The Downfall of the Lore of the Rings
© Michael Martinez
Some months ago, a teacher of English Literature wrote to gently chastize me for not exercising my considerable judgement in seeking the finer aspects of Tolkien's works. I.e., I'm wasting my talents because I'm not examining the symbolism and deeper meaning of Tolkien's works, which is of course where serious scholarship devotes its resources. Well, the compliments were (and are) indeed appreciated but the advice was not well received.
Not that I have ever called myself a scholar, but I have a real problem with Tolkien scholarship. I find it to be immensely boring and usually not very relevant to Tolkien. Tolkien scholarship takes three forms: literary criticism, linguistic analysis, and textual analysis. Literary criticism is pretentious and arrogant, and as everyone knows, I'm neither pretentious nor arrogant, so I'm hardly suited to the task. Worse, I'm totally dedicated to the literal interpretation of works so my opinions are hardly going to shed light on the deeper meanings of things.
Linguistic analysis is more of a delicate art than a science. Perhaps, though, we should call it linguistic extrusion. An attempt is underway to construct the dialects of the Tatyarin Avari, just as David Salo earlier this year constructed a dialect of Silvan Elvish. Perhaps because he is David Salo no one dared cry "Foul!" Or perhaps because the dialect was published in Other Hands few people were even aware of it. Either way, I get into trouble just trying to figure out how to pronounce "Silmarillion" so I'm hardly suited for linguistic analysis.
Textual analysis is the sort of thing I associate with translating ancient works into modern languages. It's a sad statement on our educational system, I think, that we cannot agree on the uses of simile and metaphor. I wonder if that's due to the conflict between transformational grammarians and traditionalists, or if it's because most students are too busy doodling in their notebooks to pay attention in class. When I took Advanced Grammmar in college, Dr. Bergeron explained the purpose of the course on the first day of class. Most of my classmates were future teachers. They all literally breathed sighs of relief when the professor got to the part where he said, "You know all those fancy words we use? Gerunds, adverbials, participles? This is the class where you finally learn what they mean and how to use them."
My Advanced Composition class made all those five-hundred word themes in the early classes seem like "mere essays in the craft". Hm. I suppose they were. One of my advanced compositions took on the meaning of "truth". What is truth? I had to use a lot of simile and metaphor to try and make my point. Dr. Barrier, my instructor, liked the effort but it was probably as clear to him as to me. That is, neither of us could really figure out what the "truth" was, and he was fortunately not saddled with teaching me Philosophy (I avoided Philosophy as I was getting so much of it from my fellow students after class anyway).
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