Tolkien HATED Allegory?
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- čas přidán 24. 02. 2020
- My response and breakdown of the popular online idea that Tolkien was anti allegory and therefore should not have his work compared to the real world!
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What other author misconceptions would you like to see cleared up here on the channel?
How George Martin stole Tolkien's RR XD
@@dreammaster2.059 epic rap battles of history
I didn't think that your phrase "Meditation on WWI" was making a claim of allegory... But I'm one of those lucky few who had a professor who did teach fantasy based classes, I got a class just about Tolkien... but no one wanted to take the next class, Tolkien's Successors (Basically a look post Tolkien fantasy.)
I’d like to point out something important as someone who not only sees Tolkien as the grand-Papi of all things fantasy, but also as someone who is a practicing Christian who has read Tolkien for his Catholic imagination before. Tolkien had a budding rivalry / best friendship with CS Lewis, and he was very open about disliking Narnia for the reason of allegory overtaking the story. He was always a devout Catholic, and lived his life like this, but he also wanted Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit to be escapist. He always admitted to being influenced by his religion because he lived it and breathed it. Any experience we have as humans can be influencing on our work. I think Tolkien was clear enough about people interpreting his stories in their own way being a positive thing, and that, conversely Middle Earth was also orchestrated by a man with a wealth of knowledge for language, the Western Tradition, mythology, industrialisation at the turn of the century, and the purpose of faith in God when encountered with great challenges. I don’t think it’s hard to see that it’s possible to be influenced by the things one experiences, but it doesn’t mean that you need to force it on your reader, and JRR Tolkien is one of the earliest purveyors of this idea that I can think of. He DID NOT appreciate literature being used as a tool for some other purpose (like Lewis did), and if he were alive today I believe he would defend Daniel’s (and many of our) opinion on Goodkind, as an example of this in a modern context.
@@dreammaster2.059 Just copied it. From what I heard.
Anyone who says Tolkien and CS Lewis had beef has no clue. even at the lowest point in their friendship (as all friendships have ups and downs) CS Lewis nominated Tolkien for the Nobel prize.
I always assumed it was like a friendly roast
*GASP* are you saying people can disagree and still be really good friends?
T: Hey, -Christopher- Clive, wanna check out this story I'm writing?
L: sure, as long as it's not about fucking elves again.
T: *shows him lord of the rings*
Thnx for correction
Tomas Beckett C.S. Lewis LOVED those elves. He was all about LOTR, and the ever growing depth of Middle Earth. If there was anything he didn’t like about it, it was Tolkien’s tendency to overwrite “hobbit talk,” because it was all quite characteristic but did nothing to advance the plot.
There was another Inkling who did NOT like LOTR, and was quite vocal about it because, like so many of his academic contemporaries, he felt it silly and escapist rather than dealing with the issues.
@@Meshuga63 I'm sure C.S. Lewis was joking in this quote, i just think it's a great summary of their friendship
Whenever professors be like "fantasy is dumb" I'm like "and yet you still respect Illiad and Odyssey by Homer or the epic Gilgamesh"
How about Beowulf, or even Macbeth. Does Shakespeare get a pass?
@@Trickstick77 My point exactly! Or even Bram Stoker dude
Or Bible :)
Ajuć 00
I’d say most in academic circles don’t
This is the issue - the 'professors' are actually right. If you, and I'm presuming you are, a fan of fantasy fiction, then there's a bit of reading between the lines to do here.
If a professor actually said "fantasy is dumb", then what are they criticising? They're not saying if a story is _good_ or not - they're saying whether it's worthy of academic study. This is an _incredibly_ important distinction to make, as is the fact that your comparison has jammed a subset of a genre of a style of writing which has only existed for four hundred years alongside a text so old that it is _written in cuneiform_ and two works considered to be the acme of Greek epic poetry. However long that sentence was, just bear in mind this: that all three of these works have collectively weathered _thousands_ of years, and are passed down as exemplar texts not only in content, but of their period.
Modern literature is not typically analysed by universities in the same way as older text because, quite frankly, there is no need to do it. Unpacking Homer is as interesting for its content as it is for telling us about the society that made it. Gilgamesh is amongst the oldest extant religious texts and shows us the existence of writing existing to be read as well as read aloud. A fantasy pulp fiction from the nineties is such a specific work that its study - at this time - is not necessary.
Here's the point: in taking up those three texts, you're actually just as guilty of reductionism as the 'professors' you're criticising. Fantasy fiction serves a different purpose to epic Greek poetry and Sumerian cuneiform. We don't need to unpack or study fantasy fiction in the same way because we know the society it comes from - nine times out of ten, it's the one the professor lives in, and nine times out of ten, a fantasy author isn't writing in dactylic hexameter.
We remember _The Odyssey_ and _The Iliad_ because they epitomise a genre spanning thousands of examples, most of which are lost to us. Remember too - as Daniel himself has pointed out - that fantasy as a genre is a marketing invention. Ultimately what we're dealing with here are examples of novels. If a fantasy book is going to be studied academically in several hundred years' time, it had better damn well be one of the best expressions of human experience to reach the summit.
I'm willing to fight and die on this hill so please, if anyone wants to come at me, do.
"A lot of authors lie about what their intent was"
*JK Rowling glances around nervously*
What did she do?
@@bhatfield1417 I mean she’s done a lot of stuff but I think they’re referencing her inserting stuff into the books after they were finished etc. (Or rather her saying certain things about the books that weren’t actually explored in the books)
You mean * everyone staring intesifies *
@@bhatfield1417 lots, for example, she said that Hermione is a pale negro. However that works.
She created xenophobic wizards who refuse to help muggles with their powers - apparently those don't bring along great responsibility. ^^ If Hagrid had cited witch hunts in the first book as a reason for wizards not helping muggles, at least there would have been a point. But nope - the wizards are just lazy isolationists who want to be left alone, no matter what.
The way I understood it is that allegory as Tolkien means it is nearly always a 1 to 1; Aslan is God, Deep Magic is Christs sacrifice etc... Applicability it could be 3 to 1; You can argue the Catholic understanding of the person of Christ is present in part in Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn, but each of them have their own flaws that offset that ideal they represent, making it so they are applicable, but not fully allegorical. or 1 to 3; The One Ring is a Nuclear Weapon (Or arms race), no the One Ring is a manifestation of human vices, no the One Ring is the dangers of the ideals set by rushing into industrialized world. The answers is of course yes, the ring can be seen as all these things and more, because it's applicable and not allegorical in the 1 to 1 sense that Tolkien despised, applicability also means that it can be applied to things that were not present (or commonly spoken of) in Tolkien's time. I doubt these ramblings make any sense. I'm sorry, I'll shut up now
Also, Read On Fairy Stories. my personal opinion is that anyone who loves fantasy should read it. I find it enhances my enjoyment of fantasy. But I wrote my capstone project on the applicability of On Fairy Stories to philosophy, so I'm maybe not the least biased person
So, is there a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 with Eru Iluvatar? Because I can see no one and nothing but the Christian God in him.
Of course, Eru only appears in the _Silmarillion_ , and therefore does not need to factor in when discussing _The Lord of the Rings_ or _The Hobbit_ , where I do think it's fair to say that there is more applicability than allegory going on there?
@@AhsimNreiziev I'll agree on Eru. As a devout catholic he would have found it abhorrent to create a god wholly separate the Judeo-Christian god, so I'm okay with that, and outside of the creation myth Eru plays little part in the Silmarillion, so that's good
@@AhsimNreiziev he doesn't have to specifically be the Christian god. He could, for example, just be seen as Tolkien, the creator of the world. Or, even more broadly, he could be seen as an author or just a creator.
@@tincanmaniac1931
How much do you know about the _Silmarillion_ ? At any rate, if you haven't read it and haven't come across discussions / depictions of Eru Iluvatar before, here is his Wiki page: lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Eru_Il%C3%BAvatar
The picture alone should be sufficient, but just read a bit into his "Bio", and you'll see that he, amongst other things, created an entire group of Angels to whom he delegated most of the work.
From what we know of him, it is clear that Eru isn't based on anyone or anything, be it Tolkien himself or some other form of non-Christian deity. He's even more of a rip-off -- sorry, allegory -- of God the Father than Aslan is of Jesus.
6:03 "Oof, that sounds like he's-"
*cuts to ad for tangerines*
JUICIER THAN A REALITY TV SHOW
Jason Wheneger
Mine was “Oof, that sounds like he’s 5 HOUR ENERGY!”
Well Played Sir, Well Played.
Hey I'm a Ma History student, my research focus is on Medieval Literature (think Beowulf, King Horn, Tristan, Gawain). I've read a good few of Tolkien's essay's, the best of which is undoubtedly 'The Monsters and the Critics'. I mention this essay because it is within this essay that this notion of his distaste for allegory is most distorted by people. Before this landmark essay Beowulf was largely regarded as little more than an Christian/Germanic allegory and was widely utilized for its historical value rather than its artistic and cultural value. In the essay Tolkien masterfully rails against this theory and explains that the poem is in fact a beautiful elegy, and should be taken for the wonderful example of cultural expression that it is. This essay heavily influenced the post-modernist expressionist expansion of academic thought and theory across multiple fields and acted as one of a few works that allowed for a great deal of diversification in study topics. For example, he highlights the important insights that may be gained from the study of monsters within these works rather than dismissing them as window dressing, this has allowed for a great many theories on cultural development nuances born of the monsters we create in these fantastical works. It's a very widely applicable paper and I highly recommend reading it.
Hear hear! That is a fantastic essay and really helped shape my own understanding of what medieval literature can do.
@@TheLuckless Seconded (thirded? Thank you @Chris Bonner !) Just wanted to add the oft-quoted Gaiman-by-way-of-Chesterton “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
Daniel needs to do more crazy rants, they're hilarious XD
Well I was reading, but you had me at "Tolkien"
I've never gotten behind the idea that an author's writing has literally 0 allegory to to it. Human brains just dont work that way. I cant remember what it's called, but I remember learning that no matter what, your life influences the way you see the world and that just inherently will influence your writing as well, intentional or not. If Tolkien was raised with a different religion, then the entire story would probably be wildly different because dear God the first almost 10 chapters of the simirilian were basically "god creates the world, Lucifer becomes satan"
We're all affected by our lives and that always bleeds into everything we do and say.
I personally prefer the death-of-the-author approach. I really don't care what the authorial intent was. All I care about is what is in the actual text and how one can read that.
@@Drudenfusz oh I perfectly understand that. But that doesnt mean people cant find a real world thing they can attribute to an author's writing. But at the same time, the curtain was blue because the author likes the color blue and it wasn't because they were depressed
Bear in mind that you cannot accidentally add allegory to a story. Allegory is an intentional thing. Like when Tolkien put a lot of religion into the books, it wasn't an allegory, because he didn't mean for it to be in there, and--more importantly--didn't believe that we are all to interpret it that way.
altoguy16499 You don’t know if that detail about the curtain is true or not though. In plenty of academic courses they teach that kind of symbolism, so it’s actually likely intentional (depending on the author’s education).
In the opening essay to Fellowship, Tolkien states that there is a big difference between applicability and allegory. And there is. He wrote a lot that would be applicable to WW2, as well as to rural English life, and the advancement of technology, but also that would appeal to each person’s sense of home and what’s important. The shire for me doesn’t represent his home, it represents mine, if that makes sense. That doesn’t mean it was allegorical. Allegory is trying to draw direct parallels between things to make a point of some kind. I don’t like being preached at. That’s one reason why some people don’t love Narnia. (I do, for the record. I think they’re amazing.) Thank you for breaking this down properly for the people in the back who can’t get it. I think authorial intent is extremely important, though. Especially in modern literature of all genres, it is SO allegorical and it’s getting really tiresome. Stop telling me what to think. Lol. As for their relationship, they were great friends and had a huge effect on each other’s work, but they did fight and argue, as friends do.
Are you referring to the forward to the Lord of the rings?
Is applicability really what people have issues with? Because the only time I've seen this allegory thing brought up was against people arguing that Tolkien secretly meant for frodo and Sam to be a gay couple among other silly arguments by internet weirdos.
"Stop telling me what to think." Indeed. I love Dune, I think Frank Herbert is the most original world creator outside of Tolkien, but one thing that grates on me about Dune, especially the later books, is that Herbert flat-out tells you what to think over and over and over. He literally puts quotes of his personal philosophy at the beginning of every section, and uses certain events to segues into monologues at different points in the main text. Like, to borrow from King Arthur in Monty Python, "Shut up, shut up, will you shut up!"
It must have grated on Tolkien too, as he didn't like Dune.
A short defense of CS Lewis: I view him as, first and foremost, a theologian. Works like Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Abolition of Man, The Four Loves, etc. have all had a HUGE impact on Christian thought. So, it doesn't surprise me that the Chronicles of Narnia is pretty blatantly allegorical in nature.
I totally understand that you're framing your argument through a fantasy lens (as one does on a fantasy booktube channel), I just wanted to add an important layer to this author :)
He really didn't have a big impact on Christian thought, more on popular theology and modern rhetoric. That's not to belittle him and I don't think he would disagree.
I also just enjoy reading Tolkien because his words are so well chosen.
6:10 is a perfect example of why i subscribed to your channel, Daniel. Snarky retort, factual argument, fantastic facial expressions of the frustration in dealing with meme culture. Please never change.
That’s the beauty of being the reader. No matter the allegory, we can find whatever applicable meaning we want in a story, and are free to ignore any intended message!
And that’s the beauty of being an author. We can put whatever messages we want in our stories, even if they are only for ourselves!
That isn't how Reading and Writing works, dumbass.
He was clearly influenced by both WWI and to a lesser extent WWII. It’s not allegorical, but the influence of his life events cannot be ignored.
The burning of the shire is clearly in reaction to the industrialisation of England.
I took a poetry class, and we were discussing epics (Beowulf, Odyssey etc.). My professor asked if anyone could think of a more modern epic and I responded LOTR. To my surprise he actually agreed with me. 😅😅
I agree with lotr but that question is really weird, what do you count as a epic and when is modern, could you count paradise lost as a modern epic or Frankenstein
I did quite alot of study into Tolkien, but it is about 20 years ago now. One thing i seem to remember, is that one of his quotes about allegory came when he was asked about Lord of the Rings taking inspiration from WW2, that they had just gone through, and became annoyed and wrote something like this in a replay: its far more likely that is takes inspiration from WW1 which was far more relevant to my life, its not an allegory of WW2.
Sounds like a quote which is in , I think, the introduction to one of the later editions:
"The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.
"Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. 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.
"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, 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 suppose that the movements of thought or the events of times common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences. One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. Or to take a less grievous matter: it has been supposed by some that 'The Scouring of the Shire' reflects the situation in England at the time when I was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset, though in the event modified by 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 (for the economic situation was entirely different), and much further back. The country in which I lived in childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important. 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."
mike2RR i think what i was talking about, was from a book delving into Tolkiens private corrospondence, but yeah that there seems familiar aswell, but i did read almost all books about Tolkien back then, was a fan and used him as a subject for a 20 page highschool/college paper.
What I remember is that Tolkien didn't like that Lewis combined mythologies. He was a purest in that sense.
Absolutely. John made a wry comment that, had Tumnus been a REAL satyr, it would have been a very different meeting with Lucy.
As an English student, it is really interesting to see the shift in schools of thought regarding how much control the author has about what they put into their work and what the reader or critic is then able to pull out from the text. One thing that is often not explored enough, in my opinion, is the fact that every author writes in their own specific temporal and geographic environment (and is influenced by that because no human can exist and create in complete isolation) and every reader does the same. The older the text is, the less likely it is that those environments are going to match up. Therefore it is only natural that readers will find things in the text that the author didn't intentionally put there. Thankfully, academia is now at a point where these interpretations are also seen as valid. I agree that authors should have a say in what their work is about, but at the same time, only allowing the author's own interpretation is extremely limiting. And a lot of stuff happens unconsciously. Or is only apparent to a reader because of their specific biography and background. I don't think there is a single right way to interpret things. That would just be the death of creativity altogether.
That's why historicism and new historicism are developed as distinct branches of literary criticism. Sadly they get largely shafted in universities that focus on post-modernist literary theories and emphasise feminist and Marxist literary theory (as they're seen as more relevant to modern day).
@@deisophiagaming8216 Yeah, we were walked through basically the last 100 years of literary criticism in a couple of weeks without really engaging with any of the theories. I'm still hoping there will be more of a focus in higher modules, but it will probably be something post-modernist, as you say.
the recent re-interpretations and reconstructions should not be seen as valid
And historicism is a diseasr
-is english student
-doesn't use paragraphs in a loooong text
wow, I never knew this quote was incomplete. Thanks for clearing that up, and for helping me learn the term of "applicability". Great vid.
Loved this video! I’ve had quite a few arguments with people about this and when you show them the full quote they quite quickly eat their words
I studied literature at university in the UK and studied fantasy and fairytale I even did my dissertation on LoTR on the importance of power and I used the allegory quote but the whole thing :) brilliant video! Loved hearing you dive into your thoughts more!
I largely agree with your assessment, I felt the only really problematic part of what you said was the "meditation" quote. I appreciate you taking the time to better clarify/correct what you said.
I have been loving your recent videos! They're hilarious, but they're also so thought provoking and packed with information. Your content has really helped me hone my critical thinking skills as a reader. So thank you!!
That makes me love Tolkien even more! Cause I fully believe in having your own interpretations! It can make you connect with works on a different level and be more personal to you it's also just really fun to discuss with others and hear their interpretations something you might've never thought of
Tolkien is the founding father of modern fantasy; you had me for this video with Tolkien in the title.
Tolkien admitted writing The Lord of the rings after the world war took his fellowship of friends, meaning it reflects his life.
Dracula is respected more in the Classics and Gothic genres more than admitting it is part of the fantasy genre.
Academia need more respect to Fantasy literature. Indeed, Fanatsy has changed literature and life as whole.
No he isn't the father of modern Fantasy, dumbass.
My college is somewhere in the middle when it comes to respecting fantasy. I'm taking a sci-fi/fantasy class (which it's cool that my college offers that), but (with a couple exceptions) the works we're reading aren't what I would consider as sci-fi/fantasy. It's a sci-fi/fantasy class with no Tolkien, Asimov, Bradbury, Sanderson (or any recognizable names, with maybe one or two exceptions).
Thanks for the corrections and the recollection. Was wondering if the misconception could be clarified with the distinction between allegory and metaphor?
That's what I've always heard. Looking forward to listening to this video in full after work.
I had an English professor who assigned my class sci-fi and fantasy short stories to read every week. He often talked about how academia tends to "discriminate" against certain genres of books, as if those books are somehow not literature because of the content. He was real cool! He introduced me to many different stories that I probably would've never read outside his class.
This is the first video I’ve seen of Daniel, and it is what made me a fan of him. Being a big Tolkien nerd, I love how he explains things and his way with words. Very specific and well put.
Allegory done right is actually enjoyable, for instance Animal Farm.
Animal farm is overrated.
Animal Farm is nihilistic trash
I... I wouldn't call animal farm enjoyable xD Good, sure! But, its not exactly a light family romp.
I read it a long time ago but I enjoyed it. To me it read like a bizarre, alternate Bible story
It's interesting, but not really an enjoyable read. People read books to have a good time. People read animal farm to read a message.
‘Thinkamicating’ 😂 I really like this style of video! Clearing up annoying misconceptions and (wilful) ignorance within the fantasy genre is a public service. Thank you for that.
+Daniel Greene I'm interested in that article you mentioned at 8:36. Can't find it here. Could you please link it?
Wow, I thought the same thing about Tolkien, and I think it was from a Biography about him that I read in 02'. Can't recall if I formed that conclusion or if it was directly presented that way in the biography.
I'm really glad you said that authorial intent is not the be all and end all of how their work should be interpreted. This is the problem I had with the newest adaptation of Little Women - the movie claimed to be honoring Louisa May Alcott's original intentions with the way it took liberties with the original story, but in doing so gave rise to a lot of inconsistencies with several characters
Interestingly one of my colleges does a module on Stephen King
My first Anne Mccaffrey story was in 8th grade English class, they had a short story about the dragon riders in my textbook
Thanks for this video! As an academic and former teacher (with degrees in writing and literature), I've been trying to correct the misconceptions on Tolkien's views for a couple of decades now. But people are so set in their views of Tolkien, it's been like swimming against the tide. You seem to have a grasp on the author that few do (even those in literary or academic circles). Your various takes on Tolkien (both your asides and your dedicated videos on him) have been well thought out and a joy to watch. Keep it up!
Allegory is a figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The principal subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker, by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.
A work can have a message without being an allegory. Everything you write will carry meaning, but allegory is a specific form of argument through story writing.
Weird, I was actually discussing this exact same topic a few days ago on the comments of a post on a Middle Earth fans facebook group where I shared a video about WWI influence in Tolkien's writing. Very well put argument, Daniel, you nailed the point, and I will try to remember to link back to this video next time I get into this subject with someone who disagrees.
Great video. Love a well-researched deep dive!
Thanks for clearing it up, I know there are common misconceptions. I for one, however, ever since reading that quote have kept this in mind. After all it's essential in understanding Tolkien
I’m so glad you’ve addressed this. As soon as you made the Tolkien war comments, I knew people were going to be jumping in throwing this quote around. Glad to see it get some long overdue public clarification. (Not that it should have needed any clarification)
Daniel Greene I am wondering what software do you use for all your videos?
I've been fortunate to HAVE professors in college who loved fantasy and were massive fantasy nerds and got along with them so well :) And I even made my dissertation on the difficulties of translating fantasy from English into Romanian and I am still a newbie translator but I would very much like to become a translator of fantasy books :D
This is teetering into "death of the author" territory - and I *don't* agree with that presumption. But you make points in what Tolkien meant and that people are free to interpret things. I would be in the middle between Tolkien and Lewis - interpret all you want but don't assume to know the story better than the author does.
Anyway. Great video. I didn't have a problem with your rant video but, eh. Cheers. :)
Rather, I'd say don't presume to know what the author meant when it's a matter of record they meant something different
Do not try to supersede your voice on top of the author's
Speak for yourself. Give your own interpretation, proclaim the death of the author if you must, but please speak for yourself
Death of the author just makes sense. After they've written it their input is done and it's 100% reader input (unless said reader chooses to look into biology).
@@ashadeofnight Death of the author is a reader ego trip. And fans take enough liberty with what's actually IN the book as it is.
I don't know if you've been a part of any fandom - the deep inside, kind - but people take their interpretations *way* too far.
And they like to claim to know better than the author.
It's disrespectful.
@@JeevesAnthrozaurUS I still think death of the author is an ego trip, but otherwise I agree with your comment.
edit:
I should also argue that "Do not try to supersede your voice on top of the author's" *IS* about avoiding death of the author territory. Claiming death of the author on books is just a way for people to assume their interpretations as *superior* to the author's.
And a way of obtaining a form of ownership over the story. Which is beyond egocentric.
In my opinion.
Death of the author concept is just another radical move to opposite directions which serves to justify all interpretations even the most farfetched ones :), Tolkien himself was of opinion that his works:
"But I should say, if asked, the tale is not really about Power and Dominion: that only sets the wheels going; it is about Death and the desire for deathlessness. Which is hardly more than to say it is a tale written by a Man!"
...
"Anyway all this stuff is mainly concerned with Fall, Mortality, and the Machine," His own experiences in life inspired things that's without a doubt true, like this:
My ‘Samwise’ is indeed (as you note) largely a reflexion of the English soldier ...the memory of the privates and my batmen that I knew in the 1914 War, and recognized as so far superior to myself..
― The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
...
I take my models like anyone else - from such 'life' as I know.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #181
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"The Lord of the Rings was actually begun, as a separate thing, about 1937, and had reached the inn at Bree, before the shadow of the second war. Personally I do not think that either war (and of course not the atomic bomb) had any influence upon either the plot or the manner of its unfolding. Perhaps in landscape. The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme. They owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans, as in The House of the Wolfings or The Roots of the Mountains.
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 226: To Professor L. W. Forster. December 1960
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"But the mythology (and associated languages)first began to take shape during the 1914-18 war. The Fall of Gondolin (and the birth of Eärendil)was written in hospital and on leave after surviving the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The kernel of the mythology, the matter of Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren, arose from a small woodland glade filled with 'hemlocks' (or other white umbellifers) near Roos on the Holderness peninsula - to which I occasionally went when free from regimental duties while in the Humber Garrison in 1918
"
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 165: To the Houghton Mifflin Co. June 1955
...
"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, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.
"
Fellowship of the Ring Foreword to the Second Edition
When I was an English Lit student in Denmark in the late 90s, one professor had a Stephen King course :)
Where is the link to the article?
My history professor used Tolkien specifically (along with D.H. Lawrence) as an example of how the industrial revolution was reflected in literature.
What kind of classes were you using fantasy sources in?
Here I am, six months after this video was posted, and i still can't find the article Daniel mentioned at 8:36 😅
Could you do a ranking video were you ranked the most popular fantasy series by its first entry?
You are awesome. Just so you know. There would not have been a lot of people who would have had enough courage to make this video and reflect on their mistakes
I love the explanation
Hey Daniel, love the channel and loved the video!
It's always frustrated me how fantasy gets a back seat to "real" literature. I think what fueled it for so long was the holdover of most people's engagement with the genre not coming from authors like Tolkien or Le Guin, but pulp books that are legitimately less literary. I think now, though, with good fantasy like Sanderson, Tolkien, Martin, and Jordan being much more in the public eye because of the media push for adaptations, we're starting to see that stigma fade. Along with the concerted efforts of academics who are themselves fantasy nerds and are fighting the good fight in their institutions.
If you haven't heard of him yet I'd recommend checking out a guy named Corey Olsen, known as The Tolkien Professor. He is a professor working on proliferating serious academic study of Fantasy and Sci-Fi. He's got a couple of podcasts that are a good listen, one is just called "The Tolkien Professor" which is just about Tolkien stuff and the other is "Mythgard Academy" which is where he does deep dives into other Fantasy and Sci-Fi works along with Tolkien.
tolkienprofessor.com/
mythgard.org/listen/
Thanks for all you do!
I've heard people say that Sanderson really leans into mormonims for the cosmere, seems like that seems just very wrong but I'd love to hear your thoughts.
There are definitely religious overtones so I think it’s and interesting question to ask, has anyone ever asked him about that or not?
@@stuart1346 Well, the fact that the cosmere opens with the death of a god maybe is a reflection to the modern abandonment of christianity.
@@henryvargasestrada2320 oh I think that must be a book I haven't read of his yet then cos I don't remember that . I do think that it does become detrimental in mistborm era 2 but the rest of the time I don't care
I’m very limited in my Cosmere experience, but I haven’t seen it with the exception of the end of THE HERO OF AGES. That ending is so Mormon, I’m as cheesed about it as Mr. Greene is about Narnia.
Also, the larger passage that quote is from is specifically dispelling the myth that Lord of the Rings is an allegory about World War 2 specifically as well as generally
Unrelated to video; while admiring your bookshelf in the background I suddenly noticed and identified Furies of Calderon...based solely on the color of the spine and the distinct silver square.....have I attained a new level of Book Nerd?
...(probably helps that I'm the one who sent it to you as one of my favorites lol)
The allegory/applicability difference is basically that old Walt Disney quote: "I'd rather entertain and hope the audience learned something than lecture and hope the audience was entertained" (might be paraphrasing). Tolkien was telling a story first, not trying to teach a (specific) message, even if he was definitely imparting messages anyway.
Reminds me of an anecdote another of your favorite authors, Isaac Asimov, has written about. He once heard an academic give a long lecture in which he discussed in great detail the story "Nightfall". After the lecture, Asimov approached the academic and said, "Everything you just said about Nightfall is wrong." The academic asked, "How would you know?" Asimov responded, "My name is Isaac Asimov and I wrote Nightfall." The academic responded, "So, what does that have to do with anything?" Asimov actually backed off and after that admitted authors do not actually know everything about their own works.
link to article?
That hello everybody in the intro reminded me of Jenna Moreci
Just listened to Dan Carlin’s five part history of World War One, and he used Tolkien as an example throughout- describing the war as a doomed effort where even victory would leave your civilization shattered and diminished.
I hadn't thought about it this way before today, but "the Stand" is kind of like King saying "yeah, God and Satan, yeah, sure." while also saying "that's your interpretation, man", from another Beam.
Brandon Sanderson teaches in my major at my alma mater. So that's a start.
Granted, I graduated 13 years ago...
Would BYU allow you to go sit in class? Because I totally would.
@@michaelinman7456 probably. My beard might cause some ripples though. I'll try next time I head to Utah.
Tell them Brigham Young had a beard.
I remember reading an article written by an author, who had been sent papers on one of there books (I do not remember the author for certain). the just of the article was, this class came up with all these interpretations, I like the interpretations. They were not thinking of any of them when they wrote it, but that does not mean that the interpretations were not true.
Check out readerly vs writerly texts; it's an idea in literary theory that came about in like the 70s. I think the quote you mention from Tolkien shows that he intentionally wrote his works to be writerly texts.
The the Lays of Beleriand Christopher Tolkien included a quote by CS Lewis, who, after reading one of the early drafts of the Lay of Leithian, said “The two things that come out clearly are the sense of reality in the background and the mythical value: the essence of a myth being that it should have no taint of allegory to the maker and yet should suggest incipient allegories to the reader.”
You should make a video on Tolken's On Fairy Stories
I really like your response videos. You'll acknowledge your faults, but also defend yourself pretty well. Keep up the good work, Daniel. (And yeah, people should read the full quote, lol.)
Informative, thanks dude 👍
I need to see a rant collabe with Quinn from Quinn's ideas channel lol
Also, the WWI stuff is discussed heavily if you ever get your hands on a 4-disc DVD set of Fellowship of the Rings Extended Edition.
BLESS YOU. Authorial intent should not be the only (or in my opinion the main) way to examine a book
I totally agree and before you were even born when I read CS Lewis I recognize that at a very early age. I enjoyed two of his books one specifically because of it the other because it was my introduction to the series but when it comes down to it as I grew in intellect and wisdom I started to recognize what was happening and I didn't like being directed that way so blatantly
I always thought that this was the case and never understood why people thought he hated allegory altogether. Reading the book myself growing up and knowing about Tolkien’s life a little and the events of the industrial revolution and WW1; topics I had a weird fascination with when I was younger, I was perplexed at how people could say that the dead marshes weren’t subconscious ‘meditations’ as you say in your video, on no-mans land and other atrocities of war. Loved the video tho man keep it comin’
I think many people's resistance toward totally free interpretation is that in lit class you could be failed for an incorrect one, which is absurd as long as the logical links are there. So if there is only one correct answer (the author's), you just have to memorize it ;) In my country the 2 fool-proof go-to anwers are always Jesus and state of the nation, so yeah.
That's the case for every subject, though. Hell, even if you get the right answer - if you went about it the wrong way it still doesn't count.
Schooling is all about training you to think in a certain way.
Not sure if I missed it, but did you ever do a review of the movie "Tolkien"? I loved the movie, regardless of whether it was true to his life or not
Awesome video! Thanks!
In your defence, Daniel, here's another quote from the man himself on the subject...
"I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of a myth or fairytale must use allegorical language."
So yeah, pretty sure he'd be very understanding of the whole "meditation" slip. ;)
I always draw comparisons between Tolkien's works and religion. But not just one religion, many. The Lord of the Rings has a very Bible-ish feel, but The Silmarillion is very reminiscent of Greek and Roman Mythology, almost to the point where you can draw lines between the Valar and their respective Greek or Roman God. That was kind of thrown off by the relationship between Iluvatar and Melkor which was very God and Lucifier.
Tolkien'ian mythology is weirdly both Abrahamic/Christian and Greco-Roman Paganism. Eru is Abrahamic omnibenevolent and omnipotent single creator big-G "God" while Valar are personable small-g gods. Another way to see the Valar is as Archangels, with Maiar as the regular angels. Also iirc one reason behind Tolkien's creation of the LotR mythos was to create a specifically English (instead of Germanic or British) mythology.
No, it by no means was influenced by Greek and Roman myth. Tolkien was influenced by Norse and Teutonic myth. Tolkien hated having influence by multiple cultures. Understand what you are talking about before you spout falsehood.
Frankly, there are elements of greek mythology, norse mythology, and christianity in Tolkien, especially in the Silmarillion. The Valar could easily be seen as angels, however, they have an almost 1 to 1 comparison with greek gods (ulmo is Poseidon, Aulë is hephaistos, Manwe living atop a mountain, etc...). They reflect the greek gods a bit more then the norse/germanic gods. Though it must be said that there are comparisons between most polytheistic religions, they almost all have a thunder god, wind god, god of harvest, etc.
I do wonder where he said he hated being influenced by multiple cultures, since I have read this on multiple youtube comment, but have not actually seen a Tolkien quote about it.
It's hard not to see multiple influences in cultures as well, Rohan is basically anglo saxons combined with normans, (anglo saxons did not fight on horseback). Numenor has influences of Atlantis (hard to believe tolkien would not have seen that). Gondor and Arnor can easily be compared with the eastern and western roman empire (considering the east was 90% of the time in decline, with some herioc reversals, it's not a bad comparison)
When did he get the full wheel of time books in hardcover?
@Daniel Greene part of the creative process could also have been Tolkien consciously or unconsciously channeling creativity through the applicable realism to deal with some level of PTSD. Creativity is used as part of the treatment nowadays and most WW1 vets had some level of it
Absolutely love this- deep as the mines of Moria
The problem I believe most scholars/academics have with the so called Fantasy genre (not to derp-confuse with Fiction) is their literary merit.
By this I mean the actual linguistic (style, lyrical devices, treatment, language, etc.) value of the work, not their themes. Themes are few and have been so since the dawn of time: Life, Death and how the two are linked by our mundane urges.
Now, almost every single Fantasy genre book that is known to the main public today is or has been a best seller, and most best sellers more or less share the common trait of being written with very basic, straight forward linguistic value that renders them entertaining for the most people (easy-to-read linguistic value is a must for this, since people have a hard time understanding more complex forms, i.e. Faulkner, Joyce). This lack of "uniqueness" in linguistic value for the sake of communication/entertainment is what discredits them in the eyes of a typical scholar and, more often than not, under the scrutiny of historical studies of Literature.
The classics, those fat old tomes that have endured for generations in humanity's imagination, all did something very unique that distanced them from their contemporaries, pretty much like the great painters did in their art form. Some set the norm or were a model on how to tell stories (Homer, Aristophanes), some created a literary vision that was never articulated in that particular way before (Chaucer, Dostoevsky), some blueprinted a new genre (Cervantes, E. A. Poe, W. Gibson), some were a clear window to understand how people were or behave in their time (Dante, Shakespeare, Flaubert), some used novel forms and techniques (Arabian Nights, Chaucer, Joyce), some made poignant satires of their time (Swift, Rabelais), others treated themes in such a way that opened new paths for the imagination (Borges, Kafka), others delved so deep inside their own creation that ended up defining a paragon of world-building (Tolkien) that many others have tried to imitate unsuccessfully (GRRM), some told stories so amazingly accurate to events that came to pass that were labeled as prophetic (Verne, Orwell, Bradbury), etc., etc., etc..
If you study most popular Fantasy/Sci-Fi authors from this POV, in search for linguistic value, you will indeed have a hard time finding it.
In some sense, these uptight old boring scholars are not wrong..
However, the correct way to put it is not: "Fantasy is dumb", it's rather: "Most Fantasy is too irrelevant for the study of Literature to even care".
And yes, I totally mean J. K. Rowling, S. Collins and S. Meyer when I say irrelevant.
The definition of the word Allegory has loosened since when Tolkien first said this and that's what makes this confusion inevitable. Words change meaning over time what Tolkien called Applicability is what people usually mean by Allegory now. So get at what Tolkien meant we have to be more specific and say One To One Allegory or something like that.
Weird I've always perceived King as being much more acedemicly accepted. Bram Stoker might be acedemicly relivent today but when he was published it was as a pulp author with basically no achedemic respect.
It's the internet, Daniel. We don't think around here! (nice video as always brother)
I seem to remember listening an old speech of Tolkien on how the wizards of the world are ruining things for us hobbits, but not to give up hope for the future.
I totally agree with you Daniel about applicability vs allegory. I'm saddened by the number of misconceptions people have about Tolkien.
I think Tolkien was against blood and guts strewn about laneways between buildings. He was against them being “alley gory”.
*backhands*
I think this is the first time I've ever heard the quote in full but I had kind of assumed the rest of the meeting anyway, in that I assumed that what Tolkien was trying to say was that he disliked the idea of authorial intent allegory specifically. to dislike audience interpretation is to dislike creation. I view the game of American football as being 'analogous' to the battles of ww1, the offensive and defensive lines representing the trenches and the (often) slow push back and forth as they try to gain territory and push the enemy back to the 'end zone' or away from the end zone, I really doubt that has any authorial intend that that was what the game was meant to portray in any way but by looking at it through a certain lens you can get an interpretation that supports it.
and that is the nature of creation once it is out of your hands it is inherently other's to interpret as they will, and I think that people drawing meaning and significance from his stories is something he would celebrate
Excellent!
What I still love about that quote is I can basically see CS Lewis replying with. "HA Allegory go brrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr"
what schools include and touch on fantasy titles? my school looks down on it as not an academic genre, obvs not every work has acedemic credit but you know what i mean 😂
Just cause this is your latest video, have you ever read any Kurt Vonnegut?
Good video Daniel! Another piece of evidence which backs up your argument here - in rightly distinguishing between Tolkien's dim view of allegory, versus his positive appraisal of applicability on the part of the reader - is that Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien (RIP), wrote in The Lost Road (HoME 5) p. 57 - 76, that Sauron's corruption of Númenor in the Second Age was inspired by contemporary events happening in Nazi Germany at that time in 1937:
"From Elendil's words at the end of The Lost Road there emerges a sinister picture: the withdrawal of the besotted and aging king [Ar-Pharazon] from the public view, the unexplained disappearance of people unpopular with the 'government', informers, prisons, torture, secrecy, fear of the night; propaganda in the form of the 'rewriting of history' (...); the multiplication of weapons of war, the purpose of which is concealed but guessed at; and behind all the dreadful figure of Sauron, the real power, surveying the whole land from the Mountain of Numenor.
"The teaching of Sauron has led to the invention of ships of metal that traverse the seas without sails, but which are hideous in the eyes of those who have not abandoned or forgotten Tol-Eressea; to the building of grim fortresses and unlovely towers; and to missiles that pass with a noise like thunder to strike their targets many miles away.
"Moreover, Numenor is seen by the young as overpopulous, boring, 'over-known': "every tree and grass-blade is counted", in Herendil's words; and this cause of discontent is used, it seems, by Sauron to further the policy of "imperial" expansion and ambition that he presses on the king.
"When at this time my father reached back to the world of the first man to bear the name "Elf- friend" he found there an image of what he most condemned and feared in his own."
The History of Middle Earth volume 5 - edited by Christopher Tolkien - The Lost Road. 1987. Paperback edition - page 77.
"Two chapters from the final part of the voyage were written in full, the story of Elendil the father and his son Herendil in Númenor whilst Sauron is steadily gaining power on the island and persecuting the Faithful and spurring on the king to act against the Valar.
The description of Elendil’s villa by the sea is enchanting: JRRT wishes to recreate a distant world, perhaps a piece of the Roman Empire where pagan decadence and the first thrilled, untamed Christians meet and struggle grimly. The son does not understand his father’s ideas and wavers between his affection for him and the corrupt seductiveness of Sauron.
The work was written in 1937 and the horrifying totalitarian state of Númenor under Ar-Pharazon which is about to bring war to Tol Eressea (and the rest) drew on contemporary events: the Third Reich and the imminent war in Europe."
- The History of Middle-Earth (12 Volumes), reviewed by Franco Manni-(TV)
He had actually started to write before the world wars happened but he was re writing it he said this on a audiobook of lotr which I have it's very interesting over all and goes over a lot of things I can video the ramblings if you want
Tolkien didn't actually read this he wrote it down Martin Shaw spoke it
I think Tolkien wanted Lord of the Rings to not be just an allegory of real life or his beliefs, but he wanted to be a story of its own too. You can like LotR a lot, but not have to know about Tolkien's life and beliefs, because at it's core is an incredible story, with an amazing world and great characters. Of course, when you know about the history of Tolkien it is clear that there were inspiration of his life, consciously or subconsciously (not unconsciously Daniel 5:10) and that gives his works extra depth and make them even more interesting.