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| Nick: |
Modtheow (Registered User) |
| Date/Time: |
Sun, 11/21/2004 at 11:35 EDT (Sun, 11/21/2004 at 12:35 ADT) |
| Browser/OS: |
Mozilla Browser V5.0-rv:1.7.5 (11/07/2004 build) using Windows 98 |
| In Reply To: |
What of his love of myth <Curious> [11/19/2004 @ 15:23] (1/17)
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| Subject: |
philology is his ruling passion |
Message: |
There, I said it. I may seem reluctant to say it because I don't like
proclaiming that I know what's in an author's mind, but going by the evidence
of his work and what Tolkien has said himself, I'm willing to claim that one
can see philology as the passion that is at the basis of all the others.
Tolkien's love of words and their histories is his love of myth or
Faerie -- the word leads to the story, which is the myth, the stuff of
Faerie. Thinking that he might write a myth for England is just an
extension of his love of myth. His desire to entertain by creating a
Secondary World is part of his joy at seeing what subcreation (through words
and their stories) can do. Integral to the love of philology is a love of
history -- philology involves discovering the history of words and their
stories. His experiences in World War One are expressed through his love
of words and their stories -- through myth and the world of Faerie. And
Tolkien's understanding of philology -- what the word can reveal -- is
fundamentally a Christian view, as I argue in one of my earlier posts.
I'll say again that I don't think that philology has to be the way in to an
understanding of Tolkien. I've been known to argue that World War One was
crucial to understanding LotR, for example. But, in my opinion, taking
that approach to Tolkien (that the war was his ruling passion), you will have
to arrive at the idea, ultimately, that philology provided the foundation for
how he chose to express himself about those
experiences.
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