Questions for Reflections and Discussion: Rivendell (Sept. 16, 18, 23)
FOTR I, 8-12; II, 1-2.
1. What does the line in Bombadil’s song, “till the world is mended”, say about Tolkien’s world?
2. Did Frodo fail by putting on the Ring on Weathertop (p. 261)? Was the resistance really unbearable, as the narrator (Frodo?) tells us?
3. Why was the name of Elbereth more deadly to the Ringwraith than the stroke of Frodo’s sword (p. 265)? What does this indicate about the relationship between language and reality?
4. Might Frodo have really become a “wraith under the dominion of the Dark Lord”, as Gandalf says (p. 293)? What then would have happened to the Ring, to Middle-Earth?
5. The story of Earandil was one of the first to be written by Tolkien (see Bilbo’s song, pp. 308-311). How does Earendil exemplify the central features of Tolkien’s work? What parallels and differences are there between Earendil and Frodo?
6. Elrond says that the councellors have been “called” to Rivendell, but not by him. What does he mean? (p. 318)
7. What are the parallels between the Rings of power, forged by Sauron and Celebrimbor, and the Silmarils?
8. Why have all the victories against evil in Middle-Earth been “fruitless”? (319-320). Do Elrond’s pessimistic reminiscences leave any room for hope?
9. How has Saruman been corrupted? How does his moral downfall reflect itself in his langauge? In what way is the evil of Saruman reflect the disasters of the 20th century? (339-341)
10. Gandalf says that it is perilous to study to deeply the arts of the Enemy. (347) How is this warning embodied in Tolkien’s own writing (contrast Milton and Lewis)?
1. Why do the Ainur see the world first in a form of a prevision? Why does the vision fade before the dominion of Man and the ending of the world? (19-20)
2. Compare and contrast the prehistoric and prehuman origin of evil (the marring of Ea by Melkor) with the account in Genesis.
3. How is the fall of Melkor explained? Compare with Milton’s Satan, and other parallels (e.g., in the Bible).
4. Why is it significant that Sauron was originally an associate of Aule?
5. What does the displacement of the Valar from Almaren to Aman signify?
6. Is Tolkien’s world truly polytheistic?
7. What does Tolkien mean by writing that the hearts of Men are fashioned by God to seek beyond the world and to find no rest therein (p. 41)? By making death “the gift of Iluvatar” to Men? Can this be reconciled with the Pauline doctrine (especially in Romans 3 and 5) that “the wages of sin is death”?
8. Contrast the Fellowship of the Ring with the cycles of dissension and conflict surrounding the Silmarils.
9. Is the ending of the Silmarillion an instance of Tolkien’s concept of Eucatastrophe? Why was the process leading to the end fraught with so much tragedy?
Shippey, pp. 128-143
1. What does Shippey mean by the Boethian and Manichaean views of evil? Is he right in making the identification of Boethian=internal and Manichaen=external? Are the two theories of evil really mutually inconsistent? Can they be at all reconciled? Is this tension embodied in the Lord’s Prayer (“lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”)?
2. How does the Ring embody both views of evil simultaneously? Does the Ring have a consciousness and will of its own? Does it actively amplify the moral flaws of its bearer, or does it merely offer a passive opportunity for greater wickedness?
3. Would Tolkien agree with Lord Acton’s dictum, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”? Does the Ring simply represent Power? (Refer again to Cox’s comparison between Sauron’s Ring and the ring of Gyges in Plato’s Republic.)
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Books III and IV
1. Why does Boethius think that the one and only thing men desire is “happiness”? What does he mean by “happiness”? How can he explain the fact that so many men seem to be seeking such diverse and various goals? What does Philosophy mean by saying that Boethius has “some sort of notion of your true goal”?
2. What is the signficance of Boethius’s drunkard analogy? (p. 80). Compare the summary in the poem on pp. 93-94.
3. Boethius argues that self-sufficiency, power, glory and happiness are just different names for the same reality, which is by nature one and simple. (95) What does this doctrine of simplicity mean, and how does Boethius argue for it?
4. Compare Boethius’s account of creation (97-98) with that of the Bible, the Silmarillion, and Plato’s Timaeus. Does Boethius succeed in synthesizing the Greek and Hebrew elements?
5. How does Philosophy prove that God is supremely good? Why is it important that God not merely have happiness (as a picket fence might have whiteness) but actually be happiness itself? (100-1) Why does it follow that God is absolutely simple? How does Boethius use God’s identity with supreme goodness to prove that there can be only one God?
6. How does Boethius connect unity and existence? (105)
7. What evidence does Boethius provide for the claim that all things have an instinctive desire to preserve their own existence? (107-8)
8. What does Boethius mean by saying that “evil is nothing”? How does he demonstrate this? (112)
9. How does Boethius go about demonstrating that evil is a form of powerlessness? (119-120) How is this connected with his claim that “evil is nothing”?
10. Why is it impossible to turn willingly and knowingly from goodness to vice? (121-2) What does Boethius mean by saying the the wicked don’t “exist”? Compare Boethius’s position with Milton’s view of Satan, and Tolkien’s treatment of Morgoth/Melkor,Sauron, the Ringwraiths.
11. “A thing exists when it keeps its proper place and preserves its own nature. Anything which departs from this ceases to exist, because its existence depends on the preservation of its nature.” (122) How is this illustrated in Tolkien’s world? Discuss also the Boethian claim that the wicked cease to be fully human, sinking to an animal level. (126)
12. Boethius describes evil as an “infection” (125) Is this consistent with his claim that evil is “nothing”?
13. Is Shippey right in claiming that Boethius lacks a justification for resisting evil? (127-9)
14. “Among wise men there is no place at all for hatred.” (132) Why? How is this principle embodied in the LOTR, Silmarillion?
Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction
1. What does Barfield mean by claiming that the world of things is a construction of the human mind (or a “habit of mind”)? (31-2) Would Barfield agree with the Greek sophist/philosopher Protagoras in claiming that “man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.” Is there a room for a distinction between how things appear to us and how they really are?
3. What are Barfield’s objections to 20th century linguistic philosophers (such as the logical positivists) and to Behaviorists like Gilbert Ryle? Would Tolkien agree?
4. What central problem does Barfield see in Hume’s philosophy? (25) In Locke’s? In Kant’s? (184)
5. What does Barfield mean by “participatory” knoweldge? Is it compatible with a scientific viewpoint?
6. Barfield writes: “what he let loose over Hiroshima… was the forces of his own unconscious mind.” (36) Is there any sense in which this could be true?
7. What fault does Barfield find with Eliot’s poetry? Does what he says apply with equal force to Eliot’s later work, such as the Four Quartets?
8. Barfield attacks the “naturalistic” theory of the evolution of language and mythology, according to which man started originally with words having only sensory, empirical meaning, which he extended metaphorically to spiritual, super-empirical meanings. What are Barfield’s arguments against this theory ? Are they compelling.
9. Similarly, Barfield attacks “psychological” accounts (like Jung’s) that take myths to be projections of inner archetypes on the external world. (203-4) How, according to Barfield, is this also guilty of the fallacy of “logomorphism”?
10. Barfield argues that in great poetry, the “poetic values (meanings) were once latent in meaning from the beginning.” (85) What are the implications of this theory for the working poet? How might this have influenced Tolkien’s philological/archeological approach to mythopoeia?
11. “Metaphors are the footsteps of nature.” The mysterious relations between objects that underly metaphors are not invented by man. (86) Apply this to Barfield’s specific example of “shining/light”. (89) What are some of the extended metaphors in Tolkien’s work that might be understood in a Barfieldian way?
12. Barfield quotes with approval Emerson’s claim that there is a “radical correspondence between visible things and human thoughts.” Is this as anthropocentric as it sounds? Can it be defended?
13. Barfield sees two forces at work in human consciousness: the prosaic/rational principle, and the poetic principle. How does he argue the modern mind is unbalanced, with the first principle over-emphasized? Why is the first principle incapable of “expanding consciousness”? What does this mean? (143-144)
14. Why are all definitions abstract? Why is the concept of the concrete indefinable? (187).
15. How does Barfield distinguish between the poetic (the synthesis of percepts) and fancy or allegory (the synthesis of ideas)? (190-1, 201-202) In what ways might Barfield’s distinction have influenced Tolkien’s approach to the creative process?
16. Barfield disparages “escape” (202), while Tolkien and Lewis defend it. Why the difference?
17. Why, according to Barfield, must a theory of thinking not take subjectivity as a given? Why do Barfield and Steiner insist that thinking transcends the distinction between subject and object? (206-9)
18. Is the task that Barfield sets for poetry an impossible one (i.e., bringing into the uninspired self-consciousness some memory of that other inspired consciousness)? Might Tolkien’s notion of literary belief in a secondary, sub-created world be of help here?