LotR - Foreword

[Estelyn Telcontar]

This tale grew in the telling

These are the first words (except for the Ring poem) in my edition of The Lord of the Rings; probably in most of yours as well. The Foreword dates much later than the book itself; Tolkien wrote it in 1965 for the first official American paperback edition (Ballantine’s), after the pirated Ace version had become enormously popular in the U.S. The closing sentences of the Foreword refer to that, including the famous words beginning “This paperback edition, and no other…”

There are several aspects we can discuss:

1) The autobiographical comments Tolkien makes
2) The glimpses he gives us of the development of the story
3) The explanation of his intention in writing the tale
4) His comments on the reactions of readers and critics


I am always touched by his statement

I had many duties that I did not neglect, and many other interests…

It sounds a bit wistful; what could he have accomplished with less distractions?! But it also shows me the greatness of his spirit, the creativity which came through despite the necessities of daily life. He mentions one of those necessities:

…it had to be typed, and re-typed: by me; the cost of professional typing by the ten-fingered was beyond my means.

What a waste of time and energy, I think when I read that – and am reminded of J. S. Bach, who had to spend time engraving the notes for his compositions, since he also couldn’t afford help.


I look forward to reading your opinions and thoughts on the Foreword!

*IMPORTANT ADDITION: The original foreword, written for the first edition, has been passed on to us by Squatter in post #25 on this thread - we are including it in our discussion. Thanks, Squatter, for that important supplement!

[Fingolfin II]

In the Foreword, Tolkien gives us some very interesting insights into the problems he faced in creating Lord of the Rings and also shows us how exact and thorough he was in the creation of his world.

It sounds a bit wistful; what could he have accomplished with less distractions?!

I don't know if he could have accomplished much more than the creation of Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Both are very in-depth books and cover most details in the novels very comprehensively- I suppose all he could really have done is to amend all the typing and phrasing errors made by the editors. However, I'm not sure whether he could have created a complete consistency between all his works in one lifetime.

As for anny inner meaning or "message", it has in the intention of the author none.

What is interesting here is that Tolkien admits that while he has borrowed from other sources, it is not exactly based on what would happen in real life. He says that in real life the Ring would have been used against Sauron, but in order to make a story of it he had to change reality to idealism, in the sense that Frodo and Gandalf are able to resist the temptation of the Ring for so long.

That's all I can think of now; I look forward to discussing this and all other opinions about the Foreword and the rest of the book.

[Arry]

The thought of him using the term ‘ten-fingered’, for a paid typist, was quite amusing. It conjured up the image of him hunched over an old Royal typewriter, the smell of a freshly inserted ribbon wafting out as the keys strike it with a clackety – clack . . . the rhythm syncopated and marked with pauses as the determined author pecks the keys with two fingers.

This particular part of the Foreword also talks about the process of writing such a layered and detailed storyline.

Then when the ‘end’ had at last been reached the whole story had to be revised, and indeed largely re-written backwards.

The end of the writing process for the main storyline has to be looked at closely - ideas which have come to fruition in the final chapters have to be enhanced or even planted in the initial chapters so that the entire creation becomes as close to a seamless, consistent whole as it can.

I appreciate the fact that he stuck with the process over that thirteen year period!

[Saraphim]

All great tales evolve, and it is something more than magical to watch a seed of an idea blossom into a full tale, something that I can, to a small degree, relate to.

But one of the bits that really stuck with me is this:

I had little hope that other people would be interested in this work [of the Elder Days, ect]...When those whose advice and opinion I sought corrected little hope to no hope, I went back to the sequel...

This struck me ironic, for the obvious reason that here we are, on this lovely web site, doing the best we can to enshrine his works into history.

What if, although the anwer will of course never be known, the Professor had neglected writing the Lord of the Rings and chose instead to finish the histories of Middle-Earth, what he truly desired to accomplish all his life?

Although it was the Silmarilion and the History of Middle Earth that gave him cause and basis to write, it was his seemingly secondary work that drew people by the thousands to in turn come to love his tales of the Elder Days.

What I admire most about Tolkien as a man was his unflagging perseverence, even at the times that things seemed most dreary and pointless.

In spite of the darkness of the next five years, I found that the tale could not be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by darkness, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria...

He goes on to say that he stopped there for about a year before coming back, and I must say, that a year is an awfully long time for writer's block, or even writer's stagnation. I've gotten both (the latter term being my invention) but I usually abandon what I had been working on before too long.

Not Professor Tolkien. Not in the least. After that, he most likely had many more blocks than he mentioned in the foreward, but never once did he give up. Even, as Estelyn said, when he had to type it all up by hand himself, a daunting prospect for anyone, especially in the days before spellcheck and the automatic 'delete' button.


I hope you all note that I did not mention anything about canonicity in my post, allegorical, topical, or otherwise. I try to leave that to the rest of you, who are unflaggingly better at it than me.

[davem]

Well, I don’t know how relevant this will be, but as we’re starting with the Foreword, I thought it might be interesting to look at Tolkien in the period just prior to, & just after publication of LotR, & his feelings about the work.

This is an excerpt from a talk given at the 1992 Centenary conference in Oxford, published in the Proceedings of the Conference, & published jointly by The Tolkien Society in the UK & the Mythopoeic Society in the US.

The speaker was George Sayer. He tells about the time he spent walking with Tolkien & the Lewis brothers in the Malvern Hills.

“Though he (Tolkien) was generally interested in birds & insects, his greatest love seemed to be for trees. He had loved trees ever since childhood. He would often place his hand on the trunks of ones we passed. He felt their wanton or unnecessary felling almost as murder. The first time I heard him say ‘’ORCS’ was when we heard not far off the savage sound of a petrol driven chainsaw. ‘’That machine,’ he said, ‘is one of the great horrors of our age.’ He said that he had sometimes imagined an uprising of trees against their human tormentors. ‘Think of the power of a forest on the march. Of what it would be like if Birnam Wood really came to Dunsinane.’....


‘Except at Inklings mettings I saw nothing of Tolkien for perhaps two years after this. Lewis gave me bulletins about him, & talked quite a lot about the Lord of the Rings, its greatness & the difficulty oof getting it published. He thought this was largely Tolkien’s fault because he insisted that it should be published with a lengthy appendix of largely philological interest. In negotiation with Colllins he had even gone so far as o insist that it should be published with the earlier work, The Silmarillion, a book that Lewis had tried to read in typescript, but found very heavy going. The two together would make a volume of over a million words. Even alone The Lord of the rings would. Lewis thought, be the better for pruning. there was a large section that in his opinion weakened the book.

Of course Lewis’s enthusiasm made my wife & me mnost eager to read the book. Lewis said that he would try & get a copy for us, but he did not see how. Then on one of my visits to Magdalen he told me that Tolkien had given up hope of ever having it published. This was a real calamity, but it brought great good to me. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘at what I have here for you!’ There on his table was the typescript of The Lord of the Rings. Of course i must take the greatest care of it, read it in a month or less, & return it personally to the author, ‘phoning him first to mmake sure that he would be there to recieve it. It was far too precious to be entrusted even to the more reliable post of forty years ago.

Of course my wife & I had the thrilling experience that all of you remember vividly. Well before the month was up, I turned up with iit at Tolkien’s house, then in Holywell. I found him obviously unhappy & dishevelled. He explained that his wife had gone to Bournemouth & that all his friends were out of Oxford. He eagerly accepted my invitation to come to Malvern for a few days. ‘But what about the other book? I can’t leave it here.’ So i drove Tolkien to Malvern with the typpescripts of The Lord of the Rings & The Silmarillion on the back seat. What a precious cargo!

His talk now was mainly of his books. He had worked for fourteen years on The Lord of the Rings & before that for many years on The Silmarillion. They really were is life work. He had in a sense planned them before he went to school, & actually written one or two of the poems while he was still at school, I think the Tom Bombadil poems. He had now nothing to look forward to except a life of broken health, making do on an inadequate pension. He was so miserable & so littlle interested in anything except his own troubles that we were seriously worried. What could we do to alleviate his depression? i could walk with him & drive him around during the day, but how were we to get through the evenings? Then I had an idea. I would take the risk of introducing him to a new machine I had in the house & was trying out because it seemed that it should have some valuable educational applications. It was a large black box, a ferrograph, an early model tape recorder. To confront him with iit was a risk because he had made it clear that he disliked all machinery. He might curse it & curse me with iit, but there was a chance that he would be interested in recording on it, in hearing his own voice.

He was certainly interested. First he recorded the Lord’s Prayer in Gothic to cast out the devil that was sure to be in iit since it was a machine. This was not just whimsey. All of life for him was part of a cosmic conflict between the forces of good & evil, God & the devil. I played it back to him. He was surprised & very pleased. He sounded much better than he had expected. He went on to recoord some of the poems in The Lord of the Rings. Some he sang to the tunes that were in his head when writing them. He was delighted with the resullt. It was striking how much better his voice sounded recorded & amplified. the more he recorded, & the more often he played back the recordings, the more his confidence grew. He asked to record the great riddle scene from the Hobbit. He read it magnificently & was especially pleased with his imppersonation oof Gollum. Then I suggested he should read one or two of the best prose passages from The Lord of the Rings, say, the ‘Ride of the Rohirrim’, & part of the account of the events on Mount Doom. He listened carefullly &, I thought, nervously, to the playback. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘they are all wrong. The publishers are wrong, & I am wrong to have lost my faith in my oown work. i am sure this is good, really good. But how am I to get it published?’

Of course I had no idea. But i had to say something, so I said, ‘Haven’t you an old pupil in the publishing business?’ After a pause he said:’There’s only Rayner. ‘Then send it to him & ask him to help.....

He doubted if many people would buy the book at the high price of 25 shillings a volume. He feared too that the few people who read it would treat it as an allegory oor morality tale about the nuclear bomb or the horrors of the machine age. He insiisted over & over again that his boook was essentially a story, without any further meaning. 'Tales of Faerie,' he said, 'should be told only for their own sake.'

At long last, after the three volumes were successfully launched, he became ‘cock-a-hoop’ & talked with great enthusiasm of the fate of the pirated paperback version & the astonishing growth of the tolkien cult. He enjoyed recieving letters in Elvish from boys at Winchester & from knowing that they were using it as a secret language. He was overwhelmed by his fan mail & would be visitors. It was wonderful to have at long last plenty of money, more than he knew what to do with. He once began a meeting with me by saying: ‘I’ve been a pooor man all my life, but now for the first time I’ve a lot of money. Would you like some?’

Sorry for such a long quote, but I think its fascinating to get that insight into Tolkien's state of mind & his feelings about the book, as we set off.

[Kransha]

There I halted for a long while. [etcetera]

As mentioned, the Foreward to LotR gives us some abnormal insight into the mind of our revered author, Professor Tolkien. Here, specifically, Tolkien speaks of the generic hardships of writing literature. Note, perhaps, that he was drawn to a halt in his writing at numerous places, all of which would've left his readers hanging in the dankes, darkest pit of suspense-wrought confusion. This leads those who speculate on such matters to believe that Tolkein may not, in fact, have known where his books were headed on their grand scale abroad. This may be an incorrect assumption, since the dramatic haltings of the 'typing and re-typing' may merely have been based in time management, or simple author interest in the subject matter, but one would think that the latter was not the case, since Tolkien indicates that most of the points he stopped at were points of crucial importance (i.e. Moria, prelude to Pelennor, etc). But, yet again, I may be generalizing.

Some quotes to be paraphrased that have aroused controversy, or possibly confirmed its absence resolutely, are as follows, unmentioned above:

'I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author'

One of the singular quotes from the forward (as read from my beloved, two-decade old, leftover Ballantine edition with the jacket withered off), represents a great deal of importance, at least in my mind, since so many thoughts of allegory or symbolism have 'spawned,' for lack of a better word, around this edition and the Professor's whole legacy. For purpose, Tolkien suggests with a blunt but eloquent simplicity, in my opinion (must be careful not to incur the wrath of those who disagree), that the two areas exist, both, in the works present under his name. There is a certain degree of allegory that is applicable, though it has been somewhat contorted over the years, but not to rashly, and a certain degree of applicability that is allegorical, though I have no idea whatsoever that statement intends...

To them, and to all who have been pleased by this book, especially those Across the Water for whom it is specially intended, I dedicate this edition.

(Italics mine own). Since I have read the paraphrased quote above this one, referencing allegory and applicability, this line means little to me except as a dedication from a father of a soldier and a grandfather to those who read and were, in turn, inspired by his works, to them. After reading the above quote, you see that this is all this is, since the remark entailing special intention probably refers in full to the fact that Chris Tolkien was enlisted in the RAF at the time (aldo subsequently revealed through the Foreward at the dawn of this edition. Some would-be philosophers of yesterday and today, may have found 'unapplicable allegory' in this statement, and allegory which I saw, but didn't exactly confide in. I make the assumption that you, my fellow BDers, know of the allegorical symbolism I speak of, so I will fade here, as the discussion is oozing into controversy, which my feeble brain is oft unable to comprehend.

[mark12_30]

Edit: Dave and Kransha, we cross-posted, so there's no response to your peices in this... Edit #2, Davem, thanks so much for that long quote, it was wonderful!!! I must go back and listen again to those recordings!

Esty, I'll start with #2, the glimpses he gives us of the development of the story.

As a writer, his admissions of difficulty have always given me great hope.

Stories, apparently, can get stuck for other writers too. If Tolkien plodded for five *years* til he stood by Balin's tomb in Moria for a year, perhaps I am not so stuck as I think. When greeted by surprises in my stories I am assured by Tolkien that's all right too. Arry "Revised and indeed largely re-written backwards"-- that strikes me too.

His defiant dismissal of the critics I find both charming and encouraging. Beauty is in the eye of the reader.

His WW2 outline: Sauron is subjugated, Barad-Dur is occupied, Saruman comes up with a ring of his own. The man's wit is sharper than the shards of Narsil.

His diatribe against allegory is neatly balanced against his preference for history, real or feigned, and his endorsement of applicability.

His list of desires: to write a tale that would entertain, etc-- is that the reader may "even" be deeply moved. Here is a hint of his aim at eucatastrophe, his admission that all will not experience it, his hope that some will.

And lastly, the first-person narration always brings me to the same conclusion: how I love Tolkien as a professor, as a creative and witty Loremaster, as a staunch and kindly man of faith who wrote stories for his children. I'd like the chance of adopting him as an uncle, although I'm not sure he and my other family members would have gotten along!

[Estelyn Telcontar]

...those Across the Water for whom it is specially intended...

Kransha, the Foreword was written for the American edition, for those who are, from the author's point of view, "across the water" - in this case, the Atlantic Ocean.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

His diatribe against allegory is neatly balanced against his preference for history, real or feigned, and his endorsement of applicability.

The thing that always strikes me about the Foreward is Tolkien’s very clear insistence that the LotR is a ‘historical’ work in which he attempts to recover the events that the hobbits got caught up in. His insistence as well that the work is “philological” in nature is an incredibly important point. The very genesis of Middle-Earth was the invention of Quenya and Sindarin: he made up the languages first, then had to find the speakers of that language, whom he called Elves, then he had to figure out their history, and thus it all began. I think this is so important to acknowledge from the outset because it will call our attention to the primacy of language and words in the book. As a professor of philology – indeed, as one of the founders of modern approaches to linguistics-based analysis of literary texts – Tolkien was a master of the English language like very few before or since. I think it is no bad comparison to put him alongside Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton in his careful and full response to the richness of English and the wide possibilities it contains. All that time he spent rewriting and then typing the book was far from wasted, I think, insofar as it would have given him the opportunity to revise and revise and rework the prose word-by-word, with the result that his text will, I think, bear great fruit when brought under the kind of extremely close scrutiny that I hope this forum will provide.

The sense of passivity that he expresses before the story is more than charming, it seems genuine. Kransha makes an excellent point when he indicates that the great ‘gaps’ in the writing took place just before the major turning points in the narrative. I think that is because Tolkien kept writing himself to a point where he did not know what was going to happen next, and was able to resolve this only be ratcheting up the stakes. While he doesn’t mention the particular emergence of Aragorn in Bree here, that was another point at the narrative where he got stuck very early on (in Bree, the hobbits originally met another hobbit ranger called Trotter). The impasse in Moria was resolved by Gandalf’s death, and the impasse of the Pelennor by Aragorn taking the Paths of the Dead. This is why the tale “grew in the telling” as that ‘older’ material of the Second Age just kept impressing itself onto what began as a relatively simple story giving more hobbit-stuff.

Then when the ‘end’ had at last been reached the whole story had to be revised, and indeed largely re-written backwards.

The quotation marks around ‘end’ here are just wonderful as they invite – demand – us to move past the simple idea of his book as being one composed of beginning middle and end in some linear form. The tale did indeed “grow in the telling” and continued to do so after its ‘completion’ – the Appendices were added, and a Prologue written; then the Foreward. And even after his death it continued with the publication of the Sil, and then the HoME – and then with places like this Forum! The most important connection between this book and history is that neither one is a ‘closed shop,’ constructed by the author for the benefit of the reader. The book challenges us to reinterpret it and make it our own; only a very great fool accepts unquestioningly somebody else’s version of history, and the same is to be said of this book. That’s why, I think, Tolkien writes with such vigour and energy in the Foreward about allegory and applicability. Having created a book that lends itself to such openness (that is, it’s such a readerly book that the author has little or no ‘control’ over its reception – and he doesn’t want any) that there were a lot of people who were perhaps abusing that freedom, and Tolkien wanted to add a minor corrective to that by nudging people away from simplistic interpretations of the tale (the War of the Ring is World War II) and toward more subtle and fluid interpretations. Just as historical events are never allegorical (the War of 1812 is not an allegory of the Expulsion from Eden!) but are examples of certain ideas and themes (imperialist aggression, revisionist history, birth of a national identity), so too is LotR.

So, to finish my long first post (I’m just so excited to be underway) – what are the themes that Tolkien seems to be indicating his book is ‘about’? The one thing he identifies as being central is, quite brilliantly I think, the Ring itself. He says that having chosen to use the Ring as the “link” between [/I]The Hobbit[/I] and LotR, the story was pretty much determined to proceed as it did. So the book is ‘about’ the (history of) the Ring – that, for me, will be the point I try very much to keep in mind as I go through it this time.

EDIT -- I forgot to say thanks very much davem for that interesting (and lengthy!) quote. I get chills when I think how close we all came to never having LotR!!!

[HerenIstarion]

When those whose advice and opinion I sought corrected little hope to no hope

That allegedly refers to Allen and Unwin and their reader. But Tolkien knew not that reader haven't seen what was sent to publisher, by and large, but only portion of Lay of Leithan (or maybe some other lay, but some lay it was for sure). So, there probably was a bit of misunderstanding there - no knowing what would have happened if the reader was to see all of the paperwork provided. There is no conjuctive mood to history, it is said, and one of my mostly beloved quotes of Tolkien is 'things might have been different, but they could not have been better', but sometimes I feel inclined to muse over things, I do

[Bêthberry]

Oh indeed, I very much enjoy the "ten fingered typist" remark too. Like Tolkien's comment that he has similar opinions about works which others like, it strikes me as evidence of Tolkien's wit and sly humour. We are all very much aware of the humour in The Hobbit but I don't think we've yet considered the humour in Lord of the Rings.

Out of the many points which have already been made here--swiftly goes this discussion, if so many posts since Estelyn's first is any indication--I would like to ponder one which has me wondering, one which Estelyn suggested, Tolkien's statement of his intention. I have no clear cut answer, but it strikes me that Tolkien, as all authors, is of a subtle, complex mind.

Now, before any of you throw tomatoes at me, let me explain. I read this Foreward, written, as Estelyn points out, some years after the publication of the book and even more after its conception and long gestation, and think about the many references in the Letters to his claims that the story became imbued with subtle hints of his faith. I am thinking particularly here of littlemanpoet's wonderful old thread "and consciously so in the revision." Those letters which gave inspiration to that thread were for private reading, of course.

This is a public foreward, but how many times does Tolkien here insist that the story is mainly story--or, as Fordim has pointed out, history, with a primary inspiration in linguistics.

The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. ... As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none.

I know that Helen reads this as implying the eucatastrophe of which Tolkien speaks in On Fairy Stories but I really wonder about this. Many people can read a story and be deeply moved without having a religious experience. Surely to take 'deeply move' as a hidden code to refer to eucatastrophe is to suggest that Tolkien is here positing a second, secret hidden language. Would he be doing that? Particularly when davem's quotation reiterates Tolkien's idea that the story should be enjoyed for itself as story. Here's the part I mean:

He insiisted over & over again that his boook was essentially a story, without any further meaning. 'Tales of Faerie,' he said, 'should be told only for their own sake.' quoted above by davem

To this I point to Tolkien's disavowal of autobiographical impulse:

the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. It is also false, though naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have overlapped, to suppost that the movements of thought or the events of time common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences.

Perhaps Tolkien's main point here is to disavowal the interpretations which saw contemporary political/historical references in his books. Yet he places such repeated emphasis on story as story that I think he is also suggesting something about the reading experience itself. I don't wish to get into a discussion of the ideology of the books, such as bogged down the Canonicity thread. What I rather wonder about is why Tolkien would not make any mention in the Foreward of some of the things he discusses in his Letters or in On Fairy Stories. I am not accusing him of dishonesty or anything like that, by any means, but rather that he is defending a particular way he wished his work to be regarded..

I think we have something here which can suggest his idea of what constitutes reading and particularly what constitutes his idea about how his stories should be read. Once more, I think, we have an author, as Helen states above, who deeply respected the right of the reader to see a story as he wishes, even as Tolkien was wanting to suggest that his history was something wider and grander than a grubby World War II allegory. It is a very subtle way to suggest that one interpretation is misguided without at the same time forcing his "purposed domination" on the reader. A very thoughtful and respectful balancing act, eloquently done.

[davem]

On the allegory question, I think Tolkien is maybe protesting too much. In Letter 71 he writes:

‘For romance has grown out of ‘allegory’, & its wars are still derived from the ‘inner war’ of allegory in which good is on one side & various modes of badness on the other. In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley alliance of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, & angels. But iit does make some difference who are your captains & whether they are orc-like per se’

And in letter 66 he he even draws an allegorical comparison beween the Nazi’s & his own mythology:

‘For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. but the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, & slowly turn Men & Elves into Orcs.

In Letter 163 he writes to WH Auden:

‘each of us is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale & clothed in the garments of time & place, universal truth & everlasting life.’

‘
Perhaps its not so clear cut, though. Stratford Caldecottt in ‘Sacred Fire’ writes:

‘Tolkien always insisted that his fantasy was not an allegory. mordor was not Nazi germany, or Soviet Russia, any more than it was intended to be Saddam’s Iraq. ‘To ask if the Orcs ‘are’ Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs’. But at the same time he did not deny that the story was ‘applicable’ to contemporary affairs, indeed he affirmed this. It is applicable not merely in providing a parable to illustrate the danger of the machine, but in showing the reasons for that danger: sloth & stupidity, pride, greed, folly & lust for power, all exemplified in the various races of middle Earth.

Against these vices he set courage & courtesy, generosity & wisdom, in those same hearts. There is a universal moral law, but it is not the law of a tyrant. It iis the law that makes it possible for us to be free.’


Personally, I think its a case of what John Garth called ‘seeing the world through enchanted eyes’. What Tolkien seems to do is not so much ‘allegorise’ as ‘mythologise’ the world in his stories. (But...- I'll get to that in a moment) At the same time he didn’t dispise allegory as much as he claims - Niggle is an allegory, so is the ‘story’ of the Tower in the Beowullf essay, & as Verlyn Flieger points out in regard to Smith:

‘It must be conceded, however, that to some extent it invites reading as allegory & that Tolkien is in part responsible. Dislike it though he might, having started off with an allegorical conception he found it hard to shake off, & as a consequence it is all too easy to play at the same game’

The question that arises then is, given that he didn't 'cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations', as he was happy to make use of it when necessary, why is he so dogmatic in his condemnation of it here? I can't help feeling that he wanted to emphasise as strongly as possible that the Lord of the rings should not be taken by the reader as 'allegorical'. He wanted to disuade the reader from even trying to find any allegory in it - yet isn't there some allegorical dimension to the story - if we see it as a 'human' story - which it must be if it moves us, then it is 'allegorical' of us, of man's life in this world. We are all allegories, he tells Auden. Romance grows out of allegory. I think he had no problem with 'high' allegory - as in Beowulf. LotR can be taken as an allegory of the life of man on this planet, as can Beowulf. The Dragon is an allegory of Death, & the writer intends it to be. Its not a case of 'you can see this Dragon as Death if you wish'. Tolkien seems to be saying he doesn't want LotR to be taken as 'low' allegory - the War of the Ring = WW2.( But there are 'Orcs' wandering the woods of England with chainsaws).

If 'high' allegory is taken to refer to mythologising, then he seems fine with it - it 'allegorises' the human condition, living on this planet, facing the inevitability of Death. Indeed, I think he wants us to read it on that level, or he would not have advised that it shouldn't be read by children, only by adults who, hopefully, would be able to read it in the way he wanted it to be read & understood in the way he wanted it to be understood. To mythologise is to allegorise, but it is also to free the ideas & experiences the author wishes to communicate from the specific events of the primary world. This indeed makes the story timeless, as it can be applied to whatever events the reader experiences in their own lives.To mythologise is to allegorise the 'eternal', those events & experiences which recur in all lives, at all times. Shippey compares the Gondorian's faith in the Rammas to the Maginot Line of the allies in WW2. But Lewis & Currie (in The Uncharted Realms of Tolkien) relate it to the 'Star Wars' satellite defence system - a defensive system in the first two cases (& prob. in the third) that failed the hopes of their builders. Because Tolkien chose 'high' allegory, to 'mythologise' the attitude which produces Maginot Lines & 'Star Wars', etc, etc, then the Rammas can stand for all such defense systems.

Anyway, I fear I'm hogging this thread!

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

davem - the "high allegory" you speak of here is, methinks, Romance in the original and fullest sense: that is, the dramatisation through a narrative, of an idealised exploration of the human condition/human self (human experience in the world). All of the really enduring Romances of the Middle Ages aspire to do much 'more' than tell a story: La Romaunt de la Rose, Roland and Gawain all spring to mind.

I think that what Tolkien is doing in the Foreward is perhaps more semantic than anything else: defining "allegory" as something simplistic (Ring=Bomb) and using a term of his own "applicability" to describe what he is doing, which is what Romances used to do. I guess the difference is that his book is happy to use allegory as a strategy (i.e. Frodo becomes an allegorical representation of the soul in torment? Sam becomes an allegorical representation of Everyman? I'm not saying that these are right -- only that the book can be read according to such allegories without doing it wrong or violence), while not being completely apprehended according to some total allegorical vision (Frodo and Sam are soldiers in World War II and everything else must fall into place around that).

[Bêthberry]

I think it would be helpful here if we recall Child's excellent post from the Canonicity thread where she argued cogently that Tolkien rejected allegory in the manner of C.S. Lewis.

Also, perhaps we should recall that "Allegory" is a specific literary genre, such as Spenser's The Faerie Queen or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a definition with which Tolkien would have been very familiar. The tower story about Beowulf and other things which davem refers to as allegorical would perhaps more fittingly be referred to as symbolic, in order to distinguish it from the genre.

Another difficulty I think with conflating 'allegorise' with 'mythologise' is that, philologically, the two words and their cognates are not related at all. Also, definitions of allegory usually mention some form of figurative style or representation, a style which mythology eschews with its specific names for characters. However much we can understand Frodo and Aragorn as acting with moral virtues, they are still depicted in the style of specific characters, one a more realistic style and the other a heroic style from old epics, but nonetheless they are embody more than just one character or moral trait, a case which does not pertain to the characters in Spenser and Bunyan. Using allegory in Leaf by Niggle does not in and of itself suggest that Tolkien was employing it in LOTR. Their styles are very different.

And at the risk of inciting yet another off topical discussion, I would suggest, too, but very politely so of course, that davem has not proven this point, but taken it as axiomatic, a point which several of us have previously disagreed with.

Indeed, I think he wants us to read it on that level, or he would not have advised that it shouldn't be read by children, only by adults who, hopefully, would be able to read it in the way he wanted it to be read & understood in the way he wanted it to be understood.

From the witty and self-possessed way in which Tolkien acknowledges the displeasure of even those who like the tale--and includes his own as well-- I venture to suggest yet again that he abjures "the purposed domination of the author."

[mark12_30]

Bethberry and davem,

I would like to further focus on the difference between allegory and applicability, and between allegory and mythology.

Tolkien used the word "history" to refer to LotR; allow me to do the same for a moment. Applicability belongs to history, I think. "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"-- not in a literal sense, of course, but because of failure to apply the lessons learned to current-day issues. Those lessons learned-- from history, from LOTR-- are applicable. Let the trees be. Subjugation is nasty. Virtue is better than vice. These are applicable lessons learned. And Tolkien used his language to make his points; for instance, those who cut down trees are orcs because they've lost the ability to see something for more than what it is made of. This isn't allegory. It's plain simile/ metaphor.

History, to be applicable, need not treat the supernatural, or anything metaphysical. However, myth (and Faerie-tale) is all about the meeting of the natural and the supernatural. Tolkien desired to write a myth for England; this we know, although he doesn't mention it in the foreword. For the story to have the supernatural impact of a myth, he had to let it go-- completely-- release any domination that he might have liked to exert.

A myth has to be a good story, or nobody will repeat it. It has to hold together as a story, it has to entertain, and move, or it will be forgotten. And if it is forgotten, it cannot enlighten.

In order for a myth to point to the "One True Myth" (see On Faery Stories) it must be a good enough myth to survive. It has to be a good story, entertaining, interesting, moving. He had to start there. In a sense, he had to wind it up, set it on the floor, and let it go-- to see if anyone would wind it up again after he was done. Was it interesting enough to live, to last, to be a myth?

With hindsight we say "of course."

However, in order for the reader to let his myth be a myth, and not an allegory, or a cheesy simile for world politics, he had to (in a sense) rein in his readers, and tell them: Just read the story. If the truth is going to shine through it, it doesn't need my help or yours. Just listen to the story, and see what happens.

[Durelin]

As always, we return to focus so much on this one word and it's Oxford Dictionary defined meaning. 'Allegory' is a mere word, and is very specific in its definition, as Bêthberry just stated. I know that any author can purposely place parallels, or perhaps 'tributes' to other works, aspects of life, religion, history, etc. And they can purposely, even strategically place these for the benefit of the reader or the work itself, without writing allegorically. It is obvious that Tolkien was influenced by certain things, and that he chose to include them in his writing (I really do like to think of them as tributes), but never would he use the word allegory to express this. For one thing, readers of this century are too mixed up in making separations and definitions. And so an allegory has its own specific definition, is a specific genre, and we still are trying to define what exactly an allegorical work expresses. What Tolkien obviously was not aiming for was a work that had symbolism, merely, the fact that aspects of his story resemble things the readers and, of course, Tolkien himself, are (were) familiar with shows that Tolkien was influenced by certain things in devising his world, characters, names, etc. I hope that this may be separated from the narrow-minded label of 'allegory'.

Stated by Fordim Hedgethistle: The thing that always strikes me about the Foreward is Tolkien’s very clear insistence that the LotR is a ‘historical’ work

He insists, and it shows. I have heard complaints before that The Lord of the Rings is too much like a historical text, and so bores the reader. Most of this had to do with Tolkien's style of writing, which often did convince you that these events were real and had already taken place. And, of course, Tolkien's love and respect for history most certainly shown through in his work, his respect for history also driving him away from allegory.

Speaking of history...I'd like to comment on this quote a bit more (though since Fordim covered it already, my comment will be decidedly short ):

Then when the ‘end’ had at last been reached the whole story had to be revised, and indeed largely re-written backwards.

It is obvious that Tolkien was writing a history, and a love of his style of writing tends to come with the attachment of love of the epic: which is, essentially, a historical piece (more details to come...). History does not end, as Tolkien's tale did not truly end. There are many ways Tolkien's tale could have lived on, with history continuing and repeating itself. It could continue in the real history of the world (as it does fit in rather nicely, in its way, as I will elaborate upon...), or in the world of its readers, and in their imaginations (as corny as that may sound!).

In accordance with the epic, it is a historical piece in more ways than one. (Perhaps how I describe the epic is limiting, but taking this particular 'type' of epic as the 'original' epic might help justify.)

The first is basic: it usually takes place in a historical time period, and may deal with true events, people, places, etc. More of it may even be true than these basics. The second I think is less basic, and I like to think less obvious: I relate the epic to the ancient author, who wrote long, winding tales that echo through time and inform us on our history as man. These epics are immortal in this case, and yet are old and dusty in a comfortable sort of way. Though they have survived far down the timeline, they are set in a specific place on it, a relatively large and unspecific place in history, that they cannot be freed from. They are, in this sense, a historical piece.

The Lord of the Rings has often been described as an epic, and I like to think that this helps to make it just what Tolkien wanted it to be: an history. The thing about Tolkien's epic is that it is not stuck in its specific place in history. It can tell of history in general, expressing all the parts of an epic and all the epic parts of history that we should be continually searching for and remembering. Tolkien's history can fit so well into the history of man because of this. (Told you I'd get back to that.)

One last thing for the moment....(and I'm back to allegory!)

Stated by Fordim Hedgethistle:...defining "allegory" as something simplistic (Ring=Bomb) and using a term of his own "applicability" to describe what he is doing...

It is truly sad when people define a meaning for ideas (not words, mind), saying that all reason should lead to this certain conclusion.

Well, the final conclusion I have come to is this: my organizational skills for discussion need improving. Oh, and do forgive all the quotations. I like using them a bit too much, for a certain emphasis on the trickery of words.

-Durelin

EDIT: cross-posted with mark12_30. I still think, with all said concerning myths, 'history' can still be accurate. And whether we say 'myth' or 'history', we are still drawing conclusions. And let me say that, in my mind: myth ~ epic.

[mark12_30]

Durelin: I most certainly agree that LOTR is a history. I did not mean to imply otherwise. However, I also believe it qualifies thoroughly as a myth.... okay, also as an epic... (Aren't we agreeing? Must go, more later...)

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

OK, I admit, I am at least partially responsible for having set off the debate around terminology, for which I am profoundly sorry. Bethberry is, as so often, entirely correct that we shouldn't get bogged down in a discussion of definitions -- using the correct words is important, sure, but I'd be far more interested in seeing what Tolkien's book does and how it does it, than worrying about what to label it.

So, whether we call Tolkien's style "myth," "allegory," "epic" or "Fred", what's the effect of that style on our interpretation of the whole?

In other words -- what Durelin said!

In an effort to open this thread up a bit further (and avoid heading once more down the canonicity road. . . ) -- I would really like to hear what other people think Tolkien is identifying in the Foreward as the important themes of his work. As has been pointed out here, this foreward was written about 10 years after the appearance of LotR: what in that time has Tolkien decided his book is 'about'??

[Kransha]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

In an effort to open this thread up a bit further (and avoid heading once more down the canonicity road. . . ) -- I would really like to hear what other people think Tolkien is identifying in the Foreward as the important themes of his work. As has been pointed out here, this foreward was written about 10 years after the appearance of LotR: what in that time has Tolkien decided his book is 'about'??

At last, an attempt to slide oh-so-secretely back into this debate. The theme of this 'thematic epic' is again stated with uncharacteristic bluntness, and the odd lack of Prof T's usual eloquence. He states, in one of the first paragraphs of the Foreward, his generic motive, not quite as grand as some may have speculated, which I could use as inadvertant defense for my last ill-stated point. Mon amis, Observe:

The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of the readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or greatly move them.

So, thus is the desire of so many of the world's simple authors. The desire, at least that conveyed in the Foreward, was simply to be an appealing work of dramatic, and now considered epic, fiction. Holding attention was an easy feat, though I suppose the humble professor didn't consider his achievement so great. Now, as I said, and continue to say, again and again, with utter resoluteness, there have been those who think more, or less, or in between of Prof. T's motives may simply look to this phrase. It has a curt simplicity, does it not? Though it is phrased with so much less of the dramatic, and often melodramatic flourish we might be used to (i.e. to try his hand at a really long story: Does that not sound somewhat less contived than the accustomed), it has a similar beauty, considering. When one thinks that the man who 'contrived' such a world, had such a simple notion originally in mind. The mind boggles (or, at least, mine does).

P.S. Estelyn, I believe the above quoted was a misplaced paraphrasing of my own. The point was the one I'd intended. Thank you for pointing that out, since the whole tirade does sound foolish with the wrong quote attached to it. Wait, does that make an ounce of sense? I'm not entirely sure myself. Must rummage some more, for I have bewildered myself. The correction is there, but I know not where exactly there is.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Going back to the text of the Foreword, a side-note occurred to me on Tolkien's use of the word "ten-fingered" in connection with LotR. The book has two characters who were not "ten-fingered" - the Ringmaker and the Ringbearer! I wonder if he made that connection consciously?

"Ten-fingered" implies nimbleness, dexterity - the loss of a finger would diminish that. Now, to take that train of thought around a corner - would Tolkien identify himself with a "nine-fingered" person, since he is not "ten-fingered"?!

(I know - the opposite of "ten-fingered" is, where typing is concerned, "two-fingered". Still, the thought is intriguing, isn't it?!)

[Alatariel Telemnar]

... and I had little hope that other people would be interestied in my work, especially since it was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues.

So, I s'pose he is saying that his reasoning for writing Lord of the Rings was to give a world for the Elven language to exist. In the Introduction of Quenya (Which can be found at Ardalambion Thank'ee Lindolirian, for the link ) it gives the following quote:

...what I think is a primary 'fact' about my work, that it is all of a piece, and fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. [...] It is not a 'hobby', in the sense of something quite different from one's work, taken up as a relief-outlet. The invention of languages is the foundation. The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows. I should have preferred to write in 'Elvish'. But, of course, such a work as The Lord of the Rings has been edited and only as much 'language' has been left in as I thought would be stomached by readers. (I now find that many would have liked more.) [...] It is to me, anyway, largely an essay in 'linguistic aesthetic', as I sometimes say to people who ask me 'what is it all about'. (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, pp. 219-220)

The bolded section focuses more on what I am trying to get across. There he is also saying that the Lord of the Rings was written, not for the story of it, but for his languages to have a place to exist. What do the rest of you think?

Dispite the fact he wrote such a beautiful story, just amazing, it was all just so his language could have an existance. When I first read this, I was amazed. It took me awhile for it to sink in.

[Durelin]

Stated by Kransha: The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of the readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or greatly move them.

To add to this (and continuing with my history theme), I believe Tolkien wished to write his own history, in his love of history. That, and, of course, her wished to please the reader...I hope...

Though his love of language, of course, could also be an impetus for writing The Lord of the Rings. As said many times before, the languages were created first.

Stated by Estelyn Telcontar:...would Tolkien identify himself with a "nine-fingered" person, since he is not "ten-fingered"?!

Tolkien's writing certainly is not devoid of wit and irony! The odds are for that possibility, I think.

Rather short, but I will depart for now.

-Durelin

[davem]

It almost seems that Tolkien is saying its not about anything - or at least he's denying its about whatever any reader thinks its about. Whatever suggestion was made to him he seemed to take particular delight in disabusing them of the notion. In fact the only interpretation of it that he didn't reject was that it was a Christian work.

He 'seemed' not to want it to mean anything, or relate in any way to the primary world - at least the primary world as it was when he lived. Yet he acknowledged it could be applied to events in the primary world - yet every single attempt anyone made to apply it in such a way was instantly refuted. Applicability = a good thing in Tolkien's eyes, yet when people 'applied' what they found in the work to WW2, or to atomic power, he instantly corrects them & shows them they are 'wrong' to interpret it that way. Yet, if it is NOT applicable to 'x' or 'y', if Tolkien repeatedly refutes these interpretations as wrong he must have some idea of what it does mean. Why can't a reader 'apply' the events of the War of the Ring to the events of WW2? Why does Tolkien keep feeling it necessary to deny 'free' individuals interpretations? He doesn't want to 'dominate' the reader's interpretation, yet he'll tell them in no uncertain terms that they're WRONG if they claim its an allegory of WW2, or that the Ring is the Bomb. Maybe he's not attempting to dominate their thinking by presenting them with an allegory, but he'll damn sure dominate them by telling them what it doesn't mean, & showing them that their attempt to apply it is mistaken. He'll even construct his own 'allegory' (much though he hates it!) to show them what a real allegory of WW2 would be like.

In short, I don't believe him when he says its just a fairy tale & should be read by the individual reader who should take from it what they will, because he just keeps on telling them exactlywhat it doesn't mean & why they're all wrong. Why shouldn't I interpret it as being about WW2 if I want - why shouldn't I find such applicability in it? He isn't offering it to the reader to interpret as they want. He wants us to interpret it in a specific way, it seems to me, but he seems very reticent to tell us in exactly what way.

Sorry, being a bit controversial & provocative, but I don't believe he spent 12 years writing a story simply to entertain - if he had he wouldn't care how people interpreted it as long as it entertained them. He at least had a moral agenda - as Garth shows in Tolkien & the Great War, & he reinforced that 'agenda' in his letters, & in his references to men with chainsaws as 'Orcs', the devil as Sauron, etc. He won't stand by & see readers apply events in the book willy nilly. Those who destroy the natural world are 'mythologised' into Orcs, & then the term 'Orc' is 'applied' to those who destroy the natural world. And the reader is NOT free to apply the term or concept Orc to anyone behaving in any other way, not if Tolkien has anything to do with it.

He will attempt to 'purposely dominate' any reader who interprets the Ring as the Atomic Bomb, because he knows the Ring isn't the Bomb, its Sin, the Machine, will to power, etc. Its not 'strict allegory', of course, more a case of 'What's it got in its pocketses?Not string, but not nothing, precious'.

[Orofaniel]

As has been pointed out here, this foreword was written about 10 years after the appearance of LotR: what in that time has Tolkien decided his book is 'about'??

That is an interesting question. Although I've read the foreword several times, I cannot quite find an answer.

As Alatariel said, that Tolkien wanted to write a background history for his Elvish tongues is rather interesting. I think it's interesting because it shows how dedicated he was to his works. We all knew that he was dedicated, but by writing this I'm even more convinced. It's spectacular how he wanted to write a background history for the languges he created, if it really was why he wrote it.

It's written later in the foreword that Tolkien himself used a long time writing this story. He says:

In spite of the next five years I found that the story could not now be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria. There I halted for a long while.

This was certainly not a book that was written in a rush, something we already know. However, I think this means that the history wasn't fully definite before actually writing it. Since there is obviously a long time by each of his "writing-periods" I see nothing but that he has been a bit influenced by his own life - for then maybe to use that in his story? I'm not quite sure. He writes this later though:

An Author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Before I proceed with this post's intended subject, I should like to share with you an excerpt from Letter #109 (31 July 1947), in which Tolkien offers a concise and convincing resolution to the debate over allegory and applicability. In my opinion, Bêthberry has almost certainly hit the nail on the head by suggesting that Tolkien was trying to walk a very fine line between on the one hand, debunking the more egregiously foolish interpretations that had been placed on his work, and on the other letting his readers know that he was not about to tell them what The Lord of the Rings means.

Perhaps this is why the following comments are not echoed so explicitly in the foreword to the second edition, which is that normally printed with the work today (more on that later). In any case, they allow a great deal more latitude for the term 'allegory' than the later foreword, while more fully explaining why his book should not be considered as such.

Of course, Allegory and Story converge, meeting somewhere in Truth. So that the only perfectly consistent allegory is a real life; and the only fully intelligible story is an allegory. And one finds, even in imperfect human 'literature', that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easily can it be read 'just as a story'; and the better or more closely woven a story is the more easily can those so minded find allegory in it. But the two start out from opposite ends. You can make the Ring into an allegory for our time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or mechanical does always so work. You cannot write a story about an apparently simple magic ring without that bursting in, if you really take the ring seriously, and make things happen that would happen, if such a thing existed.

That's quite enough allegory for me for one evening, so now I should like to provide an alternative to the foreword under discussion, if that isn't verging on the off-topic. I'm fortunate enough to have in my possession a copy of the first edition, the foreword to which I find in many ways to be more enjoyable than the later, more serious version. Bear with me: it's a long one.

This tale, which has grown almost to be a history of the great War of the Ring, is drawn for the most part from the memoirs of the renowned Hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo, as they are preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch. This chief monument to Hobbit-lore is so called because it was compiled, repeatedly copied, and enlarged and handed down in the family of the Fairbairns of Westmarch, descended from that Master Samwise of whom this tale has much to say.
I have supplemented the account of the Red Book, in places, with information derived from the surviving records of Gondor, notably the Book of the Kings; but in general, though I have omitted much, I have in this tale adhered more closely to the actual words and narrative of my original than in the previous selection from the Red Book, The Hobbit. That was drawn from the early chapters, composed originally by Bilbo himself. If 'composed' is a just word. Bilbo was not assidious, nor an orderly narrator, and his account is involved and discursive, and sometimes confused: faults that still appear in the Red Book, since the copiers were pious and careful, and altered very little.
The tale has been put into its present form in response to the many requests that I have received for further information about the history of the Third Age, and about Hobbits in particular. But since my children and others of their age, who first heard of the finding of the Ring, have grown older with the years, this book speaks more plainly of those darker things which lurked only on the borders of the earlier tale, but which have troubled Middle-earth in all its history. It is, in fact, not a book written for children at all; though many children will, of course, be interested in it, or parts of it, as they still are in the histories and legends of other times (especially in those not specially written for them).
I dedicate this book to all admirers of Bilbo, but especially to my sons and daughter, and to my friends the Inklings. To the Inklings, because they have already listened to it with a patience, and indeed with an interest, that almost leads me to suspect that they have hobbit-blood in their venerable ancestry. To my sons and my daughter for the same reason, and also because they have all helped me in the labours of composition. If 'composition' is a just word, and these pages do not deserve all that I have said about Bilbo's work.

For if the labour has been long (more than fourteen years), it has been neither orderly nor continuous. But I have not had Bilbo's leisure. Indeed much of that time has contained for me no leisure at all, and more than once for a whole year the dust has gathered on my unfinished pages. I only say this to explain to those who have waited for the book why they have had to wait so long. I have no reason to complain. I am surprised and delighted to find from numerous letters that so many people, both in England and across the Water, share my interest in this almost forgotten history; but it is not yet universally recognized as an important branch of study. It has indeed no obvious practical use, and those who go in for it can hardly expect to be assisted.
Much information, necessary and unnecessary, will be found in the Prologue. To complete it some maps are given, including one of the Shire that has been approved as reasonably correct by those Hobbits that still concern themselves with ancient history. At the end of the third volume will be found some abridged family-trees, which show how the Hobbits mentioned were related to one another, and what their ages were at the time when the story opens. There is an index of names and strange words with some explanations. And for those who like such lore in an appendix some brief account is given of the languages, alphabets and calendars that were used in the West-lands in the Third Age of Middle-earth. Those who do not need such information, or who do not wish for it, may neglect these pages; and the strange names that they meet they may, of course, pronounce as they like. Care has been given to their transcription from the original alphabets and some notes are offered on the intentions of the spelling adopted* But not all are interested in such matters, and many who are not may still find the account of those great and valiant deeds worth the reading. It was in that hope that I began the work of translating and selecting the stories of the Red Book, part of which are now presented to Men of a later Age, one almost as darkling and ominous as was the Third Age that ended with the great years 1418 and 1419 of the Shire long ago.

* There is a footnote at this point explaining some minor points of pronunciation that are covered in the Appendices.

*****

I find Tolkien very entertaining when he writes as translator and editor. I think that in the original foreword, although less is said in the way of guidance as to the book's meaning, one gets much more of a sense that this is intended to be an enjoyable story. The complicated details often beloved of fans are dismissed (although not so completely that they may be entirely overlooked) and the foreword itself becomes a part of the mythology, giving it shape and context and beginning, before even the prologue has been reached, to tell the story. The tributes to the Inklings and to his children therefore weave them in with the history of the text, making them almost a part of the story themselves. My time is short, so I shall leave you to make of this alternative (shall we say 'A'?) foreword what you will.

EDIT: My apologies to all those with whom I've just cross-posted. Hopefully I've managed not to break up the flow too much by taking so long to finish.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Squatter,

Thanks for putting the first foreward up.

My own response to the "two" forewards is similar to your own. (I have an old set of the first American edition with the funky covers.)

The two forewards leave such different impressions! In the later one, Tolkien is distanced from his audience. He is looking back on the publication of the book from a space of ten years. He talks about "meaning" and those who do not care for the book, the history of the actual publication and the issue of applicability versus allegory, almost as if he's trying to answer all those questions that had been sent to him in letters over so many years. I always wonder how much of this was in his head when he actually finished the book and how much floated in during that ten-year interval. It's as if the professor is giving a general audience a polite but somewhat formal lecture.

When I read the first foreward, I'm left with a different feeling. You actually have a sense that Tolkien really did not expect his book to generate a wide audience. Instead, he seems to be talking to people he personally knows -- family, friends, members of the Inklings, and to those "admirers of Bilbo" who'd already crossed his path before. He also addresses Bilbo as the original composer of the early chapters, maintaining the fiction that the book is truly history and derived from earlier sources. Whenever I read this forward, I feel as if a secret door had opened and I've somehow managed to slip inside a private club where Tolkien is complimenting the Inklings on their Hobbit ancestry!

Tolkien was so private about many aspects of his life. He was ambivalent about any possible biography, noting that such studies could yield only a "vain and false approach" in terms of his own work. He understandably did not like the attention showered on him by the crazy American college students of my day who came pounding on his door. So any personal glimpse we get of him, especially from his own pen, is indeed a treat. And that is how I read this early foreward. It carries a tiny hint of what the man himself was like: his natural grace and ease of expression when dealing with friends.

[Durelin]

These 'first American edition with the funky covers' (a very nice description, btw, Child!) – which funky covers do you speak of? I myself have several copies of each book of what I believe to be the ‘first American editions with the funky covers’, but I found that the foreword contained within was the same as the one found in my single movie cover copy… Now I feel that I have failed in being official!

But on to my ramblings…

I think some of what spurned Tolkien's 'lecturing' of the reader was all that thought in the ten years since he had first published the novels. He obviously had received a great number of comments, and most that reached him were probably bad ones, if at least attempts at constructive criticism. It is my thought that Tolkien, with all of this, and most likely because he did doubt that the book would be at all popular, he became a grumpy old man! This, in my mind, was not the wish of such a man as Tolkien: fame. Though, truly, he still seemed able to find amusement in much of the questions, popularity, and assumptions.

As has been pointed out here, this foreword was written about 10 years after the appearance of LotR: what in that time has Tolkien decided his book is 'about'??

Right, lets see about this...

I desired to do this for my own satisfaction, and I had little hope that other people would be interested in this work, especially since it was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues.

Interesting... He wrote for his own fulfillment, and did not believe that much of it would be wished to be read. Could this be applied to The Lord of the Rings itself? Or is this specifically speaking of the works later published, that he did not seem to think were worth publishing?

[quote]I went back to the sequel (the sequel = LotR), encouraged by requests from readers for more information concerning hobbits and their adventures.[/b]

Wow! This was the simple beginning? Obviously this 'sequel' became much more.

But the story was drawn irresistibly towards the older world, and became an account, as it were, of its end and passing away before its beginning and middle had been told.

The older world: He is referring to the 'older world' of his world. It seemed that the histories he had written for the Elvish languages were becoming a part of this sequel, and this told of an end to those histories. And when he speaks of it ending before it began, was he speaking of the entirety of The Lord of the Rings as an end to his history/mythology, or did he actually, physically write (or at least devise) the ending to LotR first? It really was an end, if not the end. Since he was writing a history/mythology of this world, there really wasn't any final end, except the end of time. This sequel to the Hobbit brought to an end the evils in Middle-Earth, and ended the old world. It brought the time of elven domain in Middle-Earth to a close, and left it as a world of Men. The old word had come to an end by the beginning of the Fourth Age (to the extent that the Roman Empire fell on a certain date).

In spite of the darkness of the next five years, I found that the story could not now be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria.

I can just imagine him plodding along with the Fellowship on their journey! Odd that a dark time in his life paralleled with the darkness of the Fellowship's travels in Moria.

Continuing that idea...

It was almost a year later when I went on and so came to Lothlorien and the Great River...

Tolkien started writing again, and The Fellowship's spirits are lightened and overcome the loss of Gandalf. I wonder just how much his daily life affected his writing, since it was done in such great intervals...

The prime motive was the desire of the tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.

This has been described several times in the discussion, but it is smply a motive, and he has yet to speak of 'concerning...the meaning of the tale.'

As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches; but its main theme was settled from the outset of the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit

This 'main theme' he describes, though, is, of course, no enough for the reader. First of all, he does not even directly say what the main meaning is, only what it is outset from is described. These unexpected branches were inevitable, and made it inevitably impossible for any main theme that a reader might desire to be displayed to actually be present in the author's mind or purpose. What is in the mind of the reader, though, is up to the reader.

And so Tolkien points out...

I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

And so do I think, as well. Could Tolkien perhaps think of The Lord of the Rings as 'feigned history'? Or is he merely trying to include history in its many forms?

An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex...

Well Tolkien just summed up my whole spiel in my former posts in the two above quotes...

...but as the years go by it seems now often forgot that to be caught in youth by 1914 was not less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939...the character of Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed some basis in experience, though slender...and much further back.

Now he tells of what did influence him, to get rid of all assumptions that all these similes and metaphors must be referring to the large crisis in which it was published. But, going back to what Tolkien said concerning applicability, the readers were taking their experiences and interpreting and applying. What Tolkien did not want them to think was that their experiences necessarily paralleled with his own, and so were the only way to 'apply' his, or any authors, works. That borders on the most loathéd idea of allegory.

I never liked the looks of the Young miller, but his father, the Old miller, had a black beard, and he was not named Sandyman.

Ever in his witty way, Tolkien expresses the fact that he did not go that deeply and try and express his experiences in his writing. They merely influenced him, as inevitably they would, and so influence his writing.

Well, I went through it all, and probably overdid it on the quotes, but I still covered so very little. But now I am out of time, as Tolkien came to be.

But still, I shall return to continue at another time. It is very wise to take this in intervals, as well.

-Durelin

[Bêthberry]

Let me echo Child's applause for Squatter's quotation of the first British foreward. What a difference ten years (or so) makes!

Rather than repeat some of the very interesting differences between the two Forewards, what I would like to do is consider some of the well-taken contributions made by others, particularly as they relate to the question of history.

Orofaniel, you suggest, if I have understood your post correctly, that Tolkien, when faced with some of the 'fallow' periods in the writing, would have turned to his own life's experience for inspiration. This is, I think, tempting, but two points make me hesitate to accept such a possibility for a writer like Tolkien. This first is how he talked about 'what gets into the cauldron of story' in his essay "On Fairy Stories". I know we should limit our main discussion here to the text of the Forewards, but I think it is valuable to recognise that for Tolkien, story or narrative had a life or purpose or MO of its own, separate from any private personal experience. (Think of his funny line about the bishop and the banana peel.) If anything from his private life, which, as Child says, he
treated modestly and reticently, did get into the stew, he would, I am sure, include it only if it made sense in terms of the story, not in terms of personal self-expression. Certainly the way Tolkien defended the poem Beowulf as a unified work of art in his "Monsters and the Critics" essay suggests that he valued narrative as artistic expression rather than as personal expression. I think it is us in our post-Freud, post-psychoanalytical age that wants to reduce everything to an author's psyche, but this perspective is only a recent one of the last hundred years and does not represent the kind of understanding of philology or of ancient literature with which a scholar like Tolkien would be familiar.

That Letter provides interesting correlation, Alatariel Telemnar for Tolkien's claim in the Second Foreward that LOTR was "primarily linguistic in inspiration and begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues." Thanks for providing it here. Being a great fan of words and language myself, I am not sure that this necessarily downgrades the value of his desire to write a good story. It would think they would be complementary. He would want the best story to highlight or reflect his created languages to their best advantage. For Tolkien as a philologist, everything began with words and structures of language, which then moved out to create patterns and order in stories.

Durelin's point about history and epic can, I think, be considered in light of a very interesting historical discovery made in 1884. An entrepreneurial fellow by name of Heinrich Schleimann, acting apparently on suggestions from one Frank Calvert who owned property in Turkey, discovered the ruins of the ancient city of Troy from Homer's Iliad. There are, in fact, nine successive cities on the site. The discovery at the time astounded the nineteenth century world for it showed to people then that Homer's civilization was not entirely fictional but had some basis in historical fact. The new study of archeology was uncovered! It was into this exciting new world view that Tolkien was drawn, as he studied the histories and dvelopments of ancient languages. There was a scholarly impetus to making his mythology appear, as he claims in the First Foreward, as a true history, transcribed by several hands. After all, one way of understanding the word 'mythology' has been to call it linked narratives in a religion that was once believed in, as were the Greek and Roman pantheons of gods and goddesses or Norse ones as well.

Well, I hope this post adds a new flavouring of 'thyme' to the cauldron of our own discussion here. (covers ears to hide from the groans on that one)

Edit: cross posting with Durelin, so I've been referring to the earlier posts and not the most recent.

[Mister Underhill]

Thanks for that, Squatter. For my part, I'm glad we have both versions of the foreword. The first edition version is delightful for all the reasons mentioned, but I also like the glimpses inside the writing process that the second one affords.

I've always meant to start a thread that focused on Tolkien's working methods, and any such thread would certainly have to start here with the second edition foreword. I think it's great that Tolkien wrote the book mostly on instinct and without a clear outline. It seems you can divide writers into two groups -- those who plan, outline, and structure aforehand, and those who dive right in and trust to gut instinct, inspiration, and blind luck to carry them through. The latter method seems to me to be the most romantic and pure sort of writing. One can picture Tolkien in his study, bathed in the orange glow of a crackling fire, scratching away furiously into the deep watches of the night, pausing only to throw another log onto the hearth when the embers burned low.

And then, those long dry spells when "foresight had failed". Reminds me of some verse in Kipling:

This is the doom of the Makers -- their Daemon lives in their pen.
If he be absent or sleeping, they are even as other men.
But if he be utterly present, and they swerve not from his behest,
The word that he gives shall continue, whether in earnest or jest.

I also sense a note of wistfulness in the line, "...the tale was brought to its present end." Present end. As if somewhere deep inside him there's still that irresistible pull to revise and perfect it some more.

As to Tolkien's "lecture" on the meaning (or lack thereof) of the story, I think davem is right in that Tolkien falls prey a bit to the false modesty characteristic of authors' forewords (I could swear there's a letter in which Tolkien criticizes the practice, but for the life of me I can't find it). The most amusing specimen I know of is T.E. Lawrence's introduction to his Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

Half-way through the labour of an index to this book I recalled the practice of my ten years' study of history; and realized I had never used the index of a book fit to read. Who would insult his Decline and Fall, by consulting it just upon a specific point?

I am aware that my achievement as a writer falls short of every conception of the readable: but surely not so far as to make it my duty, like a Stubbs, to save readers the pain of an unnecessary page. The contents seem to me adequately finger-posted by this synopsis.

Maybe "false modesty" isn't quite right. I think he has an agenda of sorts when he protests that LotR is only a story. I'm reminded of Letter 131: "[The Arthurian mythos] is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion. For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal." I wish he would have elaborated, but I think we can get the gist of those reasons. To call attention to any meaning of his story is to transform it instantly into a sermon or a lecture, and so he says in effect, hey -- it's just a story; take from it what you will.

But lurking under that is some ambition. Letter 153: "I would claim, if I did not think it presumptuous in one so ill-instructed, to have as one object the elucidation of truth, and the encouragement of good morals in this real world, by the ancient device of exemplifying them in unfamiliar embodiments, that may tend to 'bring them home'."

EDIT: Cross-posting on this fast-paced discussion has put me after a string of posts leading in different directions. Apologies for disrupting the flow from me too.

[Saraphim]

Here I go...wish me luck. I am not terribly good at expressing my views on this subject.

Allegory. Alright, we know that Tolkien hated it. But he also said this:

An Author cannot of course remain wholly unnafected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadiquate and ambiguous

In this lovely sentence, Tolkien admits that his own personal experiences are imbued into what he writes, as it is with everyone who takes up a pen. He also says that it is impossible to find where and how a specific bit in the story correlates with the specific bit in the memory, be it him or anyone else trying.

I much prefer history, true or feined, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers

It is here that he gives us, the readers, free reign over what we make of the story. We don't read this book, this book reads us. It touches the parts in our mind, the thoughts and emotions and memories that are unique to everyone, and gives everyone a different perception on what things mean that are read, even though we read the same words.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Thank you very much for the text of the First Foreword, Squatter! We definitely want to discuss it as well, and comparing the two in light of the time that passed between the writing of them is highly interesting! It looks like the terms "First Foreword" (1950s) and "Second Foreword" (1960s) have evolved on this thread, so we'll continue to use them. I have added a footnote to the opening post on this thread, pointing the way to Squatter's post so that those who (like myself) only have the text to the Second Foreword can read and discuss it.

[davem]

My immediate thoughts on the first forword - If I cross post with anyone, or repeat points already made, sorry. this has come to me as I write

The thing that strikes me most strongly in reading the first forword is that I want it to be TRUE. I want LotR to be a translation of the Red Book. I want it all to have happened - Frodo & Sam, Aragorn & Arwen, Gandalf, & even Gollum! When I allow myself that fantasy it all becomes much more powerful, more affecting, more beautiful & precious - & is this Tolkien’s intention in presenting us with this forword? But if it is, then why change it ten years on? Why change role from translator to composer, from teller of an old story to writer of a new one?

Why, in the first forword does he point out that:

‘ it is not yet universally recognized as an important branch of study.’

(implying that it will be, & perhaps also that it should be).

But then go on to say:

‘It has indeed no obvious practical use, and those who go in for it can hardly expect to be assisted.’

(attempting to have it both ways again?)


Those two ‘contradictory’ statements are reflected in the second forward, & in other statements & letters. He seems to be saying on the one hand ‘this is important stuff, you should take note of this, you need to know it’ & then, almost immediately, telling us it’s meaningless - unless we can apply it to something in our own experience (well, if he’ll let us apply it in that way, & not show us we’re wrong & that it can’t be applied to that particular situation!)

That’s what I find odd - why put in all that work if the goal is merely to produce an entertaining story, why struggle so hard to get it published, as it was, even if possible with the Silmarillion, if he really believed it didn’t mean anything? He strikes me rather as a man who knew he had something very important to say, something which he believed needed to be ‘universally recognised as an important branch of study’.

He seems to want us to take it all as seriously as he does, place the same value on it as he does - but I don’t think his motive is vanity. He comes across as if he has something vital to say to us, something that we need to hear, but as soon as he catches our attention, has us believing he’s going to reveal the secrets of the Universe & the meaning of life to us, has our full attention, he immediately laughs & says ‘of course, you shouldn’t believe any of it, or take it seriously!”

And our response? Well, we laugh at the ‘joke’, repeat the ‘applicability not allegory’ statement as a kind of Paternoster for ‘protection’ & plunge in, taking it all absolutely seriously, as though its the most important branch of study there is. And when we emerge from Middle Earth, transformed, different, hopefully better, human beings, we repeat ‘applicability not allegory’ & laugh again.

Yet, he has actully said it has no ‘obvious’ practical use - implying that it does have practical use, but that use is not obvious - not obvious to whom? I think it was obvious to him, & that he wanted it to be obvious to us. So, the stories of Middle Earth are ‘practically’ useful. They are useful ‘in practice’ - practice of what? Jesus said those who are well don’t need a doctor, only those who are sick. I think Tolkien was offering us a cure for an illness that most of us had forgotten we had, because we’d had it for so long. But to trick us he ‘sweetened the medicine’ with sugar, & told us its just candy. Yet, he drops hints for those ‘with ears to hear’, that its much more than that, but that it will work if we trust it. We just have to let it do its work on us, & one day we’ll wake up, cured.

************************************************** ***************

Just wondering if anyone thinks we should have the original text of the Riddles in the Dark section posted for next week, to help with understanding that part of the Prologue? I have it in Annotated Hobbit & could post it, unless anyone else wants to - or unless someone knows of a site where its available?

[HerenIstarion]

Just wondering if anyone thinks we should have the original text of the Riddles in the Dark section posted for next week

I do. It would be nice, since, having only brief summary of what was in the original edition of the Hobbit, I would be glad to read it in full

[Orofaniel]

Orofaniel, you suggest, if I have understood your post correctly, that Tolkien, when faced with some of the 'fallow' periods in the writing, would have turned to his own life's experience for inspiration. This is, I think, tempting, but two points make me hesitate to accept such a possibility for a writer like Tolkien. This first is how he talked about 'what gets into the cauldron of story' in his essay "On Fairy Stories". I know we should limit our main discussion here to the text of the Forewards, but I think it is valuable to recognise that for Tolkien, story or narrative had a life or purpose or MO of its own, separate from any private personal experience. (Think of his funny line about the bishop and the banana peel.) If anything from his private life, which, as Child says, he treated modestly and reticently, did get into the stew, he would, I am sure, include it only if it made sense in terms of the story, not in terms of personal self-expression. Certainly the way Tolkien defended the poem Beowulf as a unified work of art in his "Monsters and the Critics" essay suggests that he valued narrative as artistic expression rather than as personal expression. I think it is us in our post-Freud, post-psychoanalytical age that wants to reduce everything to an author's psyche, but this perspective is only a recent one of the last hundred years and does not represent the kind of understanding of philology or of ancient literature with which a scholar like Tolkien would be familiar.

About his own life, I think that, perhaps when he was "stuck" he used his own life as an inspiration. I'm not saying that he directly "used" his life in the tale, just that he used it as a source. I think your point Bethberry is very reasonable and good. I also think that Tolkien is such a writer that would look beyond most of his personal experiences when he writes. I don't think that LotR would have turned out like the LotR we know if Tolkien had surely just written about his own personal experiences. He had a story he wanted to convey, I'm sure of that, but it doesn't mean that his life hasn't inflicted him during the writing process. However, I think the valuable and the importance of that personal experience that the writers put in their work is very different from each and everyone. Maybe Tolkien felt that his story was so strong in itself that he didn't need much inspiration from his own life?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Why, in the first forword does he point out that:

‘ it is not yet universally recognized as an important branch of study.’

(implying that it will be, & perhaps also that it should be).

But then go on to say:

‘It has indeed no obvious practical use, and those who go in for it can hardly expect to be assisted.’

I don't see this as a contradictory statement, given its context. Rather I see it as an oblique reference to those studies in which Tolkien was engaged that are recognised as important branches of study, and which kept him away from his manuscript for months at a time. 'I am not complaining about my lack of leisure,' says Tolkien. 'But the academic community has yet to legitimise the subject that we find so interesting; so we can expect no help from them in our studies.'

It is interesting that Tolkien expands upon the pretence of having translated a history by presenting his 'history' as a minor and unregarded academic subject, deprecated by the establishment and yet awaiting a resurgence. This is a common occurrence in the academic world, and Tolkien's own area of expertise is suffering because fewer and fewer people nowadays can see the value in studying ancient languages. If you want to learn Gothic, you will probably find that you can expect little help; and if you compile a set of translations, the chances are that it will have to be done in your spare time and take second place to paying work.

As for wanting The Lord of the Rings to be true, I can see what you mean. Personally I find pretend history amusing; and particularly so when the author throws in knowing digs against his own work by criticising the 'author' or the 'copyists' of his source. Whilst I'm content to see the story as a work of literature in an unusual vein, it is nice in more fanciful moments to imagine that it could be true, and that one day someone may find the Westron Rosetta Stone and set to publishing great tracts of unknown Endorian history. Certainly, although the later foreword is more useful as a guide, the earlier is a lot more fun. I agree with Child that it makes things seem as though Tolkien and the reader are co-conspirators or at least fellow scholars in an esoteric and obscure field; and that is the impression that I think he intended to convey. The second foreword is, I think, intended to reach out to those people whose letters Tolkien had not had the opportunity to answer; to explain a few points about the work and to set people on the right road to understanding it. In order to do this, Tolkien had to drop the mask of the translator and admit to his authorship, thus losing the opportunity to take the new comments in the same direction as the old. Perhaps this is also an admission that his histories were becoming for many an important branch of study, and one in need of some sober academic guidance from its leading authority.

[Durelin]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry...Tolkien, when faced with some of the 'fallow' periods in the writing, would have turned to his own life's experience for inspiration. This is, I think, tempting, but two points make me hesitate to accept such a possibility for a writer like Tolkien. This first is how he talked about 'what gets into the cauldron of story' in his essay "On Fairy Stories". I know we should limit our main discussion here to the text of the Forewords, but I think it is valuable to recognise that for Tolkien, story or narrative had a life or purpose or MO of its own, separate from any private personal experience. (Think of his funny line about the bishop and the banana peel.) If anything from his private life, which, as Child says, he
treated modestly and reticently, did get into the stew, he would, I am sure, include it only if it made sense in terms of the story, not in terms of personal self-expression. Certainly the way Tolkien defended the poem Beowulf as a unified work of art in his "Monsters and the Critics" essay suggests that he valued narrative as artistic expression rather than as personal expression. I think it is us in our post-Freud, post-psychoanalytical age that wants to reduce everything to an author's psyche, but this perspective is only a recent one of the last hundred years and does not represent the kind of understanding of philology or of ancient literature with which a scholar like Tolkien would be familiar.

A long quote, but there is little that can be pulled out! It all goes so well together...

I see little difference between artistic and personal expression. At least, these two may constantly intertwine. The fact is that in our creative natures as humans, we express so much personal experiences, thoughts, and what makes 'you, you'. Now, I have constantly been annoyed by the much-overused phrase 'express yourself', but this is mainly because it has been abused. Still, in an artistic creation of your own, formed from your own creativity, it cannot be free of personal expression. The artistic forms are a way of expression, if not necessarily displaying any personal beliefs or experiences. I believe this is basically what you were suggesting, Bêthberry, but I think you went a little too far in saying that The Lord of the Rings, or any of Tolkien's works, were not personal expressions. Though I of course agree that any personal expression would be for the benefit of the story, mainly because it is an artistic expression.

Whilst I'm content to see the story as a work of literature in an unusual vein, it is nice in more fanciful moments to imagine that it could be true, and that one day someone may find the Westron Rosetta Stone and set to publishing great tracts of unknown Endorian history.

Most likely just how Tolkien wished the reader to think of his feigned history.

Tolkien had to drop the mask of the translator and admit to his authorship, thus losing the opportunity to take the new comments in the same direction as the old. Perhaps this is also an admission that his histories were becoming for many an important branch of study, and one in need of some sober academic guidance from its leading authority.

Tolkien had taken an obscure and unrecognized 'subject of study' and made it recognized. Perhaps this was pleasing to, in a way, 'show them', but most likely he found it less enjoyable once he was forced to take on the role as the author rather than the translator and a fellow enthusiast of the subject.

-Durelin

[Aiwendil]

I have been hesitant to enter the discussion for fear of repeating all the arguments from the Canonicity thread (though I do eagerly await discussion of the chapters themselves). But I guess that some people will be reading this thread that have not put in the necessary hours of reading to keep up with the Canonicity thread, so I'll repeat, briefly, the gist of my argument against some of the views espoused by Davem.

Davem wrote:

That’s what I find odd - why put in all that work if the goal is merely to produce an entertaining story, why struggle so hard to get it published, as it was, even if possible with the Silmarillion, if he really believed it didn’t mean anything?

I don't see why we must qualify it as "merely" an entertaining story. To me that would seem to be exactly the point. Why is it not enough to "merely" create a good story? Is the creation of a thoroughly and profoundly enjoyable work of art not something worthwhile in itself?

I, for one, think it is. And to be quite honest, this view strikes me as the one requiring the least clarification and interpretation in order to make it fit with Tolkien's statements about allegory and applicability.

But this certainly does not mean that it is not to be taken seriously! On the contrary, I think that Davem is quite right when he says:

He seems to want us to take it all as seriously as he does, place the same value on it as he does - but I don’t think his motive is vanity.

But there is serious and then there is serious. The issue becomes confused because in the modern and post-modern mind set "serious" can refer only to the most pretentious sort of allegory. I think the critical point is that Tolkien wants us to take it seriously just as a story, because Tolkien thinks that stories are serious things in themselves - not because they have some hidden meaning, not because they change us or teach us how better to live our lives, but just because they are good stories.

As I said, I don't want to get carried away; so I'll end on a completely different point. Mr. Underhill wrote:

I've always meant to start a thread that focused on Tolkien's working methods, and any such thread would certainly have to start here with the second edition foreword. I think it's great that Tolkien wrote the book mostly on instinct and without a clear outline. It seems you can divide writers into two groups -- those who plan, outline, and structure aforehand, and those who dive right in and trust to gut instinct, inspiration, and blind luck to carry them through. The latter method seems to me to be the most romantic and pure sort of writing.

I once had the very same idea for a thread, but for some reason I never got around to it. One of us should start one some day. The insight it affords into Tolkien's writing habits is certainly one of the most interesting features of the foreword - though of course it cannot compete with the exceedingly (sometimes tediously) thorough work of Christopher Tolkien in HoMe VI, VII, VIII, and IX. Also, it must be noted that the foreword cannot be considered the final authority on matters of the dates at which various sections were written - for example, in the foreword Tolkien says that the whole was written between 1936 and 1949, but it seems completely clear from the extant manuscripts as well as from a letter to Stanley Unwin that it was in fact begun not in 1936 but late in 1937. For these matters, HoMe is the most accurate authority.

[Mister Underhill]

Why is it not enough to "merely" create a good story? Is the creation of a thoroughly and profoundly enjoyable work of art not something worthwhile in itself?

I, for one, think it is.

And I agree. Although -- and here I risk opening an old, old can of worms -- this begs the question of what makes a great story profoundly enjoyable.

You are quite right that the hypothetical thread would be bound to range through HoME, and, I would add, Letters. I love his letter to Auden (#163):

...I had no conscious notion of what the Necromancer stood for (except ever-recurrent evil) in The Hobbit, nor of his connexion with the Ring. But if you wanted to go on from the end of The Hobbit I think the ring would be your inevitable choice as the link. If then you wanted a large tale, the Ring would at once acquire a capital letter; and the Dark Lord would immediately appear. As he did, unasked, on the hearth at Bag End as soon as I came to that point. So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the comer at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlórien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22. I knew nothing of the Palantíri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore' that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and one white tree. These rhymes and names will crop up; but they do not always explain themselves. I have yet to discover anything about the cats of Queen Berúthiel. But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his part, and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider.

It's possible that Tolkien is romanticizing here, but if what he says isn't true, then it ought to be. That sense of sheer discovery in the writing seems like pure magic, and does in fact make the First Foreword true in a sense, casting Tolkien in the role of transcriber and editor as much as author.

[The Saucepan Man]

I’ve taken a bit of time to catch up, so I’m coming rather late to this thread. Here are some thoughts that occurred to me while reading the (Second) Foreword and the many wonderful posts that have already appeared in this, the inaugural “Reading Club” thread.

What is the purpose of a foreword? This, it seems to me, is to provide the author with an opportunity to tell his readers a little bit about the book before they launch into the story itself. How the author chooses to exercise this opportunity is up to him/her. It is interesting that Tolkien uses his opportunity in different ways in the two Forewords that have been posted (and my thanks too go to Squatter for posting the First Foreword, which I had not seen before).

As to the First Foreword, I agree with Child when she says:

he seems to be talking to people he personally knows -- family, friends, members of the Inklings, and to those "admirers of Bilbo" who'd already crossed his path before.

As Squatter suggests, you get the sense that he is continuing a private joke shared with his family and scholastic co-conspirators. But, at the same time, he is opening up the joke to the wider audience that is encountering the book for the first time following its publication. And, while I would not go as far as some in wishing that the story really was real (*ducks metaphysical apples in a materialistic manner*), I do find the First Foreword charming for this reason. One feels rather privileged to be let in on the private joke. And it is, I suppose, valid to consider whether there is, in any event, an element of truth (or should that be Truth ) to the joke, in the sense that LotR draws on themes and ideas that have been conveyed throughout our history in mythology and folklore. In that sense, it might be said that LotR is a part of our history, or at least a presentation of aspects of it in a fresh (and beautifully crafted) vehicle. In this context, I am put in mind of the oft-quoted incident when a visitor asked Tolkien “Of course you don’t suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself”, to which he replied “No, I don’t suppose so any longer” (Letter 328).

So, Tolkien uses the First Foreword to continue the “myth” that LotR is a fragment of a real history. But he does also include some authorial guidance when he says:

But since my children and others of their age, who first heard of the finding of the Ring, have grown older with the years, this book speaks more plainly of those darker things which lurked only on the borders of the earlier tale, but which have troubled Middle-earth in all its history.

While still couched in terms of a commentary on the history of Middle-earth, this passage also serves to provide an authorial (as opposed to editorial) function in preparing his wider audience for the marked difference in tone from the Hobbit, the only work of his which they will previously have encountered.

And so on to the Second Foreword. As others have noted, this fulfils quite a different function. Far more than the First Foreword it is aimed at those who have not yet read the book, and it seeks to provide some insight and guidance to them. In broad terms, as I see it, Tolkien is here using his opportunity to accomplish three things:

1. to provide an insight into how the book was written;
2. to flag up some of the book's themes; and
3. to explain how the book should be approached by the reader (or, more precisely, how it should not be approached).

As to the first of these, like others, I get the sense from the Foreword that the book almost wrote itself. Tolkien states at the outset that:

This tale grew in the telling …

It started out as a sequel to the Hobbit, to satisfy “requests from readers [of The Hobbit] for more information concerning hobbits and their adventures”. But it:

… was drawn irresistibly towards the older world …

So, while the LotR was borne of a desire to satisfy his readers’ yearnings for a sequel to The Hobbit, Tolkien was irresistibly drawn back to the tales that he had been working on since his youth and it became something altogether more dark and epic. These tales of the older world were the ones which Tolkien really wanted to tell and, since he was given the impression that they were “unpublishable”, LotR became a kind of bridge between those tales and the later more childish tale, which had already received a favourable reaction from the public. While the book did not of course write itself, it was natural (almost instinctive, perhaps) for Tolkien to write something more than simply “The Hobbit Revisited”. And, although The Hobbit is (to my mind) a wonderful book, LotR is undoubtedly the better for this.

I wonder if this is the reason that he was so steadfast in his resolve to complete the book, despite the many delays and interruptions that he encountered. Once it became inextricably linked in his mind to the older world that was so close to his heart, did it assume greater importance in his mind? Did he then feel compelled to complete it and achieve publication of something that, for these reasons, had achieved greater importance to him? Is this the reason why, as davem states, he wanted his readers to take the story as seriously as he did? And would the story ever have been completed if Strider had simply remained Trotter?

As to how the Foreword flags up the themes of the book, Tolkien (as Fordim points out) identifies the Ring as the central theme:

As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but the main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit.

Again, the suggestion is that the story grew almost of its own accord. But what does Tolkien mean when he says that the Ring provides the main theme of the story? The Ring is a (the) subject of the story. How can it also be its theme? Since he gives no further explanation, this provides no real idea as to the nature of the theme that he is discussing here to a reader who is reading the Foreword and has yet to read the story. But what he is doing is flagging up for the reader the importance of the Ring in signifying the underlying theme (and, incidentally, highlighting the importance of the “crucial chapter”, ‘The Shadow of the Past’). And the Ring really does signify the essence of the story: the conflict between good and evil, between the corrupting influence of power and the ennoblement of the humble, between Sauron’s desire to control and the Elvish wish to maintain and preserve. Practically every “sub-theme” within the story revolves around that which the Ring represents and that which opposes everything that it stands for.

Thinking about it, it seems that Tolkien does give a further clue in the passage explaining how the story would have gone had it in fact been intended as an allegory of the “real war”. In suggesting that that the use of the Ring against Sauron and Saruman’s creation of his own Great Ring would have led to both sides holding Hobbits in hatred and contempt, he is indicating that the Ring is a corrupting influence and that the qualities displayed by those who seek to oppose what it represents are ones which should be valued. Sadly, but perhaps realistically, he impliedly concludes that they are qualities which are woefully lacking in the “real world”, at least among those with power.

As Fingolfin II states:

He says that in real life the Ring would have been used against Sauron, but in order to make a story of it he had to change reality to idealism

But perhaps he believed, or at least hoped, that the “ideal” still existed somewhere in “reality”. If so, I think that the immense and enduring popularity of LotR would certainly bear him out on this.

Finally Tolkien uses the Foreword to state categorically that the book is not to be taken by the reader as an allegory. While I accept that he was perhaps overstating his case in expressing his strong distaste for allegory, I neverthless find his concise statement of the difference between allegory and applicability to be profoundly instructive:

… one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

I have no difficulty in accepting this. Nor do I see any conflict with what he states elsewhere concerning his motives in writing LotR and his other “Fairy Stories”. To me, “allegory” in the sense that Tolkien is using it here requires two essential elements: it must be specifically intended by the author and it must relate to a specific set of circumstances. What Tolkien is saying here is that he did not intend LotR to represent any specific set of circumstances. Specifically, it was not intended as an allegory of the gobal conflict which was raging throughout much of the period in which he was writing the book. So, he is telling the reader, do not take it as an allegory of that, or of anything else, because that was not my intention in writing it. At the same time, he is (as he is bound to) giving his readers complete freedom to find within the book meanings which are applicable to their own lives, and doing so expressly. Yes, the book contains themes relevant to the human condition and the history of human existence. But this does not make it an allegory. It simply makes it applicable, in varying ways, to the “thoughts and experience” of the readers who share that condition and history.

Of course Tolkien had his own ideas as to what the book meant, and he accepts in the Foreword that it was influenced by his own experiences, but he does not impose those ideas and experiences on his readers. Even when he flags up the Ring as the central theme, he does not tell them what that theme actually is (and, in any event, themes to not equate with meaning in my mind: they simply provide a framework for applicability). So, Tolkien simply tells his readers in this Foreword that he wrote the book as a tale that he hoped would “amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them”, but leaves them to draw their own conclusions as to what it actually means to them. And I doubt that any who have read and enjoyed LotR could deny that he has succeeded in achieving this mission statement (even if some of us, while being deeply moved by parts of the book, are still waiting to experience that elusive moment of eucatastrophe ). Like Aiwendil, I run the risk of embroiling myself once again in the twists and truns of the Canonicity thread on this point ( ), so I will leave it at that.

But finally, and before I outstay my welcome (or perhaps I already have) I wanted to comment on one sentence which jumped out at me:

The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or write it again, he will pass over these in slience, except one that has been noted by other: the book is too short.

While I would not go so far as to describe any work of literature as utterly flawless, LotR seems to me to be pretty much nearing that ideal. I wonder what “major defects” Tolkien had in mind. But I find his comment that it is “too short” even more interesting. It contrasts nicely with CS Lewis’ belief, referred to in davem’s first post ( #5), that it would be “the better for pruning”. But that aside, I wonder what additional material Tolkien would have liked to have included. Or perhaps he was simply making a veiled reference here to his original wish to publish LotR and the Silmarillion together in two volumes.

Apologies for wittering on at length but, since I am not sure that I’ll have a chance to post again this week, I thought that I would simply blurt out all my thoughts at once. I’ll get my coat now.

[davem]

Aiwendil Not wanting to re-hash the old Canonicity debate either, I do think we have to ask whether Tolkien really was simply attempting to entertain. SpM has stated:

'And the Ring really does signify the essence of the story: the conflict between good and evil, between the corrupting influence of power and the ennoblement of the humble, between Sauron’s desire to control and the Elvish wish to maintain and preserve. Practically every “sub-theme” within the story revolves around that which the Ring represents and that which opposes everything that it stands for.

Thinking about it, it seems that Tolkien does give a further clue in the passage explaining how the story would have gone had it in fact been intended as an allegory of the “real war”. In suggesting that that the use of the Ring against Sauron and Saruman’s creation of his own Great Ring would have led to both sides holding Hobbits in hatred and contempt, he is indicating that the Ring is a corrupting influence and that the qualities displayed by those who seek to oppose what it represents are ones which should be valued. Sadly, but perhaps realistically, he impliedly concludes that they are qualities which are woefully lacking in the “real world”, at least among those with power.'

which I agree with as regards the 'meaning' of the story. Tolkien clearly felt that his story, while it should entertain, should at least reflect his moral values, so that, one assumes, he would have excluded anything which, while it might 'entertain' would conflict with them.

In the George Sayer essay I quoted from there is the following sentence:
' All of life for him was part of a cosmic conflict between the forces of good & evil, God & the devil'

Further on the author reveals:

' Once he spoke to me of Ireland after he had spent part of summer vacation working there as an examiner: 'It is as if the earth there is cursed. It exudes an evil that is held in check only by Christian practice & the power of prayer.' Even the soil, the earth, played a part in the cosmic struggle between forces of good & evil.'

I think we must take this into account when we try to understand Tolkien's motives in writing - if the universe was a battleground between the forces of good & evil, then every person, & every decision & act of every person, every thought, perhaps, will aid one side or the other. Tolkien saw himself as a 'warrior' in a 'holy war'. And the methods of the enemy must not be studied. Evil must be stated to be evil, it must not be examined, even in an attempt to discover its weaknesses (hence his disapproval of the Screwtape Letters). LotR is as much an attempt at producing a 'weapon' for use in that battle as anything else - probably more than anything else.

Which is not to say we can't read it as simple entertainment. We just have to recognise that it wasn't written as that. And at the time Tolkien was writing such an attitude, such a way of seeing the world, was not popular - just the opposite.

On the subject of personal experience entering into the story - well during one of the major breaks in writing LotR he did write Notion Club Papers, which grows out of his personal experiences - Inklings meetings - but draws in the mythology with the breaking in of 'Numenor', which perhaps shows how his personal life & his imaginative life were deeply intertwined, & how the mythology couldn't be excluded from his writing. The mythology even crops up in Roverandom.

Oh, & as for him not having time to devote to writing - it wasn't just academic pressures that stopped him - Sayer recounts visits across a period of weeks after he's retired, & finding him sitting at his desk wit the Silmarillion manuscript at the same page with nothing done - apparently he'd been spending most of his time reading detective stories (Lord Peter Wimsey, perhaps )