tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post3286312798395075704..comments2024-03-28T13:10:04.655+00:00Comments on The Notion Club Papers - an Inklings blog: Tolkien, philology and theologyBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-27625932877127391892012-06-03T05:46:27.392+01:002012-06-03T05:46:27.392+01:00@Troels - There is also Tree and Leaf, which is co...@Troels - There is also Tree and Leaf, which is concerned with this matter. Perhaps it was only after The Hobbit was published and successful that he became actively concerned about the possible effect of his writings in relation to Christianity?Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-17378645234659199282012-06-02T23:22:29.965+01:002012-06-02T23:22:29.965+01:00I think that Tolkien's concern with his legend...I think that Tolkien's concern with his legendarium being in concert with Roman Catholic thought was something that, like so many other aspects of his sub-creational work, evolved over time. <br /><br />In <i>The Book of Lost Tales</i> there is very little hint of such concerns, but we can follow them grow as the mythology evolved. There's a little nodding towards the end of <i>The Hobbit</i> and in <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> we have his own word that he only became conscious of this in the revision. <br /><br />After he had finished <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> this consciousness appears to have stayed with him, and we see some of his deepest reflections on the matter in some of the works in <i>Morgoth's Ring</i> including the <i>Athrabeth</i> and Myths Transformed. <br /><br />These texts, representing, as Christopher Tolkien put it in the foreword to <i>The Silmarillion</i>, ‘the vehicle and depository of his profoundest reflections,’ and they are highly illuminating of Tolkien's deeply held beliefs, though we should also recall Christopher Tolkien's continuation: ‘In his later writing mythology and poetry sank down behind his theological and philosophical preoccupations: from which arose incompatibilities of tone.’ <br /><br />I think that a work such as <i>Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth</i> is highly interesting — in many ways a more profound work that most of the earlier (pre-<i>LotR</i>) mythology, but also a text that works less well as mythology because of this — in the <i>Athrabeth</i> Tolkien addresses questions philosophically rather than mythologically, and I am not sure that these two approaches mix at all, and I certainly do not think that they mix well in this case.Troelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07515711722551393026noreply@blogger.com