The Mythical status of Tolkien's Works

[Eldacar]

"I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished chap-book stuff. 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 fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion." (Letter 131 to Milton Waldmann)

There were a whole host of reasons for Tolkien to begin to write his tales, but a very central theme, as illustrated by this quote above, was the making of a Myth that is entirely bound up with the land of England and its language. Now, more than a century after he first started working on it, the Lord of the Rings is one of the most sold novels of all time and I don't have to lecture you on the ways Tolkien and his works are an enormous success, as there is a reason we're all here. However, though it might have achieved overwhelming literary success, I would dispute the claim that it succeeded in becoming the, or at the least an English myth that has an at least comparative standing to Beowulf, the Edda, the Nibelungenlied or the Kalevala in other countries. The content of the Lord of the Rings is probably generally more well known to the average modern day Englishman than the Beowulf epic, but from my personal perceivings, it is - apart from small minorities like I would guess this Forum constitutes - still treated as a fantasy novel and a fairy story in essence not much different from Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland, apart from being more complex or more well versed. Tolkien's Tales feature every notable aspect of Mythos, apart from being treated as such by the people to whom it is supposed to belong.

In that regard, one might argue against that Beowulf is only treated as true myth by some literary scholars and that it is of less relevance to the English people than Tolkien's Works and that the only thing that stands between the acceptance of a story like Lord of the Rings into the same rank as Beowulf as true myth or legend, is the age of the latter. Implying that given maybe another 200 years, the same story with by then probably even less importance to the populace could be old enough to be considered a classic and achieving the status of myth.

I would like to ask you, to what extent you think Tolkien succeeded in producing a myth for England, if at all, and why so. Maybe there is someone with some more knowledge on the literary history and science of myths and Legend that could elaborate why we consider some tales myths and others not.

 

[Eldacar]

I stumbled upon the Article Mythos to Myth to Mythopoeia written by Ashna Mary Jacob. In this, she shows, that myth making is a cyclical process, which begins with the Mythopoeia. This term was tied to - even though only named like this in a poem - the concept of subcreating a secondary world, as elaborated by Tolkien in his Essay On Fairy Stories (1939). Mythopoeia or simply Fantasy can become mythos, which, when rendered irrelevant to the people it belongs to, is then called myth.

"When an author creates mythopoeia from myth, he does so because myths no longer serve their purpose. Once the mythopoeia is produced, the author and his readers can engage with it in a “willing suspension of disbelief” (Coleridge 208). If the audience or a community were to internalize the mythopoeia, the mythopoeia can transition into mythos. The extant or extinct myth may be replaced with mythopoeia or the mythopoeic version may become the accepted version. It is at this juncture that the mythopoeia transitions into mythos."

By this logic, for the Lord of the Rings or the entirety of Tolkien's Works to become myth it would first need to become mythos and then become irrelevant again, which mimics my argument about a literary waiting period in the post above. As it hasn't become as irrelevant to the society yet as myths like Beowulf already did, it surely cannot have yet become myth.

However, there was an important distinction made by the author between Mythos and Myth that is essential to the explanation. Tolkien seemingly didn't subscribe to the same level of nuance, and I couldn't make out any collective usage of the word myth in his letters that coincides with Jacob's categories of myth and mythos. He uses myth exclusively, and doesn't seem to concern himself with the relevance of story, to classify something as such. It seems to be more about how literally a story is to be taken and what kind of elements and structures it features. He speaks about the concept of fallen angels as a part of christian myth, which he as a devout Christian would not have said as meaning something untrue or irrelevant, I believe. But it is also used as something that is untrue, at least to the word, when he says "[...] I do not now feel either ashamed or dubious on the Eden ‘myth'." This usage in addition with his usage of myth for ancient civilizations touches on both of Jacob's categories.

Now I think, that I don't precisely know what Tolkien meant when he said, that he wanted an English myth and how and if that even relates to any public perception. What did he mean when he wrote about a myth?

 

[Eldacar]

I've found a 2009 reprint of the 1978 original here. It was an interesting read, but I can't make out the purpose of this except for venting and ranting. He isn't really analysing or criticising Tolkien's way of writing, even though I suppose he would object to that statement, but is instead critical of the general notion, books like Tolkien's give off as a form of naive and childish escapism. Two quotes stuck with me.

"The great epics dignified death, but they did not ignore it, and it is one of the reasons why they are superior to the artificial romances, of which The Lord of the Rings is merely one of the most recent. Since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, at least, people have been yearning for an ideal rural world they believe to have vanished — yearning for a mythical state of innocence (as Morris did) as heartily as the Israelites yearned for the Garden of Eden. This refusal to face or derive any pleasure from the realities of urban industrial life, this longing to possess, again, the infant’s eye view of the countryside, is a fundamental theme in popular English literature.
[...]
children’s books are, after all, primarily written by conservative adults anxious to maintain an unreal attitude to childhood"

This seems, to be directed at both author and reader of the Lord of the Rings. I am not supporting the argument, that Tolkien wrote a piece of naive childish escapism, but there are significant parts of the fandom to whom this view of the story is the ideal reading of it. I had to think of a meme, I saw a while back on Reddit and which garnered significant support, judging by well over 30k Upvotes in a Subreddit where 10-15k is average for the top performing posts of the day or week.

I think it encapsulates the essence of Moorcocks criticism of the average Tolkien reader very well. A sort of Disney adult yearning for a fairytale world akin to a Cockaigne. I would say, to form this opinion, his reading of LotR was just as shallow as that of the readers he is so thoroughly criticizing. Nonetheless, he is right in pointing out that such a reading is reality and popular and I would guess today it is much more prevalent than before thanks to the Jackson Trilogy that cemented a visual interpretation along these lines that is now even further inflated by nostalgia. With the story in its entirety left unread as you put it @Ciderwell

To turn back to the question of the mythical status of Tolkien's Work, this escapist reading could border on what Jacobs called internalization, that would transform mythopoeia to mythos - or as Tolkien made no seemingly clear distinction - myth. The story has been co-opted by various groups in widely different interpretation that somehow still latch onto the same shallow reading. Both the Hippie movement of the 60s and todays far/alt right both evoke a picture of the shire as an "[...] ideal rural world they believe to have vanished." albeit for very different reasons.

Judging by this, there seems to be a version of Tolkien's Works that achieved a status of myth, even though it is a version that has regressed into an uninspired and simplistic form that was never originally intended or written this way. That answer is not really enjoyable.