Small fandom confession...
Mar. 7th, 2012 03:37 pm... which will likely be the extent of my B2MEM contribution this year (unless my Gwaith i Innas Lain muse decides to show up again) and prompted by today's Mark Reads:
For some reason, I've always set "In Western lands beneath the Sun" to the tune of "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night," with the first lines of the second verse as a bridge in minor.
It's also one of my favorite poems of all time, but most of y'all knew that already. :D
For some reason, I've always set "In Western lands beneath the Sun" to the tune of "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night," with the first lines of the second verse as a bridge in minor.
It's also one of my favorite poems of all time, but most of y'all knew that already. :D
Posted here: Part 4: Bored with the Good
This appears to be the end of the series, given the segue to Robert E. Howard, but I guess we'll see in two weeks.
Personally, I've never understood the complaint that good characters are boring. Granted, you don't want a character whose faultlessness puts him/her into Suvian territory, but I love my fictional heroes because, whatever their flaws and vices might be, they are at heart good people who want to do the right thing.
This appears to be the end of the series, given the segue to Robert E. Howard, but I guess we'll see in two weeks.
Personally, I've never understood the complaint that good characters are boring. Granted, you don't want a character whose faultlessness puts him/her into Suvian territory, but I love my fictional heroes because, whatever their flaws and vices might be, they are at heart good people who want to do the right thing.
B2MeM: Heh.
Mar. 5th, 2011 04:55 pmBy graciously satisfying his readers’ insatiable curiosity in as many ways as possible, Tolkien puts himself at odds with many of today’s authors who, in an attempt to be ostentatiously arty and edgy, delight in leaving their readers with a sense of dramatic emptiness and thematic pointlessness. -- Leo Grin
I'm looking at *you*, Sera Gamble and Eric Kripke. (Of course, in SPN's case, it may not be deliberate, but still. Needs moar eucatastrophe.)
Part 3 of Grin's "Ennobling Fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien" series, "Eucatastrophe," is now online here.
I'm looking at *you*, Sera Gamble and Eric Kripke. (Of course, in SPN's case, it may not be deliberate, but still. Needs moar eucatastrophe.)
Part 3 of Grin's "Ennobling Fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien" series, "Eucatastrophe," is now online here.
It's almost Back to Middle-earth Month...
Feb. 28th, 2011 09:15 am... and while I don't know whether I'll participate much, I had to share these links to a series about Tolkien being posted on Big Hollywood, entitled "The Ennobling Fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien":
Part 1: Sanity and Sanctity
Part 2: The Order of Grace
I don't know how many more parts the author plans to post, but if y'all are interested, I'll post the links when he does.
Also, a very happy birthday to Chappy and to
desyhand!
Part 1: Sanity and Sanctity
Part 2: The Order of Grace
I don't know how many more parts the author plans to post, but if y'all are interested, I'll post the links when he does.
Also, a very happy birthday to Chappy and to
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
It's Back to Middle-earth Month...
Mar. 1st, 2009 10:40 pm... and while I can't promise to post regularly, I had thought about posting this yesterday, so I'll do it now.
Mythopoeia
by J. R. R. Tolkien
Tree and Leaf (Houghton, 1989)
To one who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver'.
Philomythus to Misomythus
You look at trees and label them just so,
(for trees are 'trees', and growing is 'to grow');
you walk the earth and tread with solemn pace
one of the many minor globes of Space:
a star's a star, some matter in a ball
compelled to courses mathematical
amid the regimented, cold, inane,
where destined atoms are each moment slain.
At bidding of a Will, to which we bend
(and must), but only dimly apprehend,
great processes march on, as Time unrolls
from dark beginnings to uncertain goals;
and as on page o'er-written without clue,
with script and limning packed of various hue,
an endless multitude of forms appear,
some grim, some frail, some beautiful, some queer,
each alien, except as kin from one
remote Origo, gnat, man, stone, and sun.
God made the petreous rocks, the arboreal trees,
tellurian earth, and stellar stars, and these
homuncular men, who walk upon the ground
with nerves that tingle touched by light and sound.
The movements of the sea, the wind in boughs,
green grass, the large slow oddity of cows,
thunder and lightning, birds that wheel and cry,
slime crawling up from mud to live and die,
these each are duly registered and print
the brain's contortions with a separate dint.
Yet trees are not 'trees', until so named and seen
and never were so named, till those had been
who speech's involuted breath unfurled,
faint echo and dim picture of the world,
but neither record nor a photograph,
being divination, judgement, and a laugh
response of those that felt astir within
by deep monition movements that were kin
to life and death of trees, of beasts, of stars:
free captives undermining shadowy bars,
digging the foreknown from experience
and panning the vein of spirit out of sense.
Great powers they slowly brought out of themselves
and looking backward they beheld the elves
that wrought on cunning forges in the mind,
and light and dark on secret looms entwined.
He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath an ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother's womb whence all have birth.
The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.
Yes! 'wish-fulfilment dreams' we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!
Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem?
All wishes are not idle, nor in vain
fulfilment we devise -- for pain is pain,
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is deadly certain: Evil is.
Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate
that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate;
that seek no parley, and in guarded room,
though small and bate, upon a clumsy loom
weave tissues gilded by the far-off day
hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway.
Blessed are the men of Noah's race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.
Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have tuned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.
I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.
I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends
if by God's mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and that,
your world immutable wherein no part
the little maker has with maker's art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.
In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.
Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see
that all is as it is, and yet made free:
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.
Evil it will not see, for evil lies
not in God's picture but in crooked eyes,
not in the source but in malicious choice,
and not in sound but in the tuneless voice.
In Paradise they look no more awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their head,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.
by J. R. R. Tolkien
Tree and Leaf (Houghton, 1989)
To one who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver'.
Philomythus to Misomythus
You look at trees and label them just so,
(for trees are 'trees', and growing is 'to grow');
you walk the earth and tread with solemn pace
one of the many minor globes of Space:
a star's a star, some matter in a ball
compelled to courses mathematical
amid the regimented, cold, inane,
where destined atoms are each moment slain.
At bidding of a Will, to which we bend
(and must), but only dimly apprehend,
great processes march on, as Time unrolls
from dark beginnings to uncertain goals;
and as on page o'er-written without clue,
with script and limning packed of various hue,
an endless multitude of forms appear,
some grim, some frail, some beautiful, some queer,
each alien, except as kin from one
remote Origo, gnat, man, stone, and sun.
God made the petreous rocks, the arboreal trees,
tellurian earth, and stellar stars, and these
homuncular men, who walk upon the ground
with nerves that tingle touched by light and sound.
The movements of the sea, the wind in boughs,
green grass, the large slow oddity of cows,
thunder and lightning, birds that wheel and cry,
slime crawling up from mud to live and die,
these each are duly registered and print
the brain's contortions with a separate dint.
Yet trees are not 'trees', until so named and seen
and never were so named, till those had been
who speech's involuted breath unfurled,
faint echo and dim picture of the world,
but neither record nor a photograph,
being divination, judgement, and a laugh
response of those that felt astir within
by deep monition movements that were kin
to life and death of trees, of beasts, of stars:
free captives undermining shadowy bars,
digging the foreknown from experience
and panning the vein of spirit out of sense.
Great powers they slowly brought out of themselves
and looking backward they beheld the elves
that wrought on cunning forges in the mind,
and light and dark on secret looms entwined.
He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath an ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother's womb whence all have birth.
The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.
Yes! 'wish-fulfilment dreams' we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!
Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem?
All wishes are not idle, nor in vain
fulfilment we devise -- for pain is pain,
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is deadly certain: Evil is.
Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate
that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate;
that seek no parley, and in guarded room,
though small and bate, upon a clumsy loom
weave tissues gilded by the far-off day
hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway.
Blessed are the men of Noah's race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.
Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have tuned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.
I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.
I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends
if by God's mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and that,
your world immutable wherein no part
the little maker has with maker's art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.
In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.
Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see
that all is as it is, and yet made free:
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.
Evil it will not see, for evil lies
not in God's picture but in crooked eyes,
not in the source but in malicious choice,
and not in sound but in the tuneless voice.
In Paradise they look no more awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their head,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.
So I didn't get through The Discarded Image when I wanted to, but since I still have the book checked out for another week, I've been reading it during those hours when I can't sleep but don't want to disturb anyone by getting back on the computer. One such time was last night. I'd finally gotten to a name I recognized--Pseudo-Dionysius (whose books I really need to read because they were so influential in the Middle Ages)--and was reading CSL's summary of his classification of angels into three hierarchies containing three species each. The list, for those who don't know: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Powers, Virtues, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.
Lewis' statement clarifying the translation of dunameiV as "Virtues":
This does not mean moral excellences but rather 'efficacies', as when we speak of the 'virtues' of a magic ring or a medicinal herb.
I stopped and laughed to myself for a moment. The Discarded Image was written in 1964, and we *know* Lewis loved LOTR. And Tolkien did use "virtue" in precisely that way many times throughout the trilogy.
I don't think there's any way to prove Lewis was thinking of LOTR when he wrote that sentence, but it sure sounds like it to me....
Yes, I'm back. A little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little better rested, one project finished, and--thanks to Mum--very satisfied with my new furniture arrangement. But I still don't want to go back to work tomorrow. ;)
Ah, well. Only three weeks to Easter.
Lewis' statement clarifying the translation of dunameiV as "Virtues":
This does not mean moral excellences but rather 'efficacies', as when we speak of the 'virtues' of a magic ring or a medicinal herb.
I stopped and laughed to myself for a moment. The Discarded Image was written in 1964, and we *know* Lewis loved LOTR. And Tolkien did use "virtue" in precisely that way many times throughout the trilogy.
I don't think there's any way to prove Lewis was thinking of LOTR when he wrote that sentence, but it sure sounds like it to me....
Yes, I'm back. A little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little better rested, one project finished, and--thanks to Mum--very satisfied with my new furniture arrangement. But I still don't want to go back to work tomorrow. ;)
Ah, well. Only three weeks to Easter.
Unexpected B2MEM moment...
Mar. 7th, 2007 12:18 amSo I'm going along, reading Sidney's Apology for Poetry for Thursday, and all of a sudden he starts talking about Gorboduc.
o.O "Gorbadoc?!" thinks I, and hit Google.
Alas, not much connection to the Brandybucks, unless Himself chose the name for its sound; it's a tragedy from 1565 by Thomas Norton and Thomas... Sackville.
Text here for the curious.
...
Hobbits, hobbits everywhere!
(Seriously, though, what are the odds Himself hadn't read Apology for Poetry?)
o.O "Gorbadoc?!" thinks I, and hit Google.
Alas, not much connection to the Brandybucks, unless Himself chose the name for its sound; it's a tragedy from 1565 by Thomas Norton and Thomas... Sackville.
Text here for the curious.
...
Hobbits, hobbits everywhere!
(Seriously, though, what are the odds Himself hadn't read Apology for Poetry?)
B2MEM: Happy New Year!
Mar. 25th, 2006 01:45 pmOn this day in TA 3019, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee completed the Quest of which we read in the Red Book of Westmarch, translated by J. R. R. Tolkien as The Lord of the Rings. Never again would Sauron be able to threaten the Free Peoples of Middle-earth.
Praise them with great praise!
May be able to get the Witch-king story done today. I'll just have to see.
Praise them with great praise!
May be able to get the Witch-king story done today. I'll just have to see.
B2MEM: Because it needs to be said...
Mar. 8th, 2006 11:13 pm... because Eliot's essays are driving me batty:
"I think 'criticism'--however valid or intellectually engaging--tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off)."--J. R. R. Tolkien to C. S. Lewis
That's probably why I tend to write comparative papers rather than critical ones. *nods*
Yesterday after class, the two physics majors and I got to talking Tolkien briefly, and one said that the thing that always bothered him was the fact that there are no stories about the Seven and the Nine. I was about to say that that's why there's fanfic when the other guy said, "Yeah, the stories of all the different kings and how they fell...."
Me: I'm actually working on one!
Him: Really?!
And I explained briefly about the Witch-king story (which I am working on, BTW), and he said he wants to see it when it's done.
Hee. I think I'm about to convert another one to fanfic!
And before it's too late, happy birthday to my favorite fuzzy one on the end and fellow Tolkienista, Micky Dolenz!
"I think 'criticism'--however valid or intellectually engaging--tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off)."--J. R. R. Tolkien to C. S. Lewis
That's probably why I tend to write comparative papers rather than critical ones. *nods*
Yesterday after class, the two physics majors and I got to talking Tolkien briefly, and one said that the thing that always bothered him was the fact that there are no stories about the Seven and the Nine. I was about to say that that's why there's fanfic when the other guy said, "Yeah, the stories of all the different kings and how they fell...."
Me: I'm actually working on one!
Him: Really?!
And I explained briefly about the Witch-king story (which I am working on, BTW), and he said he wants to see it when it's done.
Hee. I think I'm about to convert another one to fanfic!
And before it's too late, happy birthday to my favorite fuzzy one on the end and fellow Tolkienista, Micky Dolenz!
B2MEM: Hehehe...
Mar. 5th, 2006 01:53 amSo I'm trying out this game called Tradewinds 2, which is sort of PotC meets Oregon Trail. Each port has a market and a tavern, and the names rotate with each new game.
One of the tavern names is...
THE PRANCING PONY!
Haven't seen a Green Dragon or Eagle and Child yet, but I thought that was too funny.
EDIT: Just remembered the other funny thing I saw tonight: commercial on TVLand (for the TVLand Awards) that starts out with Larry Hagman, in character as J. R. Ewing, getting his boots shined by--Donald Trump!
One of the tavern names is...
THE PRANCING PONY!
Haven't seen a Green Dragon or Eagle and Child yet, but I thought that was too funny.
EDIT: Just remembered the other funny thing I saw tonight: commercial on TVLand (for the TVLand Awards) that starts out with Larry Hagman, in character as J. R. Ewing, getting his boots shined by--Donald Trump!
B2MEM (sort of): Does anyone know...
Mar. 1st, 2006 06:18 pm... of any good basic resources on the Gothic novel? I have a rather strange idea for a seminar paper that I think will work, but I need to make a case for reading the Narn i Hin Hurin (in all its forms) as a Gothic story to pull it off. I don't like Turin, but he's the best lens I have through which to read this other work. (Blasted Nuzgul bit me DURING class. :P)
And I guess I'll count this as my B2MEM post for the day... I can't commit to a set day, but I'll try to post something Tolkienian every week. So hippo birdies to Aragorn.
And I guess I'll count this as my B2MEM post for the day... I can't commit to a set day, but I'll try to post something Tolkienian every week. So hippo birdies to Aragorn.