Tolkien and Modern English Literary Studies

I just finished Joseph Pearce's book Tolkien: Man and Myth. It's the first examination of Tolkien from a Catholic perspective that I've read (though I also own Peter Kreeft's book, The Philosophy of Tolkien, which I am looking forward to reading) and so the first time I have seen segments of Tolkien's explicitly Catholic letters. I am astounded again by the depth of the man and the depth of his Catholic Faith.

I own a book of essays about Tolkien written by contemporary fantasy authors. While every one of the authors has a positive reaction to Tolkien's work, I was left scratching my head at their personal takes on both the man and his work. Most of all, I was astonished at the attitude that most of the authors held of Tolkien as something useful to get them hooked on fantasy or instill the desire to write, but hardly the final word — in fact, rather a juvenile stage in the development of one's tastes. If they could ever objectively compare their own shallow works to Tolkien's great work they might wake up. Their own books tread the same ground, using the archetypes that he explored, even the very creatures he created, in intensely derivatives ways, copying everything but what matters most: the wisdom that suffuses The Lord of the Rings. They believe themselves to be beyond Tolkien when in fact they lack the morality, wisdom, education, or sheer intelligence of the good professor. By their refusal to accept the philosophical underpinnings of Tolkien's work they miss the point of it entirely. Perhaps the worst example of such shallow appreciation of Tolkien is found in the recent films, which are marred by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Phillipa Boyens' mind-numbing ignorance of the thematic core of the work they were adapting for the screen.

The point of The Lord of the Rings is to express Truth through myth. Tolkien stated that his own nature "expresses itself about things deepest felt in tales and myths." Pearce gives as a poignant example Tolkien's decision to put the word "Lúthien" on his wife's tombstone. Pearce tells us that "the only way to get at the truth of his love for his wife was to enter in the myth of Beren and Lúthien which, essentially inspired by that love, was itself the most powerful and poignant expression of it. Truth and myth were intertwined to make 'one body' just as he and Edith had in some mystical and mythical sense become 'one body' in Christian marriage."

The purpose of The Lord of the Rings is not just to tell a story of adventure in a different world populated by strange creatures — such stories are a dime a dozen now — but to use the story as a means of getting at the universal Truth that underlies the world. It is precisely this quality that most other fantasy lacks. I wonder what Tolkien would have thought of the wave of trashback fantasy and poor imitation which his masterwork inspired? It is perhaps because they cannot distinguish between the masterful original and the poor copies that academia fails to appreciate Tolkien, dismissing him as "juvenile" and "escapist." Or perhaps it is because the point of his work — getting at Truth — is at odds with the spirit of modern literary criticism.

For a period of time in college I fancied myself an English major. I have always enjoyed writing and my teachers told me I was good at it, and since I was going to shoot for a liberal arts degree English seemed the right fit. But I eventually switched to history, primarily because I hated every single English class I took at college and could not stomach the idea of more classes, much less of writing a senior paper under the eyes of such silly teachers.

The study of English literature is, alas, no longer a valid academic discipline. The typical method of practicing it today runs as follows. A student or professor decides to analyze a great (or not so great) work of literature. He or she begins by dismissing what the author believed the work to mean — it's only the author's own idea, and no more valid than any other idea. In fact, it is probably less valid, since we all know that the author is probably hiding something, either from the world or, more often, from himself. The analyst then proceeds to psycho-analyze the work, paying particular attention to any hidden or repressed urges or motives than can possibly be read into it. A wealth of supporting "evidence" is provided from the text, and in the final analysis the author's own words are used to explain a fact about the author and his message that he would have been very surprised to hear. If this process of analysis is performed in a classroom, the result will be many such analyses, all different . . . but all considered equally valid. Thus the author of the work can be at one and the same time writing about fascism, feminism, sexuality, homosexuality, homicide, the apocalypse, nihilism, racism, misogyny, and the urge to kill himself (and no wonder, if all that is going in his head at once!).

Subjectivism, anyone?

To give an example: one teacher asked us to analyze "The Lady of Shallot." She gave us several examples of what it could mean, before telling us, "Tennyson said it was about the relationship of the artist to the world, but that's just his opinion." Apparently the author does not have the right to determine meaning of his own work. I wonder how she would have reacted if someone had interpreted her lectures to mean other than what she meant by them?

For an even crazier example, a feminist named Brenda Partridge analyzed The Lord of the Rings in an article called "No Sex Please — We're Hobbits: The Construction of Female Sexuality in The Lord of the Rings. I would like to say that the article is as bad as it sounds, but it's not: it's worse. It is so completely over-the-top that at first it seems like a pastiche, poking fun at typical feminist readings of literature. But it is completely serious, and I dare say Ms. Partridge thinks it quite scholarly. I would love to quote the more ludicrous bits for you, but they are far too explicit to post here. Suffice it to say that what Ms. Partridge thinks that Tolkien's religious symbolism is simply a cover for sexual symbolism: "In The Lord of the Rings sexual implications are shrouded in religious symbolism . . . Tolkien interprets myth in such a way as to reveal his inner fear or abhorrence of female sexuality, but his attitude is reinforced by the prejudices inherent in religious symbolism itself." Joseph Pearce quotes a section of the article in which Ms. Patridge analyzes the battle between Shelob and the hobbits in a way which is at once nauseatingly graphic and hilariously over-the-top, written in the patronizing tone of someone pointing out to someone else a fault they weren't aware they had. (What is really funny is the detail of Ms. Partridge's theory. Every object, word, movement, and aspect of the setting represents something sexual. And she concludes that Tolkien is obsessed with sex!)

The primary reason for the utter collapse of the study of English literature is, I believe, related to the collapse in the arts, brought about when originality became more important than truth. Now originality is highly prized both in the creation of literature and in its interpretation. If it isn't new, they don't want to hear about it. Ironically, this means that the same errors are repeated again and again and again. I fail to see the originality of every poem being interpreted through the lens of suppressed homosexual urges, for instance.

When I studied poetry in college I could not understand it at all. It seemed to me to be nothing more than a bunch of silly people saying dumb things in as complicated a way as possible, so that more silly people could debate about its meaning in stuffy classrooms. It didn't help that the poetry we studied was modern rot. My English 101 teacher's favorite piece of poetry was a free verse "poem" from the 1970s about what the refrigerator looks like through a hangover. (I assure you, he was not joking.)

Then we read Wordsworth's "Tinturn Abbey," and suddenly I got it. I saw in the "beauteous forms" spoken of in the poem the very purpose of poetry itself. Wordsworth's effort to recapture or experience again the joys of Tinturn Abbey were parallel to his poetic efforts. Both are aimed at what C.S. Lewis calls "Joy:" the longing of the earthly exile for his true home. Poetry, like all art, is about capturing the highest of realities and distilling them into a more concrete form than we encounter them in life. It is about heightening our awareness of the universals. It is about seeing past these ever-shifting earthly shapes to find the eternal Forms beyond. It is about looking out from the shores of our earthly exile and catching a glimpse of a far distant country, the green shores of our homeland.

That is why poetry cannot be treated subjectively. It is also why modern poetry, which is designed to be read subjectively, is not poetry at all. Poetry itself is not subjective. The appreciation of it is. The experience of it is. But at the core, it is concerned with Truth: ultimate, pure, and unchanging. If it isn't, it's not poetry. (The same could be said about any art form, by the way. Atonality is not music, and abstract expressionism is not art. I'm sorry, but there it is.)

The same, of course, goes for prose works, particularly Tolkien's rich myths. Tolkien shared Lewis' idea of the earthly exile (a better statement would be to say that they both shared the inherent Christian and indeed Catholic idea of the earthly exile). Tolkien particularly believed that the eucatastrophe, the sudden happy ending against all odds, was the greatest expression of Joy. He wrote, "The peculiar quality of the 'joy' in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as the sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a 'consolation' for the sorrows of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, 'Is it true?' . . . in the 'eucatastrophe' we see a brief vision . . . a far off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world."

In The Lord of the Rings Tolkien presents a story whose core is universal, unchanging Truth, captured and expressed through myth. The depth of the man and his love of Catholicism provide depth to the work. Judged on any level, The Lord of the Rings is a true masterpiece.