes, called
‘Mordor-gadgets,’ whose destructive power and purpose Tolkien detested as an
actualization of the desire to dominate others (no. 75,
p. 88). In the other three, he is pondering certain actions or possibilities
within the Secondary World in terms of the Christian understanding of
‘sin,’ but he is once again cautious in the application of Primary World
Christian terminology to the theology of the Secondary World. In Letter 153 (p.195) in answering a fellow Catholic’s
theological queries and objections about The Lord of the Rings he
accepts that some acts within the legendarium can be viewed as ‘sinful,’
but at the same time he makes clear that in doing so he is undertaking a characterization
in Primary World terms of what would be the case within
the Secondary World if Morgoth or the Valar took certain actions contrary to the will of
Eru.[vi] In Letter 181 (p. 237) he speaks of the Istari being
susceptible to ‘the possibility of “fall”, of sin, if you will.’ Lastly, in Letter
212 (p. 285) he points out that the Elvish view of Death as the Gift of Ilúvatar to Men ‘does not necessarily have anything to
say for or against such beliefs as the Christian that “death” is not part of
human nature, but a punishment for sin (rebellion).’ His caution signals that
he sees the applicability of the terminology of one world to the other, but
that he resists going further. ‘Mistake’ and ‘sin’ both exist along the
continuum of meaning inhabited by the word hamartia, but within Arda Marred the mistakes the characters make or avoid making
determine whether they are in a tragedy of some sort or a fairy-story. In the
same way the truth of myth partakes of the truth of the evangelium (OFS
¶ 103), but that does not make them the same.
The avoidance of ‘sin’ suits the focus on pity and the
problematic nature of justice being imposed by anyone who cannot provide
justice for those who die but do not deserve to die as much as for those who do
deserve death. Healing is another concern Gandalf has for both Gollum and
Bilbo, but the death Gandalf admits that Gollum deserves perforce denies
all possibility of the healing he hopes against hope that Gollum might find. The avoidance of ‘sin’ also better
suits the pagan world of the Third Age of Middle-earth and better allows pity
to span the divide between the hope of Christians and the hopelessness of
Heathens. Just as the vision of the Beowulf-poet looks back from the Christian day into the
Heathen night, so does Tolkien.
[i]
In Romans 5:13, Saint Paul writes: ‘Before the Law sin existed in the world,
but sin is not counted [against us] if there is no Law.’ (‘ἄχρι γὰρ νόμου ἁμαρτία ἦν ἐν κόσμῳ, ἁμαρτία δὲ οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται μὴ ὄντος νόμου’.).
That an accounting was not made of sins before the law existed might possibly have
some bearing on why Tolkien almost never uses the various forms of the word sin
within the legendarium.
[ii]
Christopher Tolkien states that ‘suicide is declared a sin’ in his father’s description
of why Túrin chose against it at LT II 125, but this
is rather the son’s characterization than the father’s words. At Lays 379
‘sin’ occurs in one of C. S. Lewis’ mock commentaries on The Lay of Leithian. Finally, in Morgoth’s
Ring (392) Tolkien himself comments that ‘Manwë must be shown to have his own inherent faults (though
not sin)’ which he follows directly with a footnote, pointing out that such a ‘weakness’
or ‘inadequacy’ ‘is not sinful when not willed, and when the creature does his best…as
he sees it – with the conscious intent of serving Eru.’ So, in his one mention of ‘sin’
Tolkien mentions it only to deny it would be right to describe the fault in question
as sin.
[iii]
On the prayers, see J. R. R. Tolkien, Vinyar Tengwar 43 (2002) 5-39; 44 (2002)
5-38. On Tolkien’s ‘secret vice’ of language invention, see Tolkien, D. Fimi and
A. Higgins.
[iv]
C. M. Bowra’s rendering has the added charm of translating the cultural references
into meaningful Greek equivalents. Kubla Khan becomes Minos, and Xanadu become Knossos.
Such translations were something of a college industry at the time. Thus, Bowra’s
Greek could be published alongside Coleridge’s original without explanation. See
S.T. Coleridge, C.M. Bowra, et al. (178-82).
Tolkien and Bowra were acquainted, if not always friendly. Tolkien once claimed
to have poured melted butter over Bowra’s head and Bowra wrote a letter opposing honors proposed for Tolkien.
Any link between the events is speculative. See Scull and Hammond (“C&G”)
2.195-96.
[v]
Letters no. 43, p. 48 (to Michael Tolkien); no. 89,
p. 101 (to Christopher Tolkien); no. 113,
p. 127 (to C. S. Lewis); no. 213,
p. 288 (to Deborah Webster[Rogers]); no. 250,
p. 337 (to Michael Tolkien); no. 306,
p. 395 (to Michael Tolkien).
[vi]
Tolkien’s correspondent here was the manager of a Catholic bookshop
in Oxford. In the passage, Tolkien’s is careful in his wording, as he imagines what
‘would’ or ‘could’ or ‘might’ come about, ‘if [the Valar or Maiar] fell.’
Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring:
To Rule the Fate of Many
by
As the magical ring Bilbo found in The Hobbit became the One Ring to rule them all in The Lord of the Rings, the tale he told of how he had won it became a lie, and the pity that spared Gollum’s life emerged from the darkness beneath the Misty Mountains to challenge the might of Sauron. Yet the pity that Gandalf holds essential to destroying the Ring and defeating Sauron offers the bearer no protection against the corruptions of its power. By joining Tolkien and Frodo on their long and weary road, Pity, Power, and the Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many illuminates the inner struggle Frodo had to face, and Tolkien had to create and explore, between the power Frodo weighs in his hand and the pity for the darkness he comes to hold in his heart.In composing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent over a decade exploring the dynamics of the power of the Ring and powerlessness of pity. As he did so, all the themes his mythology had embodied since its earliest days during The Great War – Death and Immortality, Fate and Free Will, Divine Justice and the Problem of Evil, Power and War – took on a new aspect at once more vulnerable and more heroic in Frodo Baggins. In turn, as Tolkien began to ponder the expression of these constant themes in The Lord of the Rings, his meditations led him onward to a more philosophical and theological treatment of the unfolding of Ilúvatar's themes in history in later works like the Atrabeth Finrod a Andreth and Laws and Customs Among the Eldar. Like the Beowulf-poet he understood so well, Tolkien could encompass in his sympathy Christian religion and Pagan mythology, the Primary World in which he lived the questions of life and the Secondary World in which he imagined the working out of their answers.
Kent State University Press has in recent years extended a warm welcome to the study of The Inklings, publishing twenty-seven titles so far, including fourteen on J. R. R. Tolkien. It is, therefore, with great pleasure that I announce the forthcoming publication of my book, Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many, which studies the evolving dynamics of the Ring of Power and the paradoxical yet all-important quality of pity, and how this quality came to resonate throughout the entire legendarium as a result of the decade and more Tolkien spent unfolding the history of Arda through the writing of The Lord of the Rings.
I am abashed, to say the least, to find my book keeping the company of works by scholars such as Verlyn Flieger, Diana Pavlac Glyer, and Amy Amendt-Radeuge -- to name only those who have won The Mythopoeic Society's award for scholaship in Inklings Studies for their work on Tolkien. These and the other scholars who have published on the Inklings with Kent State University Press have of course been nominated for or won awards from scholarly bodies too many to mention here. It is a very flattering thing for my book to be included among them, to borrow a phrase from Tolkien, as a member of 'a class not as a competitor' (Letters no. 156, p. 201)
The ISBN for my book is 9781606354711. It may be purchased from all the usual suspects.
‘Do you remember that bit of rabbit, Mr. Frodo?’ he said. ‘And our place under the warm bank in Captain Faramir’s country, the day I saw an oliphaunt?’
‘No, I am afraid not, Sam,’ said Frodo. ‘At least, I know that such things happened, but I cannot see them. No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades.’
(RK 6.iii.937-38)
The passage quoted is well known as one of the most moving in The Lord of the Rings, but one factor that gives it such pathos is its remarkable ironic reversal of one of Tolkien's most famous and brilliant devices, namely, the allusion to an untold tale which, since it is to some degree familiar to the characters in the story, helps to create a sense of historical depth for the readers. Here in this passage after 937 pages of being invited to wonder at and be curious about so many of the tales of Middle-earth which The Lord of the Rings does not tell us, the readers, we see Frodo utterly bereft of a knowledge that we possess. This positions the reader beside Sam while Frodo is staring into the abyss and knows he is. In doing so it allows us to pity him in a way we ordinarily cannot.
Here's just a wee bit from right near the very end of the conclusion of my book, To Rule the Fate of Many: Truth, Lies, Pity, and the Ring of Power:
In 1945, however, after six years of a war for survival the horror and pity Tolkien felt at the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was balanced against the recognition that the use of such power could end the war and that God ‘does not look kindly’ on such uses of power (Letters no. 102, p. 113). He knew well how easily one might hold such power to be ‘a gift to the foes of Mordor’ (FR 2.x.397), and how blandly one could assent to ‘deploring maybe evils done by the way’ in the name of doing good (FR 2.ii.259). Frodo came to pity both Boromir and Saruman, the characters who said the words just quoted, but only because Tolkien who wrote these words had pitied them first.
These* are but two examples of Tolkien seeing the applicability of the truths of his myth to the reality in which he lived. And pity is at the heart of the challenge these myths lay before us. Tolkien’s recollections of ‘being caught in youth by 1914’ (FR xxiv), his passions and fears about the war which came again in 1939, his concerns about its aftermath throughout the world as well as in his England, are as incandescent in his letters to his son, Christopher, as they are in the Dead Marshes, in the cataclysmic destruction of the enemy, and in the return of the Ringbearer to a land which no longer seemed his own and which needed a healing that only pity could bring. That pity is the true gift given to the foes of Mordor.
______________________
*Sorry, but if you want to know what 'these' refers to, you'll have to wait until the book comes out one of these days. I should be submitting it to a publisher within the next month or so.
In my last post I pointed out that the author of 'The Tale of Years' 'sees the moment of final transition from Sméagol-Gollum to Gollum in his loss of the Ring to Bilbo'. What I did not note there, but will add now, is that Gollum would agree with this assessment. When Frodo addresses him as Sméagol, Gollum replies:
Don't ask Sméagol. Poor, poor Sméagol, he went away long ago. They took his Precious, and he's lost now.'
(TT 4.i.616)
From these words it would appear that for Gollum, Sméagol somehow continued to exist until he lost the Ring to Bilbo. Gollum seems to scorn him -- the verb describing how Gollum spoke the words in this paragraph is 'cackled'. So we should not mistake his tone in the words I've quoted. There's no sign that he has slipped back into the self-pity of earlier paragraphs, where he sobs and whimpers. The next exchange in the conversation confirms this.
'Perhaps we'll find him again, if you come with us,' said Frodo.
'No, no, never! He's lost his Precious,' said Gollum.
Gollum is as firm here (and perhaps as judgmental) as Frodo was in The Shadow of the Past when Gandalf suggested that Frodo did not pity Gollum because he had not seen him:
‘I am sorry,’ said Frodo. ‘But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.’
‘You have not seen him,’ Gandalf broke in.
‘No, and I don’t want to,’ said Frodo. ‘I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.’
No doubt it was Sméagol, the last of him, that remembered the sun on daisies, at which Gollum, the evil part, grew angry.
