Tolkien Reading Day 2022 -- Love and Friendship

Eala Earendel    engla beorhtast   
ofer middangeard    monnum sended,
ond soðfæsta    sunnan leoma,
torht ofer tunglas,--    þu tida gehwane
of sylfum þe    symle inlihtes.

Hail Earendel, brightest of angels,
sent over Middle-earth to men,
and true light of the sun,
radiant beyond the stars -- you will illuminate all time
from thy very self for ever.

Christ I.104-08

References to: 

[Cynewulf] Christ I

Corey Olsen, The Tolkien Professor, of Signum University

Shawn Marchese and Alan Sisto of The Prancing Pony Podcast 

Marcel Aubron-Bülles of The Tolkienist and the German Tolkien Society

Emily Austin of Emily Austin Design

Geoffrey Bache Smith, killed at the Somme 1916, author of A Spring Harvest

Richard Rohlin, of the Amon Sûl podcast

The true gift to the foes of Mordor

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.

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*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. 

 

The One Ring as an Old Norse Poem (Dr Jackson Crawford)

Bilbo's 'Black Mark' (Letter no. 246)

In discussing Bilbo joining Frodo on the journey to Elvenhome, Tolkien comments in Letter 246 (p. 328):

But [Bilbo] also needed and deserved the favour on his own account. He bore still the mark of the Ring that needed to be finally erased: a trace of pride and personal possessiveness. Of course he was old and confused in mind, but it was still a revelation of the ‘black mark’ when he said in Rivendell (III 265 [ = RK 6.vi.987]) ‘What’s become of my ring, Frodo, that you took away?’; and when he was reminded of what had happened, his immediate reply was: ‘What a pity! I should have liked to see it again’.

Yet we find what is perhaps the most enduring evidence of the Ring's effect on him in the Prologue, where the Prologue's author points out the persistence of the lie Bilbo originally told about how he came by the Ring (FR  Pr. 12-13): 

This account Bilbo set down in his memoirs, and he seems never to have altered it himself, not even after the Council of Elrond. Evidently it still appeared in the original Red Book, as it did in several of the copies and abstracts. But many copies contain the true account (as an alternative), derived no doubt from notes by Frodo or Samwise, both of whom learned the truth, though they seem to have been unwilling to delete anything actually written by the old hobbit himself.

So, despite saying 'I understand now' after he saw Frodo's reaction to his reaching for the Ring the night before the Council (FR 2.i.213) and despite saying 'Perhaps I understand things a little better now' (FR 2.ii.249) when he apologized to Glóin for not having told him the truth nearly eighty years earlier, nevertheless Bilbo left the original account in place, the lie, in his memoirs, leaving Frodo and Sam the unenviable dilemma of whether they should change it for him. This means that the first edition of The Hobbit is, therefore, a direct consequence of the deceptions and self-deceptions caused by the power of the Ring over its bearers. It is far more important, however, and far less amusing to recognize how subtle, how nearly invisible, and how permanent an effect the Ring has. Bilbo's newfound understanding, his apology to Frodo, and the apology he offers to Glóin and the other dwarves with which he begins his true and public account of the lies he told, do not prevent him from maintaining the lie for posterity. Understanding, regret, and shame cannot overcome the lie. (In a culture that prizes honor, being revealed as a liar brings shame.) Bilbo could not, it seems, even bring himself to ask Frodo to make the change for him. 

The near invisibility of these details should also help us see Frodo's struggles after the Ring's destruction more clearly. Think of how surprised Sam is that Frodo is going to take ship at the Grey Havens (RK 6.ix.1029), and how Frodo 'concealed' his illnesses from Sam (RK 6.ix.1023, 1025). Who would understand Frodo's suffering better than Sam, and who would understand this better than Frodo? Yet understanding is not enough. To be sure Frodo is protecting Sam, but the deceits that come with the Ring don't go with the Ring when it is destroyed any more than the longing for it. It becomes more remote but remains potent.

So what's a (Tolkien) scholar anyway?

Someone on the internet attacked Luke Baugher, a friend of mine, the other day because he disputed a claim about Tolkien made in connection with the upcoming series on Amazon. Actually I should say someone attacked my friend's credentials; the threat of personal physical violence came later, perhaps from another troll, but that's for the police to decide. I want to talk about the first attack, in which the attacker denounced 'self-proclaimed scholars', in this case of Tolkien. What is a scholar and when does a person get to call themselves one?

So what does the OED have to say about this word? The word first appears in Old English about a thousand years ago, meaning from early on both someone in school to receive an education and someone who has studied a subject at an advanced level at a university. Starting out as a reference to someone schooled in Latin and Greek, 'scholar' expanded to include Scripture and other disciplines within the Humanities as they appeared. 

Here's the definition most relevant to this discussion:

2a. A person who is highly educated and knowledgeable, usually as a result of studying at a university; (in early use) a person who has knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages and their literature. In later use chiefly: a person who pursues or is expert in a particular field of study, esp. in the humanities.

I will use myself as an example here to start with. I have a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Classics. I spent twelve years as a full time student, taking classes, passing exams, writing papers and dissertations, sitting up all night reading many nights and spending school holidays in the cool quiet of the farthest reaches of the basement of the library studying. (Being found in one of these odd corners during a holiday by one of my professors, a rather grumpy Jesuit who was himself a scholar of Aristotle, was how I earned his respect at last.). I later spent as many years teaching at the University level, presenting papers at conferences, and publishing an article or more a year in peer-reviewed scholarly journals in Classics. Though I left Academia long ago, I have never ceased reading the primary texts which brought me there in the first place, like the works of Homer and Sophocles and Plato and Aristotle. All along the line my work and my credentials were vetted and approved by others who had similar knowledge and experience. In recent years I have spent my time writing and reading about Tolkien and his works. I have presented papers at conferences and published articles in scholarly journals on the subject. I am currently finishing up a book on Pity in Tolkien, which a couple of University Presses have expressed interest in. This book is as much the product of fifty years of reading Tolkien and books about Tolkien as it is of my more recent close focus on his works in print and online. 

I generally don't call myself a scholar any more than I insist that people address me as Doctor. That's my decision. I don't care about titles. I never have. Others do for various reasons. (The obnoxious habit some people have of omitting a title a woman has earned while including in the same breath a title a man has earned gives doctors who are women an excellent reason for insisting on the title.) Yet if I call myself a scholar, I am not proclaiming myself a scholar. The dictionary definition and the degrees I earned at the schools I attended proclaim me a scholar, as would the long years of diligent study if I lacked the degrees. The degrees themselves are not a prerequisite, but a formal recognition of achievement by one's peers. The study and the knowledge are a prerequisite. 

So when I saw that my friend, Luke Baugher, who, aside from being the editor of Mallorn, The Tolkien Society's peer-reviewed journal, had earned a doctorate from the University of Glasgow and had written a dissertation on Tolkien -- a fine dissertation which I was privileged to read -- was derided as a 'self-proclaimed' Tolkien scholar, I had to laugh at the ignorance and foolishness of the accusation. My friend has the credentials, he has the knowledge, and he has the experience. He did not proclaim himself a scholar. The University of Glasgow and his mentor, Dr Dimitra Fimi, proclaimed him a scholar. And only 'the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots'* would question her scholarship. 

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*This was revealed to me in a dream by Londo Mollari, though I already knew it.