Dear My Future Self

Dear,
My Future Self

You opened up a really interesting topic, with your video describing the Lord of the Rings. Whether J. R. R. Tolkien had constructed the narrative with this in mind.

I'd say yes... Tolkien was trying to basically create a mythology for England---as you said---one like Ovid or Homer's Masterpieces, or the Irish, Welsh or Scotish folklore. Tolkien wrote a lot about myth, believing there should be mythology to supplement the real world. That myths could contain in them important knowledge.

So, what you're getting at, Tolkien would probably say the retellings of Frodo and Bilbo are more important than the actual historical events themselves, because they fit the formal ideation, and therefore, theme and moral can be extracted from them.

Tolkien was writing a mythology---it was fiction---and he wasn't deluded to believe his Myth was actually English. He created the books because he was frustrated that all of England's mythology was basically borrowed from other cultures. Beowulf is Danish, and Arthur is basically a retelling of Charlemanian mythology. But the primary point of Tolkien's was to highlight the importance of fiction, and very real benefit of having it as a supplement to reality.

Tolkien was not talking about the Bible. I don't think his beliefs were that the Bible was fiction, as he was a devote Catholic. And the correct way to view Middle Earth is to understand that the story is, in its formal elements, constructed in a way to communicate what was true from the myths. That Aragorn needed to be a paragon for a king, so other kings could model themselves off of him.

It gets to the point, where probably what Tolkien wanted the reader to come to, was that the pedantic scholarship was basically unimportant when compared to the overreaching structure and story of the Lord of the Rings. It was his life's work to validate myth, and the fact remains that it is his retelling. In effect, Tolkien was Illuvitar, thus, what he wrote was the canon and actual accounts of the events. It's interesting to think that Tolkien made himself into the god of Middle Earth, so the real analogy to take is that it's moot what the scholars he invents create. They are, in actuality, his inventions too. What's important is that Illuvitar left the Lord of the Rings for people to study. And the formal elements were the most important aspects of the story. The symmetry and the knowledge.

Which gets into a person like me's field, where I study literature. The point of which, that what the canon of the literature is---as some novels like War and Peace have an actual canon, and some passages are omitted from the work---that the author wrote it, and intended the work to be read like that. Meaning, it was necessary for the story to be constructed in that way---as intended by the author---and therefore presented in that form.
It's important to understand this when approaching literary studies. That the moral of Tolkien's was not to get bogged down in the meta scholarship, but to rest in the fact that Tolkien wrote the work, therefore, since Tolkien wrote it, it is the literal events. Because Tolkien was Illuvitar, and the canon he presented, while working through Bilbo, Frodo and Gandalf, was the canon set forth and given to the folk of Middle Earth.

Which, was an apologetical argument in defense of the Bible, that it was really moot what the scholarship entailed, but rather that God Himself had written the work, and intended it to be read in the form it is. Using agents like the Prophets, whom he divinely controlled.

 And if you think about it, we are a lot like the thoughts of God, so it's not that far fetched, and I think that was what Tolkien was aiming to display. That he wrote it, it's his characters, so it's written exactly as its intended and miraculously at that. It's what his Middle Earth people need, and was given by Illuivitar. And the scholarship, at that point, is moot. Because Tolkien knew he wasn't God, but he wanted his Lord of the Rings to be a supplemental mythology for the English people. The Lord of the Rings isn't Metamorphoses, as Tolkien is not writing within the framework that the mythology is true. Only that it's a supplemental way of understanding the world, which is what all fiction is. Tolkien loved all mythology and all literature. To him, a story was more important because it had a Formal Element which could teach you higher laws and greater truths. Which, would be probably what he'd say about his Lord of the Rings, too, is that the Red Book is like the Bible, and Iluvatar preserved it for Middle Earth in its the most beneficial form it could be rendered.