The Lord of the Rings as [Greenlandian] Fantasy in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien [edited title]

[Hriston]

I feel that, broadly speaking, there are two main meanings of 'semantics' (pardon the pun). Properly speaking, semantics is the field of study dealing with meaning of words, by themselves or in a larger context. However, in popular use 'semantics' often has a negative connotation and refers to focusing on meaningless differences in the form of the message, e.g. if you say "there are twelve eggs", and I say "there is a dozen eggs", we are literally saying different things, but there is no ambiguity over how many eggs there are.

Your choice of words, "quibbling" or contrasting "semantics" with "issue of substance" (as in your reply to @Paul Farquhar ), made me think you were using "semantics" in this second way, while IMO we did not agree on the content of the message, rather than its form. That's why I said I didn't think what we were discussing was just semantics.

The negative connotation comes from that type of conversation being undesirable, but the disagreement was about the form. You told me the form I used was incorrect for the meaning I wanted to convey, and I conceded, both to make my intended meaning more clear and because I'm not interested in having a conversation about the meaning of the word neolithic because, to me, it's not the "issue of substance".

The book is about a dangerous trek across a continent to destroy a magical gold ring by throwing it into a volcano because, it being magical, it can't be melted in regular forges:


Given this, to me it really feels weird you insisting on proofs that the story couldn't have taken places before 4000 BC.

You seem to be implying the nonexistence of forges capable of melting gold before 4,000 BC. According to this wikipedia article, gold may have been smelted as early as 6,000 BC in Mesopotamia or Syria. Furnaces capable of melting gold would have, of course, been available earlier than that.

But again, just from the first few pages of the prologue:

• Writing: the framing device is that both the Hobbit and LotR are just excerpts and adaptations of Bilbo's and Frodo's diary, The Red Book of Westmarch

Are you saying you believe if writing systems were being used in Western Europe around 6,500 BC there’s no way you wouldn't have evidence of it? This seems like a claim of omniscience, but maybe you have some other point which isn't apparent to me.

• Books in a form they didn't assume until thousand of years after invention of writing (the Red Book is a red-leather bounded volume)

Well, in this narrative, we are thousands of years after the invention of writing, but I take your meaning. I think this speaks to the device of "translation" used in the books. There's a couple of points related to this. As a medievalist, the author/"translator" is "translating" the story into (i.e. writing things into the story which express) a medieval idiom. The Red Book of Westmarch is a nod to the Red Book of Hergest, so because the model is a red-leather bound book, so too is Bilbo's diary. Another point relates to the form of the book. According to wikipedia, a "book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images" and can take a variety of forms, so the Red Book could be a collection of wax tablets or scrolls and serve the same narrative purpose. The description itself is little more than flavor.

• Hobbits do not like any technology more advanced than forge-bellows or water-wheels

This is a statement about the attitudes of hobbits and relates to the novel's theme of modernization. It doesn't say these particular technologies or anything more advanced were actually in use. The author could have chosen any similarly antique (to the reader) technologies and expressed pretty much the same thing about hobbits.

• Horse riding

This is similar to the claim about writing. Just because we haven't found any firmly established evidence of equestrianism from a given time-period doesn't necessarily mean people weren't doing it. Modern horses have existed for five million years. People could have ridden them.

• Carts

The wheel is a late Neolithic invention, so I don't see this as problematic for the chronology I'm proposing, but even if it was, a sledge or travois could serve the same narrative purpose, so use of the word cart could, again, be seen as a choice made by the "translator" for better coherence with the medievalistic setting.

Bilbo's birthday gifts to his relatives include: an umbrella, a set of silver spoons, a gold pen. Bag's End has mechanical clocks.

And given that a picture is worth a thousand words, here is Tolkien's drawing of Bag's End:View attachment 375451

Of course you don't think the author's drawing is an exact reproduction of a picture found in the Red Book, do you? The illustration and descriptions of the contents of Bag End, like the statement about hobbits' aversion to advanced technology, are there to give an impression of familiarity and comfort. Just as the author embellishes the tale with his knowledge as a medievalist, so too does he imbue it with his own character and sense of place as a man of the early 20th century West Midlands. That's just good writing.

 

[Hriston]

The object to the left of the door is a barometer, invented 1844.

Are you making the argument that Tolkien intended to set his stories at a date after AD 1844?

 

[briggart]

@Hriston Let me get this straight, your starting point is a sentence by JRRT in which he says that he posits the events of his book could have taken place around 6000-4000BC. In the same letter, which you quoted, he also add that those events are however difficult to reconcile with the archeological record:

All I can say is that, if it were 'history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or 'cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire, for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region* (I p. 12).​

Based on this, you ask for passages from the book which prove** that the story could not be set before 4000BC, and when provided with them your rebuttal is that the text should not be taken literally? Let's try it the other way, can you provide any passage in which Tolkien says that his drawing of Bag's End is not meant as an actual reproduction of Bilbo's residence?

I may be missing something, but your argument is basically a tautology, which makes it pointless to discuss it.

* Given this passage, I was implicitly restricting the discussion to Europe. You are indeed correct that gold smelting in Mesopotamia started probably around 6000BC. Also copper smelting, given that for the purpose of this discussion, gold and copper have the same melting point. But those technologies are not attested in Europe until a couple thousand years later, which is why we say that Neolithic ended in Mesopotamia around 6000BC, but in Europe it ended around 4000BC. But yes, those technologies existed on Earth before 4000BC, and Tolkien quote does not exclude that other parts of
EDIT: In rearranging my post, I left out the last bit here: "[...] other parts of Middle-Earth mapped to Mesopotamia"

**You make the point that our archeological record is incomplete, so we cannot rule out that things described in the book actually existed even though they are incompatible with available evidence. Which, sure, that's how archeology works: we can't prove that Neanderthals did not master quantum computing, we simply don't have any remotely credible indication that they did. It's basically the same principle as "innocent until proven guilty".

 

[Hriston]

We've found towns and cities which went underwater in that era.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the novel describes towns and cities. That seems to corroborate that the time-period is not far off.

Incredibly massive structures like the one in LotR would be trivial to detect at this point.

Which structure (or structures) do you mean? It would be helpful to have a description from the book, so we're on the same page.

None of which would stop us detecting it. Seismology, ground-penetrating radar, satellite mapping, aerial mapping, etc. would all reveal this stuff trivially.

Perhaps, if you look in the right place. I doubt every square inch of the area has been scanned for fictional locations. Think of the expense!

They reveal the much lesser constructions from that period frequently, where they exist.

I'm not convinced that the novel describes "incredibly massive" while what we find is "much lesser". I think it would be helpful to compare the actual text with some of these sites. If I recall correctly, Barad-dûr is described as quite impressive/gigantic, but Tolkien's own illustration (on the cover of Vol. 3 of the Ballantine Fantasy edition) seems a bit more mundane than one might expect.

 

[gban007]

Which structure (or structures) do you mean? It would be helpful to have a description from the book, so we're on the same page.

Minas Tirith, while built into a hill, is described with the top being 700ft above the gate at the bottom.
The Argonath are described as 'massive'.
Barad-Dur is implied to match up to Minas Tirith, so be 700ft plus as well.
But like others, not sure overall point. LOTR I find is a mythical take of a potential past of Earth, but littered with modern anachronisms (e.g. Golf as well, Glorfindel tightening up Stirrups on a horse when stirrups only invented in China in first century AD, and only made it to Europe in 7th / 8th centuray AD), when the reality might have been people who once could walk to England from France no longer being able to (Depending on view of how long ago that was - potentially 100,000s of years)- Beleriand gone or Numenor lost, and the Hobbit was people in Northwest France area going into Germany, and LOTR going to the Italy) and the big 'cities' being no more than a few hundred people, and these big fights just skirmishes using clubs etc, embellished to sound a lot more epic, and the big towers maybe 3 stories high.
So could LOTR been based on neolithic happenings? Yes, but not with all the trappings described in the books.

 

[Hriston]

@Hriston

The characters and events of Tolkien's legendarium represent a "mythic prehistory" - complete with a cosmogony - which doesn't map remotely well onto what we know about established prehistory, any more than the Enuma Elish does; nor did it in Tolkien's own time.

Certain events are purposefully evocative of/consonant with other myths (eg Atlantis/Numenor; or a "drowned land" in the West).

While I concede that Tolkien might have whimsically mused about placing events 7000 or 8000 years ago, I am forced to ask exactly what is the purpose of trying to harmonize Tolkien's creation with what we know about our own world's past?

That might give a clearer understanding of where you're going with this.

I'm not looking for the type of "mapping" you're talking about. I don’t look at the LotR as historical fiction, so it’s not about experiencing a "known" historical period. It’s fantasy fiction which is about (among other things) the wonder of the unknown. I don’t think it’s conducive to the enjoyment of the genre to approach a given work's setting with an attitude that it’s something about which everything is already known. Maybe that explains some of the pushback in this thread -- it would spoil the enjoyment of some posters to think of the LotR being set in the "real world" because it seems too familiar and “known”, even at the distance of 6,000 years the letter suggests, for “literary credibility”. I’m not sure where that line is for those posters. I mean, no one seems to object to the frame story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe being set in the “real world” during the Blitz despite no evidence having been found that any English country house ever contained a magical wardrobe capable of transporting children to another dimension at that time. Objections about Bag End containing silver spoons, umbrellas, clocks, and barometers would seem to be on the same order.

So yeah, I think the idea that prehistory is "established" and "known" is not at all conducive to enjoyment of speculative fiction set in that period. You see the same problem with science fiction where people with a scientific background sometimes have difficulty accepting the premise of a certain technology working that they "know" is impossible. I think part of it is that some find comfort in assuming their knowledge is perfect. I'm not trying to disabuse anyone of beliefs that help preserve their sanity, but scientific knowledge is not complete, and the time and space of prehistory is vast. There's plenty of room for the unknown. If you more or less stick to what is known, you don't get fantasy. You get something more like The Clan of the Cave Bear.

Another reason I don't look for "mapping" is it's an Elvish history for the most part, concerned with people and places that have long since vanished. It’s about things that have been lost. I don't expect to find them in the archaeological record.

So to answer your question, the purpose, for me, of accepting the author's stated intention for his work to be set in our world in a reasonably well defined remote time-period, is it provides an enormous wealth of geographical and cultural/anthropological detail from our world that I can use to fill in the "blank spaces around the edges" and more fully imagine the world Tolkien describes, allowing greater penetration into the "unattainable vistas" that permeate his fiction. For me, this doesn't "destroy the magic". It increases my sense of wonder to imagine the fantastic elements of his stories inhabiting the same world as I do.

 

[Hriston]

@Hriston Let me get this straight, your starting point is a sentence by JRRT in which he says that he posits the events of his book could have taken place around 6000-4000BC. In the same letter, which you quoted, he also add that those events are however difficult to reconcile with the archeological record:



Based on this, you ask for passages from the book which prove** that the story could not be set before 4000BC, and when provided with them your rebuttal is that the text should not be taken literally?

It's a bit more than a single sentence. If you include the footnote I quoted, it's three sentences. Also, I'm not sure why you say "could have". The statement takes it as given the setting is our world. He acknowledges the difficulty of making the story "fit" and that he "could have fitted things in with greater verisimilitude, if the story had not become too far developed, before the question ever occurred to me." The reason I've asked for passages is I find it difficult to engage with the unsupported assertions that have mainly been offered by those who've posted that the novel's setting couldn't be our world in the time-period discussed, and I disagree I've been provided with any. To date, I don't think anyone has provided any actual quotes from the books. If I've overlooked any, I'd be happy to engage with them.

My position isn't so much that the text shouldn't be taken literally. I mean, that's true of pretty much any text, and especially so when one considers the, albeit fictional, "translational" nature of the novel. I.e. it's clearly not a literal translation since it contains so much idiom. Since it's fiction, it's not meant to be taken as literal, i.e. factual. I think that's understood by most readers. But I think what you're responding to (which is unclear to me) is my statement that the drawing is not a faithful (i.e. literal) rendering of the interior of Bag End. Let me clarify my position on this. I think the words are meant to be taken literally. I.e. the reader is meant to imagine Bilbo as owning clocks, silver spoons, pocket handkerchiefs, umbrellas, etc. and Bag End as looking pretty much how it looks in the drawing which is perfectly compatible with its description in the book. However, given that these elements are primarily expressive of the 20th century West Midlands character that hobbits represent, I don't see them as particularly, or primarily, informative of setting. For elements that contribute to setting, I would look to the author's extensive use of geography and references to events in the distant past that give the novel a sense of time and place. I'd also look at the variety of cultures that are represented as a whole as something that informs the setting. Bag End and the Shire are, of course, settings of some parts of the novel's action, but they don't have a whole lot to say about the setting in its entirety.

 

[Dioltach]

I read years ago that Tolkien intended Middle-Earth to be set on our own world. But I always assumed he meant 100,000 years ago, or even a million.

Earth is old enough that you don't have to limit its history to the past 10,000 years. If you really want to put Elves and Hobbits and Sauron in our history, and you're worried about why there are no archeological remains, just push them back in time.

 

[briggart]

Edit: Posted in error, please ignore

 

[briggart]

My position isn't so much that the text shouldn't be taken literally. I mean, that's true of pretty much any text, and especially so when one considers the, albeit fictional, "translational" nature of the novel. I.e. it's clearly not a literal translation since it contains so much idiom. Since it's fiction, it's not meant to be taken as literal, i.e. factual. I think that's understood by most readers. But I think what you're responding to (which is unclear to me) is my statement that the drawing is not a faithful (i.e. literal) rendering of the interior of Bag End. Let me clarify my position on this. I think the words are meant to be taken literally. I.e. the reader is meant to imagine Bilbo as owning clocks, silver spoons, pocket handkerchiefs, umbrellas, etc. and Bag End as looking pretty much how it looks in the drawing which is perfectly compatible with its description in the book. However, given that these elements are primarily expressive of the 20th century West Midlands character that hobbits represent, I don't see them as particularly, or primarily, informative of setting. For elements that contribute to setting, I would look to the author's extensive use of geography and references to events in the distant past that give the novel a sense of time and place. I'd also look at the variety of cultures that are represented as a whole as something that informs the setting. Bag End and the Shire are, of course, settings of some parts of the novel's action, but they don't have a whole lot to say about the setting in its entirety.

I did indeed use literal as faithful, sorry for the confusion, but my point is wider than the drawing, and it concerns your general assumption on the nature of the text, at least as how I understand it. Let me clarify. When discussing the Red Book of Westmarch you wrote:

Well, in this narrative, we are thousands of years after the invention of writing, but I take your meaning. I think this speaks to the device of "translation" used in the books. There's a couple of points related to this. As a medievalist, the author/"translator" is "translating" the story into (i.e. writing things into the story which express) a medieval idiom. The Red Book of Westmarch is a nod to the Red Book of Hergest, so because the model is a red-leather bound book, so too is Bilbo's diary. Another point relates to the form of the book. According to wikipedia, a "book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images" and can take a variety of forms, so the Red Book could be a collection of wax tablets or scrolls and serve the same narrative purpose. The description itself is little more than flavor.

Your point, as I understand it, is that while the description of the Red Book of the Westmarch is incompatible with the earliest forms of books we know of, that description is not supposed to be a factually correct representation of the book, but since the author wanted the readers to have a sense of familiarity with the setting, he modeled it on an actual medieval text, because he felt that the story was not dependent on the actual form of the book and the readers could more readily engage with a book that looked like books they were familiar with, rather than collection of wax tablets or scrolls which is a more likely form for a book back then*.

If my understanding is correct, my point is that your thesis basically cannot be falsified, which makes it pointless to discuss it. If you starting assumption is that JRRT not only did a language translation but also a cultural translation, changing the descriptions of items, culture, etc. from the form they had at the time the events had actually taken place in universe, to something that would be more familiar with what contemporary audiences expected for a medieval setting, why do you keep asking for quotes? No quote will ever provide evidence that the cultures/artifacts/societies/etc. as described in the book do not match what we know of Europe/Earth between 10000-4000BC, because their description should not be taken literally, but reinterpreted according to their narrative purpose: "The description itself is little more than flavor."

The way I see it, the whole point of this line of discussion is whether the description in the text matches the archeological record. I believe you also agree this to be the point, but in that case I don't think it's worth it pursuing any further given my understanding of your assumptions on "translation". If you think the point to be something else, then it's not clear to me what it is and how these questions/discussions on material cultures are relevant to it.

*Technically, after the events of the book because we don't have any evidence of writing before 4000BC. Which to me is in itself enough to conclude the events of the book are not compatible with the archeological record. You just need a single counterexample, otherwise we end up with "What have the Romans ever done for us?"