Did Tolkien come around in the end?

littlemanpoet

littlemanpoet

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Let's try and shoot for a little learnedness here. <Ahem!> (LMP tries to be serious)

Some of you may be aware that Tolkien took a dim view to Lewis's lighthearted series of seven books for children. Tolkien's problem was multiple. He thought that Lewis didn't take enough care about it, just threw it together. He also thought that it was full of all manner of things that shouldn't be put together; as we all know, everything but everything in Tolkien's "legendarium" was 'cut from the same cloth', as it were. Tolkien took just as much umbrage that Lewis's Chronicles were so blatantly Christian, feeling that it wasn't the kind of thing one should do in a Fairy tale.

Now, as Tolkien got older, as in after he'd written Lord of the Rings, he started turning his cosmos more and more obviously Theistic, and even hinted at Christian. Do any of you know about "The Athrabeth", for example? It's a story in Morgoth's Ring in which an elderly human woman is talking at length with - um - one of the great Elves, and surprise of surprises, the woman hints that it's thought that Eru himself is noised to be planning to come into the world to set things to rights! Now if that isn't a hint of Christ, what is?

So did Tolkien come around to Lewis's way of thinking in the end?
 
Well, I'm talking about later. According to the biographies that I have read of both men, Tolkien and Lewis were not in touch with each other, hardly even talked, from the mid 1950's until Lewis's death. After Lewis's death in 1963, (November 22 by the way), Tolkien kept working on his mythology, and seemed to make it more Christian than it appeared to be before LotR was published. Or is that not the case?
 
I'm a bit confused on your question of "Did Tolkien come around in the end?". Come around to what? You talk a lot about religion, but if I'm not mistaken *which is always a possibility*, it was Tolkien who turned Lewis from athiesm to Christianity. And Tolkien's literature has always been highly religious.
 
Tolkien and Lewis

I think that maybe Tolkien unbeknownst to himself admired Lewis for his "simple" books. They used to sit and chat forever about who was smarter. lewis for his easy to read and loved by all not just by adults. Tolkien for his increadible story that he weaved with his own language and a much darker side. I don't think anyone would sit and listen to another if they had no interest or desire to find out more. As they say opposites attract. Lewis was loud and Tolkien was laid back. I think the really answer to your question lies with his family or maybe he just always knew that there was a God. Lets hope that he found out.
 
If I understand the original post correctly, "come around" meant "come around to being more accepting of having more explicit Christian themes in his work. I don't know if he "came around" or not.
 
PrinceOfTheWest said:
If I understand the original post correctly, "come around" meant "come around to being more accepting of having more explicit Christian themes in his work. I don't know if he "came around" or not.
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You understand my meaning correctly. It's really quite an "opinion" type of question, I suppose. Still, there's much (apparently, don't take my word for it) from the History of Middle Earth volumes that may suggest that he did.... and it drives non-Christian lovers of Tolkien somewhat nuts, by all accounts.
 
Various accounts in the Silmarilion can be taken as Christian, especially the story of Illuvatar and the fallen Melkor.

Taken like this...

Illuvatar weaves a musical pattern by which all things come into existence. Melkor seeks to weave a pattern of his own, out of his hubris. Melkor was the greatest of the Ainur, to whom the greatest gifts of power and knowledge were given.

He becomes fallen, and corrupts the Elves by deception, appearing as a beautiful being.

Melkor is battled once and defeated. He is battled a second time and is locked away until the end of the Final Age. Sauron and various other evils may inhabit Middle Earth, but the end of all things will occur when Melkor is unleashed.

As a Biblical parallel, Satan was the greatest of the angels, who by his aspirations and pride was thrown from Heaven. He will be defeated once and locked away for a thousand years, until the time of the the finall battle when he will be unlocked to deceive the world again, at which time his defeat will signal the end of this existence.

But in general, no, I don't really think he came around to it in the blatant form it took in Lewis' stories, though I don't think he could have written his tales without his beliefs' obvious influence in various stories as we have mentioned.
 
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I tried stating this earlier, but I'm not quite sure if my post made sense. I, personally, don't believe Tolkien ever had something to come around to, he was always there. Religion was a large role in his life, and perhaps while it might not have been as blatant as in Lewis' works, it was nearly always present in his own writing. As Daishi pointed out, it was present in the Silmarilion, Littemanpoet already noted the presence in the History of Middle Earth, and religion was certainly a part of the LOTR Trilogy. So to answer the question, I don't believe he come around, he was already there.
 
I am a fan of both men's work. Mostly Lotr...but narnia is great too. i haven't read very many books, but I've read almost everything from Tolkien. my brother likes narnia mostly, but I'm gonna get way more into it than i am now.
 
Athetemis said:
So to answer the question, I don't believe he come around, he was already there.
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That's unquestionably true. The only dispute JRR had with Lewis was stylistic - Tolkien thought Lewis' worlds weren't thought through well enough, and perhaps a little clunky in their symbolism. Tolkien was much more subtle in Rings, but became much more obvious in his creation myth.
 
yeah i noticed that when i read The Silmarillion...it was weird I was like "Whoa!"
 
Okay, I'll be as clear as I can--->>>

Tolkien did not like that Lewis presented Christianity so clearly in the Narnia Chronicles; he thought that it was a mistake, that it was wrong; even sinful. After Lewis died, Tolkien continued to work on the Silmarillion. In "Morgoth's Ring", published by Christopher Tolkien in the 90's, there are stories (about rumors of Eru coming Himself into the world) and related writings that include a more obviously Christian outlook than LotR or the published 1977 Silmarillion contain. So it looks like Tolkien may have changed his mind AFTER Lewis died, to being more ready to write his religious beliefs more obviously into his stories.

At least, that's how it looks to me. Do you agree?
 
Athetemis said:
I still think that the Christian theme was always present in Tolkiens writing, and that his decision to include more blatant Christian views *if thats how you see it* was, if anything, subconcious. And I would like to know where you found out Tolkien's outlook on Lewis' style. I've never come across something like that. *I'm by no means saying its false, but would just like to read about it*
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From the Letters of Tolkien, #265 says:
It is sad that 'Narnia' and all that part of C.S.L.'s work should remain outside the range of my sympathy, as unch of my work was outside his.
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I agree with you that the Christian theme was always present in Tolkien's works, because he was a writer who was a Christian; he even said that LotR is consciously Catholic in the revision. All one need do is consider the centrality of the date, March 25 in Tolkien's story, which is the date the Ring was thrown in the Crack of Doom. March 25 is the traditional date of the crucifixion, and of the annunciation to Mary and therefore of Christ's conception. But in the case of LotR, the Christian theme is written into the warp and woof, so to speak, not discernable by those who don't know certain things about the Christian faith, whereas in Lewis the message is clear even to many non-Christians.
 
littlemanpoet said:
Tolkien did not like that Lewis presented Christianity so clearly in the Narnia Chronicles; he thought that it was a mistake, that it was wrong; even sinful.
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I'm intrigued as to where you got the impression that Tolkien thought the more overt symbolism of the Chronicles to be "sinful". The worst I'd ever heard was that Tolkien simply didn't like them, and Tolkien was very careful to distinguish what he simply didn't like from what he thought objectively wrong. Was it in some letter?
 
PrinceOfTheWest said:
I'm intrigued as to where you got the impression that Tolkien thought the more overt symbolism of the Chronicles to be "sinful". The worst I'd ever heard was that Tolkien simply didn't like them, and Tolkien was very careful to distinguish what he simply didn't like from what he thought objectively wrong. Was it in some letter?
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That's a gloss on things I've read, most recently from Tom Shippey ( author of Tolkien: Author of the century), whose word was "sacrilege". On page 239 of that book, Shippey says this:
...it might even be thought presumptuous--just to rerun the Christian myth, in which Tolkien devoutly believed, merely in a work of human imagining.
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Granted, this quote is Shippey's comment regarding Tolkien's beliefs rather than Tolkien's own, but it does represent a general consensus as to Tolkien's thought on this. So Tolkien seems to have felt that Lewis was presuming more than he had a right, or committing a sacrilege, which is to say, trespassing on sacred territory he had no business doing. Tolkien might not have expressed it so strongly, and the general sense is that Tolkien was most put out of humor by the ease and speed with which Lewis "threw the seven books together"; of course, Tolkien spent almost 2 decades niggling his way through LotR.
 
Hmm - "presumptuous" seems to be the critical term Shippey uses, and it's the first time I've ever heard it used to describe Tolkien's attitude toward the Narnia books. I wonder where Shippey is drawing from. It's a critical aspect of the question, because if that was indeed part of Tolkien's objection to the Chronicles, then there would have been some sort of "coming around", if only far enough for Tolkien to write a Creation Myth. In fact, it would have been even more "presumptuous" for Tolkien, for while Narnia was clearly and explictly another world, Middle Earth was simply our world during a much earlier age - meaning that Tolkien's Creation Myth was in fact a retelling of our own world's creation.

I wonder what Joe Pearce and Brad Birzer think of this.
 
Tolkien's creation myth of Eru came long before Lewis began writing Narnia. I don't think that's Tolkien's issue. What I mean is, it was not writing a re-envisioning of myth, including the Christian, that bothered Tolkien, but being so blatant about the Christian element. But it's not as simple as that either. In Letter # 265, dated 11/11/1964 (almost a year after Lewis's death) (p 352) Tolkien writes:
It is sad that 'Narnia' and all that part of C.S.L.'s work should remain outside the range of my sympathy, as much of my work was outside his. Also, I personally found Letters to Malcolm a distressing and in parts horrifying work. I began a commentary on it, but if finished it would not be publishable.
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Not much more (that I can find) is written about this particular aspect of their friendship or lack thereof in their later years. But this is the seminal quote at any rate.

What rankled Tolkien most were three things, I think: first came Lewis's friendship with Charles Williams; next came Lewis's Narnia chronicles, written quickly and blithely and mixing much of what Tolkien thought should not be mixed; third was Lewis's marriage. The marriage and the friendship were influences upon Lewis that Tolkien disapproved; and the choices made in the writing of Narnia he disliked.
 
littlemanpoet said:
What rankled Tolkien most were three things, I think: first came Lewis's friendship with Charles Williams; next came Lewis's Narnia chronicles, written quickly and blithely and mixing much of what Tolkien thought should not be mixed; third was Lewis's marriage. The marriage and the friendship were influences upon Lewis that Tolkien disapproved; and the choices made in the writing of Narnia he disliked.
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Indeed, that what I have always gathered. Tolkien did not think the bond of friendship was strengthened by the introduction of a third person with the same interests, as Lewis did. Tolkien did not like allegory (even in the sense that Lewis implemented it in CoN) and hated the amalgamation of mythologies present in CoN. Tolkien thought Lewis was sacrificing too much in his marriage to Joy. Since the initial marriage was civil only, he thought it silly to marry a woman for charitable reasons. I often wonder what Tolkien thought when Jack and Joy had another religious ceremony where Peter Bide joined them in the eyes of God.

I hope they resolved their differences before Lewis' death. I love the idea that two of my favorite authors were best friends in their life, and hate the idea they parted ways over such trivial reasons.
 
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