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Monthly Archives: October 2015

The Return of the Who.2?

28 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Heroes, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Aragorn, Aslan, C.S. Lewis, Catholicism, Gondor, Hobbits, Jadis, Medusa, Middle-earth, monotheism, Narnia, Oxford, religion, Sauron, secular, The Bird and the Baby, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Eagle and the Child, The Hobbit, The Inklings, The Lamb and Flag, The Lord of the Rings, the Pevensies, The Return of the Ring, The White Witch, Tolkien, White Tree

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

This posting is a continuation of our last, in which we made a brief attempt to think about what the title “The Return of the King” might have meant for its author in his time.

In this posting, we want to expand that meaning from a secular king to one with more religious overtones.

We ourselves, as we’ve said before, are World Civ people, believing that all people in all times and places are and should be of interest and value to everyone. We are also pan-spiritual, thinking with Gandhi that, “I believe in the fundamental Truth of all great religions of the world.”

In the case of Tolkien, this meant Catholic Christianity, a form of monotheism. Of religion and The Lord of the Rings, he wrote in 1953:

“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.” Letters, 172.

He adds to this, in a letter to Houghton Mifflin, in 1955, that “It is a monotheistic world of ‘natural theology’. (Letters, 220). At the same time, however, he adds “I am in any case myself a Christian; but the ‘Third Age’ was not a Christian world. Letters, 220.

And yet we would suggest that there is not only more of a Christian theme, but also a Christian parallel with a book written at about the same time as the later stages of The Lord of the Rings and published slightly before it. This is C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950).

TheLionWitchWardrobe(1stEd)

As is well known, both Lewis and Tolkien

jrrt and csl

were members of a literary group in Oxford, the Inklings.

draft_lens9242861module102711761photo_1274835984eagle_and_child_pub_inkli

Lewis and Tolkien formed part of the permanent core, with other members coming and going over the years (1933-1949).   The meetings were held in Lewis’ rooms at Magdalen College,

magdalen room-used-by-cs-lewis

as well as at two local pubs, The Eagle and Child (called locally “Bird and Baby” or just “Bird”)

Birdandbaby

as well as The Lamb and Flag.

Lamb-and-flag-pub-oxford

The purpose (besides refreshments) was literary discussion, both of others’ works and of their own, and an important feature was the reading aloud of works in progress. Lewis had been very supportive, both of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but Tolkien had not been so enthusiastic in return. All the same, we would suggest that various elements of Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and events around Gondor in Tolkien’s The Return of the King at times bear strong similarities.

In Lewis’ book, the main protagonists are four children, the Pevensies.

childrenaslanbbc

In Tolkien’s, there are four grown Hobbits, often mistaken, beyond the borders of the Shire, for children.

hildebrandthobbits

Both groups are on an errand which they barely understand and are faced with a supernatural enemy, the White Witch for the one, Sauron for the other. (There seems to be a lot of mirroring in all of this: the White Witch is already in Narnia and must be driven out. Sauron is outside Gondor and wants to get in, for example. The White Witch’s name is “Jadis”, by the way. Undoubtedly Lewis’ little linguistic joke: jadis in French means “formerly”, suggesting that even from the first time she appears, she’s already on her way out.)

wwbbc

main_1-Greg-Hildebrandt-Signed-Sauron-The-Dark-Lord-Limited-Edition-34x23-Giclee-PristineAuction.com

(Notice, in the movie version of Jadis, the strong similarity between her and the Medusa. In fact, Jadis turns her enemies, when she can, to ice.)

jadis1

bernini medusa

frozenmrtumnus

Before the current world of Narnia, to which the children come, there was a king who had been somehow ejected a century before. In Middle Earth, there has been no king in Gondor for ten times that. In Narnia, there has been winter for that century.

winteratthelamppost

In Gondor, in Middle Earth, its symbol of growth and stability, the White Tree, has withered and died.

WhiteTreeGondor

When the Pevensie children have been involved in the defeat of the White Witch, they will rule Narnia in the place of the true king, the lion Aslan.

the-chronicles-of-narnia-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-wallpaper-the-chronicles-of-narnia-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-poster_590x384_23014

For about a thousand years, stewards ruled Gondor in place of the king. (Another example of mirroring.)

denethor

When Lewis’ Aslan returns, it is from death, having sacrificed himself to save one of the Pevensie children.

aslandead

Thus, Aslan, in effect, heals himself. When the king of Gondor, Aragon, appears, he heals others. (Tolkien would probably associate this with the old English custom of having the monarch touch people attacked with a disease called scrofula, or “the King’s evil”. We include a picture of Queen Mary—1516-1558—doing so.)

Queen_Mary_I_curing_scrofula_Levina_Teerlinc_16th_C

healingeowyn

When Aslan appears, spring returns to Narnia.

springinnarnia

When Aragorn claims the throne, he and Gandalf discover a sapling of the old tree on Mindolluin, bring it down, and plant it and it soon flowers.

whitesapling whitetreebeginstoflower

We’re sure that there are other parallels, dear reader: can you think of any?

Thanks, as always, for reading this.

MTCIDC

CD

The Return of Who.1?

21 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, Uncategorized

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Alfred the Great, British history, Cold War, Edwatd VIII, Elizabeth II, Fairy Tale, George I, George III, George V, George VI, Great Britain, Ireland, James I, Kings, Monarchies, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Tolkien, Transvaal War

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

In this posting, we want to talk about a larger issue than usual.

JRRT had always thought of The Lord of the Rings as a single work and had been forced to break it up into three parts by his publisher, Allen/Unwin, for financial reasons. The third part of this became “The Return of the King”. If you’ve read us for a while, you have probably decided that, although we are passionate Anglophiles (and Francophiles and Germanophiles and—well, we are World Civ folks—we love every country, young and old, and one of us has spent years very happily teaching World Civilizations, in fact), we are North Americans and, to narrow that, citizens of the USA. This means that we grew up in a democratic republic, the descendants of people who separated themselves from control by the 18th-century monarchical government of George III of Great Britain by violent means.

george iii

bunkerhill

Thus, the idea of “king” is rather an abstract one for us, rather fairy-talish, in fact, as distant as the traditional opening of Irish fairy tales which began “A king there was, over all of Ireland”.

MI+Celtic+high+king

So, what might the idea of that title, “The Return of the King” have meant to JRRT, when he chose it?

When JRRT was born, in 1892, Victoria had been the ruler of the UK since 1837.

32-Baby-Tolkien

Queen_Victoria_(after_E_T_Parris_1837)

She was a grandma in 1892.

(c) Royal Highland Fusiliers Museum; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

The Queen could easily trace her descent back to George I (1660-1727), and, through him, back all the way to the eldest daughter of James I, Elizabeth (1596-1662).

James_I_of_England_by_Daniel_Mytens

Royal_family_tree_charting_the_Jacobite_succession.svg

Because JRRT lived until 1973, in his lifetime, the English monarchs were:

victoria1

edward7

(whose death brought together all of Victoria’s grandsons, monarchs of various sorts—see the FILM CLIP)

funeraled7 funeraled7.1

George V

george5queenmary

Edward VIII

edward8

George VI

george6queenmum

Elizabeth II

oversized file

During his lifetime, there had been a great colonial war (the Transvaal War, 1899-1902), two world wars, and the Cold War, and yet Britain survived them all under this succession of monarchs. “The King” in “The Return of…”, then, might be thought to have a very special meaning, one of unwavering stability. In the Shire in Middle Earth in the 3rd Age, for example:

     “There remained, of course, the ancient tradition concerning the high king at Fornost, or Norbury as they called it, away north of the Shire. But there had been no king for nearly a thousand years, and even the ruins of Kings’ Norbury were covered with grass. Yet the Hobbits still said of wild folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king. For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just.” (The Lord of the Rings, 9)

And that “nearly a thousand years”, in terms of British history could easily be taken in reverse, with the foundations of the modern British monarchy—the one Tolkien spent his life being ruled by—appearing with Alfred the Great (849-899AD—and interesting to think that Alfred’s name may be spelled, in Old English, “Aelf-raed”, which means something like “elf counsel” or “wise elf”)—that is, about a thousand years before Tolkien’s birth in 1892.

Statue_of_King_Alfred_in_Wantage_Market_Square

This is, of course, a secular monarch. Tolkien being a devout Catholic (as well as one who wanted great depth in his Middle Earth), could there be another dimension? We’ll talk about that in our next posting…

Thanks, again, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

Charge! The End?

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

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Adventure, Bataclava, Bigelow, British, British Heavy Brigade, Cavalry, Cawnpore, Charges, Chasseurs d'Afrique, Crimean War, French, Funckens, Gandalf, Helm's Deep, John Ford, Minas Tirith, Oliphaunts, Prussian, Remington, Rohirrim, Rossbach, Russian, Schreyvogel, seige, Stagecoach, surreneder, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Trostle Farm, Warhorse, Waterloo, Western, William Simpson

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

In our last, we were discussing film music, where it comes from and what it does. This brought us, as always, it seems, back to JRRT. In that post, we talked about the “Shire theme”. In this, we want to talk not about a theme, but about a scene, one we have mentioned before, the charge of the Rohirrim and the attempted raising of the siege of Minas Tirith.

gondorattacked rohirrimformup

Although, strictly speaking, what is happening to Minas Tirith is simply a frontal assault, not a siege in the classic sense. Although, seen in this illustration (by the wonderful husband and wife team of the Funckens), they may look the same—

funckenssiegeupclose

in a formal siege, you surround a town/fortress

siegediggingin

call on the place to surrender

The-Entrance-Into-Belfort-Of-The-German-Commander-Bearing-The-Flag-Of-Truce-4th-November-1870-1884

use your heavy weapons to bombard the place

catapault42cm

Drive the defenders back from their outer works

William Simpson - The Attack on the Malakoff 1855

And then call upon the defenders to surrender—which, often they do (fewer Alamos than myth would tell you)

surrender4

But, if not, a final—usually costly—attackSiege_of_Badajoz,_by_Richard_Caton_Woodville_Jr

march6

and, potentially, the massacre of all—or at least all of the garrison–inside. (In Jackson’s LoTR, the Orcs are certainly not taking prisoners as they break into Minas Tirith).

The charge of the Rohirrim, though, brought to mind other charges, such as the charge of the Prussian cavalry against the French/Allied army at Rossbach, in 1757—

Schlacht_bei_Roßbach1

or the French and British cavalry charges at Waterloo, 1815—

cavwaterloo1 ChargeofthelightBrigade

or those _other_ charges at the battle of Balaclava, 1854, that of the French 4th Chasseurs d’Afrique

Chasseurs_d'Afrique_à_Balaclava

or of the British Heavy Brigade, which drove the Russian cavalry from the British camp.

balaclava-scots-greys-1200

Those last two remind us, of course, of one of our favorite adventure movies, the 1936 The Charge of the Light Brigade

charge1

It is not so authentic in look as the 1968 movie of the same name,

Charge+of+the+Light+Brigade+movie+poster+2

and, in fact, the film states at its opening that it’s only loosely based on actual historical events (including not only the charge, but the 1857 massacre at Cawnpore—which, in reality, occurred some three years after the Crimean War battle). It also beefs up the Russian defense—adding non-existent earthworks, for instance. Here’s the movie’s view

1225664651_the-charge-of-the-light-brigade_00016

and here’s William Simpson’s near-contemporary illustration (Simpson arrived after the battle, but must have talked to survivors and certainly could have seen the terrain).

William_Simpson_-_Charge_of_the_light_cavalry_brigade,_25th_Oct._1854,_under_Major_General_the_Earl_of_Cardigan

All of these charges were directed at enemy forces on an open battlefield. The attack of the Rohirrim actually comes from a different scenario, one which is based upon a theme familiar to those who have seen American westerns: the arrival of the cavalry in the nick of time.

In this scenario, someone is trapped and surrounded—or at least persistently assaulted by a more numerous enemy—the classic is an attack upon circled wagons

frontier-wagon-circle

The crisis comes and it looks like those attacked are about to be overwhelmed

wagon-box-fight-1867-granger

but, at the last minute, help arrives—the cavalry, bugles sounding, guidons waving (although that illustrated in this vidcap is the 1885 pattern and the film from which this comes takes place in 1880—then again, the uniforms are a bit odd, too—here’s Remington’s and Schreyvogel’s more accurate views, as well) rides fearlessly to the rescue.

Stagecoach_216Pyxurz SCHREYVOGEL_Charles_Cavalry_Charge_1905_Wadsworth_Athenaeum_source_Sandstead_d2h_ remingtoncav

After sorting through more than 50 westerns, we believe that the movie from which our first image comes is probably the source of the modern idea of the arrival of the cavalry—see this clip from John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939)

CLIP

This happens twice, of course, in The Lord of the Rings, first at Helm’s deep, when Gandalf arrives—

helms-deep gandalfarrives

and again, as we began, at Minas Tirith. It’s interesting, however, to see that, in this second example, the cavalry rescue is not so successful, since there are those oliphaunts we discussed in an earlier posting—

mumakil_by_cg_warrior-d4muefu

In our world, it wasn’t giant oliphaunts who eventually defeated cavalry and drove them to the edges of the battlefield, where they lasted a little longer, but this

maximwarhorse

as you can see in this clip from Warhorse.

CLIP

And it’s for the best, really. It’s bad enough that we humans engage in violent actions without dragging the rest of the animal kingdom into it…

trostle-farm

(A few of the 80 horses lost by Bigelow’s 9th MA Battery at the Trostle Farm, 2 July, 1863—and, as a sad ps, 25 horses were killed or so badly injured that they were put down at the filming of the 1936 The Charge of the Light Brigade—this so shocked those in Congress that a law for the protection of animals in films was passed to prevent future harm).

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

Music to Our Ears

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music

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Alexander Nevsky, Bag End, Birth of a Nation, Darth Vader, Film music, film score, Gilraen's Memorial, Howard Shore, Imperial March, Jaws, John Williams, Journey to the Grey Havens, melodrama, Mendelssohn, Midsumer Night's Dream, Prokofiev, Rivendell, Sergei Eisenstein, silent film, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, The Tales That Really Matter, theme

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. In this posting, we’d like to talk a bit about film music.

We’re interested in all kinds—from classic 30s to more recent scores. We began by asking ourselves why is there film music? Where does it come from?

To begin, we looked back into the 19th century, where we found that music could be used underneath the action in plays—Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream being a good example. Mendelssohn wrote the overture as a teenager, and as a purely orchestral piece. The rest of the music was written for a performance of the play in Berlin in 1842. Some of it consists of settings for the songs from Shakespeare’s play, but other music is meant to be played during a scene to heighten tension or to release it. (This use of music was so common in the 19th century that we get the expression “melodrama” originally from plays with music. “Melos” is an ancient Greek word for “song”, which gets added to “drama”.)

Edwin_Landseer_-_Scene_from_A_Midsummer_Night's_Dream._Titania_and_Bottom_-_Google_Art_Project

When film began to take its place next to drama as a form of popular entertainment—sometimes in the same theatres—film was, of course, silent.

zorro-still

Without spoken dialogue or sound effects, as people were already used to the music played in dramas, it was natural to have music played under films, commonly using a piano or an organ.

3185_2

The music could be classical excerpts or popular music of the period, which would be improvised by the organist or pianist. For some films, music was even specially written. Birth of a Nation (1915) was one of these.

Sheet_music_for_'The_Perfect_Song'_from_The_Birth_of_a_Nation

Such music, as in plays, would underscore the action building or releasing the motion. This was true of early sound films—like Alexander Nevsky (1939).

PROKOFIEV , Sergei - with Sergei Eisenstein ( film director ) at film studios , 1943 working on film Alexander Nevsky . Russian composer , 27 April 1891 - 5 March 1953 .

PROKOFIEV , Sergei – with Sergei Eisenstein ( film director ) at film studios , 1943 working on film Alexander Nevsky . Russian composer , 27 April 1891 – 5 March 1953 .

And of more recent films. Think of the shark theme from Jaws

(Jaws theme)

2806004-jaws

Or, Darth Vader

(Imperial March)

Black-Series-Darth-Vader-47

(And think of how the music change when Luke takes off his father’s helmet.)

(Imperial March– alternate version)

vader1983

A special favorite of ours is the Shire theme from The Lord of the Rings.

jrrt_12

In the theatrical version of the film, we hear this first when Gandalf visits Frodo.

(The Shire theme in “Bag End“, taken from the complete recordings)

gandalf-visiting-frodo

In this scene, we’re being told, just as in a silent movie, about a feeling—and only through music which accompanies the picture.

But when we hear the music return when Frodo and Sam have set out on their journey to Rivendell:

(“Rivendell”)

Leaving Rivendell, as a part of the Fellowship (and the theme here acts as a prelude to the Fellowship theme):

(“Gilraen’s Memorial“)

Sam’s speech, where the theme resides to accepting the journey but reminisces about home:

(“The Tales That Really Matter“)

And saying farewell before departing into the West:

(“Journey to the Grey Havens”)

And so we have an entirely different feeling each time we hear a variant of the theme– the Little People make their mark in the film not only by taking a part in the story, but also in the music, as it shifts through their adventure.

But try this for yourself, dear reader. Pick a favorite film, and try to focus less on the action and more on the music: are there recurring themes, for instance? And, if so, do they change? And if they do change, how does that affect the film and you?

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

MTCIDC,

CD

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