👑King Arthur: the once and future king, and Tolkien

[Rivendell_librarian]

Tolkien would have been well versed in Arthurian mythology: even reusing the place name Avalon. Some have noted the similarity between Merlin/Arthur and Gandalf/Frodo. In letter 154 (in the older book of the letters: first edition 1981, mine is 2006) Tolkien refers to the return of Arthur as an "impossibility", "a vain imagining" since mortals (Frodo, Bilbo, Sam, Gimli) will in the end die "of free - will and leave the world".

So there seems to be no equivalent of the promise of the return of King Arthur to make Albion great again, so to speak. Is this because Tolkien was someone who could look death in the eye rather than try to ignore it as seems to be the case now e.g. "passed" rather than "died"! (so annoying).

 

[Ent]

Or is it because Tolkien bowed to the inevitable modern technological world which he wasn't too keen on?

Ent here must summon a quote by Milne, and beg clarification.

The quote: "“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

The clarification begged: pondering, Ent isn't catching the connection between Tolkien's ability to 'look death in the eye', and a concept that he 'bowed to the technological world' - with relation to a discussion of the promise of the return of a king to 'make things right again.'

In no place yet has Ent found Tolkien ever intimate a 'bow' was within him to the technological world... nor have his (known published) writings pointed in that direction.
And the issue of death is well seated in his own fundamental life and theology, and infused in the foundations laid of his works.

His only intimation toward a 'return' is at the end of all, Eru will return and renew everything as it was originally intended to be. (Also completely consistent with his foundational theology.)

Ent is not surprised he would reject the return of Arthur as both impossible and a vain imagining... totally inconsistent with all his own bent and intent.
His effort was to create a 'believable lore', not one ultimately found on and based in that which simply cannot be.
Of course, that didn't prevent him from inserting 'impluaisibilities' within his text such as Elves being sent back, etc.
But for him, dead is dead.

Ent can't sink his chips into what the post is getting at. Perhaps he just needs more background.
Is letter 154 not in the newer book? Or under a different number? Perhaps putting the comments in full context will help Ent get his branches around what's in view with your post.

 

[Duguay]

I also feel like Gandalf is influenced by the archetype of Merlin, although I recently came across a notation in an annotated (either The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Rings Reader's Guide) that Tolkien was thinking more along the lines of wandering one-eyed Odin, disguised in a cloak and hat...which really quite surprised me. I didn't follow through and check the source of that particular annotation, but since it's still a new way of thinking about Gandalf, I've spent the past couple weeks mulling it over.

Without meaning to sound too critical of JRR Tolkien; I kind of feel like he missed a trick there, with King Arthur. In my own explorations of Arthurian literature, it seems to me that aspects of the overall story, combined with a less strict academic fussiness about creativity during the centuries that the Arthurian legends developed has given Arthuriana a lot of life. By that I mean, they didn't conceptualize plagiary the way we do, so many literary artists would take materials and translate them, but re-work them with their own spin, add new characters, change the family trees around, ect. This has lead to many iterations of the overall King Arthur story.

The trick that Tolkien may have missed is that Arthur does keep coming back, in spirit. Over and over again. He comes back in the next iteration of the the legends. Geoffrey of Monmouth did his influential outline, then Chretian de Troyes zoomed in on individual knights adventures and helped bring emphasis to Launcelot and Percival as important players, then Robert de Boron zoomed out again; then French Vulgate and post-Vugate re-told it starting with an emphasis on Launcelot, which Sir Thomas Malory then translated and gave his own spin and emphasis.

At some point one of these authors came up with the idea that Arthur was injured, possibly fatally but possibly not...so he goes to Avalon, where he is mystically healed; but not without transforming into a different form. One of the themes is how the Kings and the land are one; injure the king and the land becomes a wasteland. Easy jump to hand-wave that and imagine that when Arthur is injured; it is the death and end of reading/experiencing that version of the Arthurian legend (the land Arthur rules over is contained within the book you read). But readers followed the Grail quest (in some versions) which brings renewal and change, like life. And so a reader can choose to embrace the renewal that comes with change, and read a different version of the King Arthur story. The Grail and Avalon are the change threshold, the question to readers: Arthur can come back, but not unchanged: do you want to see the changed version of Arthur, and how his realm (the next work of literature) has changed in tandem with the healing transformation he had to undergo?

I kind of feel like Tolkien's own works can be approached that way, if people would allow for it. If people would let the Legendarium be able to breath as a wellspring of inspiration. Glance past the fragmentary parts; surely a willing mind can fill in the gaps? Or maybe those gaps can be filled in by an earlier or subsequent draft that Tolkien wrote, when he re-worked a given story? I'm sure roleplaying game Gamemasters have done a little bit of that. But other authors and television writers and movie producers can never hope to adapt Tolkien's work, right? Of course; in the same way that those earlier Arthurian writer...I mean, how dare the French introduce Launcelot to Arthur's marital life. And how the later writers add that usurping Grail knight, Galahad, to upstage Percival?! No one will ever be able to do justice to Tolkien, ever ever; just like those presumptuous Medieval writers of King Arthur (to say nothing of upstarts like TH White)!

Tolkien does write broadly about the passing of ages, and how major parts of the story of an age are setting up the people who will bring renewal. Beren and Luthian are the beginning of a high and noble dynasty. The Numenorean faithful are able to establish a vast kingdom in Middle-earth after Sauron's defeat. Aragorn and Arwen echo the relationship between Beren and Luthian, and they are the foundation of a potentially great new dynasty. The Fourth Age starts with great promise, even though the Elves fade and diminish from the realm. There is a sense of progression and renewal from the Second Age ("A Dark Age for men in Middle-earth") to a promising start at the beginning of the Fourth Age.

Tolkien is said to not like allegory, I guess maybe because it's too on the nose? Maybe that's why it's too much for him that King Arthur just returns in re-tellings? Aragorn and Arwen's story echoes Beren and Luthian; but it's not the same. The two stories are similar, but different, and the characters are different, so it's not as on-the-nose?

Just some rambling thoughts I had, I don't know if they make any sense though.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Duguay,

That's an interesting thought about Arthur coming back in the many different versions of the legend. I believe the author who first conceived the idea of a wounded Arthur recovering on Avalon was Geoffrey of Monmouth.

 

[Ent]

You seem to be cleverly suggesting I am "of little brain".

What Ent is saying, is HE is of 'little brain'. Therefore, can't get a handle on the thrust of your post. Please forgive if it came across in the reverse of its intent.

 

[HALETH✒🗡]

As for Tolkien's concept of death, I think he "could look death in the eye rather than try to ignore it" precisely because he hoped to live in Paradise after death, to come to a place which is a lot better than our world. It's only natural, therefore, that death is called The Gift of Men in The Silmarillion and that mortal men are considered more lucky than immortal elves in this respect. It goes without saying that this is the Christian point of view.
By contrast, Arthurian legends were probably influenced by dual faith and combined both the Christian outlook and the pagan one because their roots can be dated back to the time of Celtic mythology. Maybe Tolkien didn't entirely agree with the Celtic view of death for this reason.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

In a letter replying to someone criticizing "non-Christian" elements in LOTR, he acknowledged that the "Gift of Men" was one of them.

 

[HALETH✒🗡]

In a letter replying to someone criticizing "non-Christian" elements in LOTR, he acknowledged that the "Gift of Men" was one of them.

Why is the Gift of Men non-Christian?

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

You're going to make me look it up, aren't you? 😄

I don't have time at the moment, but will try to do so and get back with it. I'd prefer to give a quote, rather than get into a sticky subject, so for now will say only that "traditionally ", death is a curse.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

The letter I was thinking of is No. 153, an unsent draft, intended as a reply to one from Peter Hastings, owner of a Catholic bookshop in Oxford, questioning several elements in LOTR, especially Elvish reincarnation, as "overstepping the bounds of a writer's job". The letter is interesting for a number of reasons, including Tolkien's ideas on what a "writer's job" is, but to the point I made above, I'll quote only a footnote he appended:

Since 'mortality' is thus represented as a special gift of God to the Second Race of the Children (the Eruhini, the Children of the One God) and not a punishment for a Fall, you may call that 'bad theology". So it may be, in the primary world, but it is an imagination capable of elucidating truth, and a legitimate basis of legends.

I should add that in other writings he states, or at least implies, that the Elves were the source of the term "Gift of Men".

Apologies to Rivendell_librarian for going a bit off topic; to make amends, and get back on track, here's a quote concering Arthurian material, from Letter 131, where he talks about lamenting the lack of a purely "English" mythology:

Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. For one thing its 'faerie' is too lavish, and fantastic, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion.

For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary 'real' world.

 

[Ent]

a quote about Arthurian material, from Letter 131, where he talks about about lamenting the lack of a purely "English" mythology:

The quote following this, above, is an incredibly important bit of information, and a big reason so many fail to understand the 'why' of Tolkien's work...erring on one side or the other of his intent with... shal Ent say... 'flavors' of religions content.

We tend to be "people of the bulkheads*, swinging on our pendulums slamming up against one or the other, never able see, much less settle into, the vast area existing between.

Tolkien on the other hand had no such problem.

--- *bulkheads... Walls. Generally referring to those on a ship.

Going back to @HALETH✒🗡 however:

Why is the Gift of Men non-Christian?

From one perspective it's very Christian, as Tolkien clearly understood "It is appointed to men to die once, and after this the judgment. ..." (Heb. 9:27). Tolkien's men do not have the opportunity to be 'sent back' as do Elves, etc.

From another perspective Tolkien's creation diverges significantly from the Christian view, which we won't go into here.

This matches exactly his statements shared by SeS above from letter 131.

 

[HALETH✒🗡]

My heartfelt thanks to @Squint-eyed Southerner and @Ent for the explanation. I think I see your point.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

That's an interesting point about Tolkien and his view of the Arthurian legend being "involved in" and "explicitly containing the Christian religion". Maybe this was why Tolkien avoided a return of Frodo (and others) from their Avalon (with its similarity to Jesus' resurrection). Note that this is mere speculation on my part, as in the OP.

I don't think this means Tolkien did not have a high regard for the Arthurian legend. In fact I've read somewhere that Tolkien and Lewis discussed Le Morte d'Arthur at their last ever meeting.

 

[Olorgando]

... just like those presumptuous Medieval writers of King Arthur (to say nothing of upstarts like TH White)!

I don't think this means Tolkien did not have a high regard for the Arthurian legend. In fact I've read somewhere that Tolkien and Lewis discussed Le Morte d'Arthur at their last ever meeting.

These two posts made me think of C.S. Lewis's 1945 That Hideous Strength, third and last book of what has been called his "Cosmic Trilogy", in which Merlin reappears. Arthur does not, but the hero Elwin Ransom (a philologist!) of the first two books is now more of a grey eminence somewhat in the background, and has succeeded to the title of "the Pendragon". Lewis also chucks in the Graeco-Roman pantheon (here called collectively Oyéresu, singular Oyarsa), the guardians of the planets of our solar system; earth got a raw deal, we were stuck with the baddie ...
Merlin also has memories of, or at least memories of legends (histories?) about a place called "Numinor and the True West" - misspelling that to JRRT fans well-known name as JRRT had read something of his "Silmarillion" writings to the Inklings.
The resolution has some echoes for me of the Valar's assault on Morgoth - except that earth's evil Oyarsa is rather on the power scale of the later Sauron relative to the others. And of the "Arthuriana" only Merlin actually appears - and bears very little resemblance with Gandalf.
I vaguely remember one comment JRRT had about That Hideous Strength, that it was good enough by itself, but bore little relation to its two predecessors in the trilogy. Another comment may have been less favorable ...

 

[Deimos]

These two posts made me think of C.S. Lewis's 1945 That Hideous Strength, third and last book of what has been called his "Cosmic Trilogy", in which Merlin reappears. Arthur does not, but the hero Elwin Ransom (a philologist!) of the first two books is now more of a grey eminence somewhat in the background, and has succeeded to the title of "the Pendragon". Lewis also chucks in the Graeco-Roman pantheon (here called collectively Oyéresu, singular Oyarsa), the guardians of the planets of our solar system; earth got a raw deal, we were stuck with the baddie ...
Merlin also has memories of, or at least memories of legends (histories?) about a place called "Numinor and the True West" - misspelling that to JRRT fans well-known name as JRRT had read something of his "Silmarillion" writings to the Inklings.
The resolution has some echoes for me of the Valar's assault on Morgoth - except that earth's evil Oyarsa is rather on the power scale of the later Sauron relative to the others. And of the "Arthuriana" only Merlin actually appears - and bears very little resemblance with Gandalf.
I vaguely remember one comment JRRT had about That Hideous Strength, that it was good enough by itself, but bore little relation to its two predecessors in the trilogy. Another comment may have been less favorable ...

Also if you recall Ransom, like Frodo, is permanently wounded and leaves this realm with the Lewis-ian "maiar"
And similarly, as in the case of Frodo, a return is not in any way intimated.

 

[Olorgando]

Also if you recall Ransom, like Frodo, is permanently wounded and leaves this realm with the Lewis-ian "maiar"
And similarly, as in the case of Frodo, a return is not in any way intimated.

I recall the wound, yes, but not Ransom leaving.
I must confess I only read the book cover-to-cover once (I have a fat single-volume 1990 Pan paperback with all three novels in it), and skipped the parts that reminded me of my bête noire in all media, the abominable soap opera or telenovela 🤢🤮 , in a re-reading.

 

[Aldarion]

So there seems to be no equivalent of the promise of the return of King Arthur to make Albion great again, so to speak. Is this because Tolkien was someone who could look death in the eye rather than try to ignore it as seems to be the case now e.g. "passed" rather than "died"! (so annoying).

I don't think "passed" is trying to ignore death. In Croatia, old folks used to say that somebody has "fallen asleep" (usnuo) - which is rooted in Christianity and belief in life after death. So when somebody "passes", that literally means "passing into afterlife".