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dreamflowerContinuing my series of quotes *about* LotR and JRRT.
From Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien by Paul H. Kohler
From the chapter “Cosmic Order”--
“But the burden of The Lord of the Rings is that victory for good is never automatic. It must be earned anew each time by every individual taking part. In this effort, says Aragorn to Éomer, man has the natural ability and the obligation to ‘discern’ the difference between right and wrong. Those are opposites, absolutes that do not vary from year to year or place to place or people to people. Those rational beings who would act well on Tolkien’s Middle-earth do not have to stand on the shifting sands of historical relativism. The good is as unchanging above the tides of time as the beauty of Sam’s star over Mordor, and derives ultimately from the character of the One who placed it there.”
From the chapter on “The Free Peoples”
“Tolkien’s Prologue to the The Lord of the Rings elaborates the political, historical and linguistic dimensions of hobbit society in preparation for the greater role it is to play, no longer a child’s tale but in an epic on the grandest scale. Yet at the start of the epic that society is still essentially the same utopia of childhood wish fulfillment from which Bilbo long ago set out to steal treasure. Other races have their sorrows. But before the War of the Ring the whole problem of the hobbits was that they have no problems. Protected by the Dúnedain rangers from the winds of the outside world, they live their tight little lives in their tight little Shire, unknowing and unknown. Scarcely anything in Middle-earth has any idea what a hobbit is except as a figment in old songs. So far as the hobbit race is concerned, the main theme of The Lord of the Rings is to tell how the unknowing come to know, and the unknown become known and honored by other races.”
From Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien by Paul H. Kohler
From the chapter “Cosmic Order”--
“But the burden of The Lord of the Rings is that victory for good is never automatic. It must be earned anew each time by every individual taking part. In this effort, says Aragorn to Éomer, man has the natural ability and the obligation to ‘discern’ the difference between right and wrong. Those are opposites, absolutes that do not vary from year to year or place to place or people to people. Those rational beings who would act well on Tolkien’s Middle-earth do not have to stand on the shifting sands of historical relativism. The good is as unchanging above the tides of time as the beauty of Sam’s star over Mordor, and derives ultimately from the character of the One who placed it there.”
From the chapter on “The Free Peoples”
“Tolkien’s Prologue to the The Lord of the Rings elaborates the political, historical and linguistic dimensions of hobbit society in preparation for the greater role it is to play, no longer a child’s tale but in an epic on the grandest scale. Yet at the start of the epic that society is still essentially the same utopia of childhood wish fulfillment from which Bilbo long ago set out to steal treasure. Other races have their sorrows. But before the War of the Ring the whole problem of the hobbits was that they have no problems. Protected by the Dúnedain rangers from the winds of the outside world, they live their tight little lives in their tight little Shire, unknowing and unknown. Scarcely anything in Middle-earth has any idea what a hobbit is except as a figment in old songs. So far as the hobbit race is concerned, the main theme of The Lord of the Rings is to tell how the unknowing come to know, and the unknown become known and honored by other races.”
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Date: 2009-03-10 02:14 pm (UTC)I wonder, has reality changed, or does age alter one's perception of reality? I could swear, when I was young, that good and evil, moral and immoral, were virtually "unchanging above the tides of time," that men and women had the "natural ability and the obligation to 'discern' the difference between right and wrong." I recall there were fringe groups of extremists who challenged these truths, but the general populace knew when a Wormtongue when they saw one. Not so much anymore....
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Date: 2009-03-11 03:10 am (UTC)Some things do change. Slavery and the oppression of women came to be seen not as rights but as abominations.
And yet, they had *always* been abominations--it was only that a majority of people had not understood that before. It was always about power and the abuse of power.
Someday, there are things we take for granted will be seen by our descendants as abominations. What are they? I don't know. But just because we don't understand they are wrong now, does not mean that they haven't been wrong all along.
Am I making any sense at all?
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Date: 2009-03-10 02:17 pm (UTC)So far as the hobbit race is concerned, the main theme of The Lord of the Rings is to tell how the unknowing come to know, and the unknown become known and honored by other races.
I love those passages so much.
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Date: 2009-03-11 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 04:38 pm (UTC)I sure wish we had leaders like Aragorn and Eomer today...
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Date: 2009-03-11 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-11 03:13 am (UTC)