'Beowulf: the Monsters & the Critics'

Discussions in Middle-earth lore, language and books.
Dragonborn
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Aikári Salmarinian wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2024 3:15 pm If there is an answer to the starting setup of the dissertation, you may find it on page 15:

"The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allergory, and, what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected."
Yes! This is the key paragraph to line up with Tolkien's intentions in telling his allegory of the tower. But on this thread the discussion has not yet arrived at a position to line it up because we have not yet worked through the 'equations' of the allegory. From Shippey (1982), the secondary literature has generally assumed that the allegory of the tower is mechanical, that is, a set of 'equations' to be solved - and that is the end of it; an approach that ensures an allegory does not work! Shippey is the Beowulf authority, so his lead has been followed, but actually Verlyn Flieger (1983) observed that Shippey provided no solution to the sea-view and herself claimed that the sea has no allegorical solution. But nobody took the next step - the utterly obvious step - of identifying the sea as mythical. The sea seen from the top of the tower is the same sea that we find in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.

It is astonishing. What everyone is after is understanding the stories of Tolkien. They read a short story, presented as an allegory, and because it is told in an academic lecture nobody reads it as one of the stories they are seeking to understand - readers refuse to recognize that we are in the same world of the same stories!

Do you remember a year ago my pushing you on the question of who sent the mythical king of the exordium of Beowulf to his people? You had no idea of what I was talking about, until I linked you to Tolkien's poem 'King Sheave', where we see very clearly how the exordium segs with Tolkien's legendarium, with the answer obviously the Elves.

This thread began with my posting a link to one of my SWG posts. This post deals with the argument of 'Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics'. But it is part of a series that began with the exordium to Beowulf and explained how it inspired 'The Fall of Númenor', which embodies Tolkien's reading of this exordium. Once this is taken on board the sea-view of the allegory comes into view as the mythical sea over which Elendil sails (to Middle-earth) and Frodo sails (to Valinor).

I am completely OK with discussing the allegory, which after all gives us the tower that reappears in The Lord of the Rings as Elostirion. But the primary thesis of my last four SWG posts is that 'The Fall of Númenor' is at the very heart of Tolkien's Beowulf criticism and, therefore, The Lord of the Rings is a product of Tolkien's Beowulf criticism (and continues it by other means).
Eat earth. Dig deep. Drink water.

Roadrunner
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Hello Aiks

I guess we are all brought up and taught differently. Per my High School English class lessons, tutorials and examinations - paragraph summarization is always meant to be done in your own words. Repeating sentences from an extract would result in marks being deducted.

Summarization is somewhat different from an exercise of picking out a key sentence in a paragraph. In school, we practiced that too.

In any case, I read about that ‘well man’. It was fascinating! Your thoughts are spot on - there is always some truth behind a legend.

Roadrunner
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Hello Chrysophylax Dives

your summaries are too crude and overlook what Tolkien is setting up in his first 7 paragraphs
I already knew, as hinted, my summary would differ from others. That does not bother me in the slightest. If you gave a class of 30 the same exercise, no two summaries would be the same. And no doubt some would complain that only their production is a worthy one.

My aim with brevity (1 or 2 summary sentences per paragraph) was to bring out each paragraph’s most salient feature so that one can easily see, at a glance, how Tolkien is constructing his case. Such succinctness highlights in a methodical fashion:

(a) That Tolkien is already criticizing ‘the industry’ before The Tower Allegory is brought up.
(b) The Tower Allegory is a reflection of that.
(c) The Tower Allegory also includes Tolkien’s desired direction.

So I think we are in agreement per:
You are correct that the seventh paragraph, the allegory, builds on what has come before.

Hallelujah !!!




Now on to some of your other remarks:
This is the first sentence after the allegory and establishes that the justice of the allegory is to be shown in what follows.
Well, having already said that it “builds on what has come before” - wasn’t the allegory just in terms of what preceded it?

All Tolkien is saying here, with:
I hope I shall show that that allegory is just - even when we consider the more recent and more perceptive critics (whose concern is in intention with literature).
is that I’ve only yet accounted for some critics (Paragraphs 1-6), however there are others that need to be addressed. There is a caveat imposed by the hyphen and the long string of words after it. For me, those additional words in the sentence are of great significance. It is highly important to note that Tolkien did not place a full stop after the “just” and discard the hyphenated matter. Yes, every word is to be heeded - my position hasn’t changed. But context is of equal and absolutely fundamental importance too. In my opinion, one must acknowledge the context behind “I hope I shall show that that allegory is just”.

Are you ready to do that?



Your odd idea that the allegory only looks backward
When did I say that? I can’t find it.

The criticism of the ‘industry’ of course continues beyond the Tower Allegory. And as such the later stuff is aligned with that already made and thus the allegory.



The Tower Allegory was not meant to reflect his own analysis of the poem or get into a discussion of its details. It’s too early in the essay for him to go there.
Please look at the essay carefully, and digest the structure Tolkien has provided.
Too early by whose lights? Yours alone.
No - by Tolkien’s.

The Professor continues to address the critics for many paragraphs after the Tower Allegory. Towards the middle of the essay, is when he starts interjecting more forcefully his ideas behind authorial intent, structural considerations and his own views about the monsters.



I am still of the opinion that the Tower Allegory was deliberately kept at a high and let’s say generalized level. It is vague enough not to outright belittle and possibly upset ‘descendants’ attending the lecture. Yet it still gets his message across. And that message has some equivalence to the old English idiom: ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’.
Last edited by Priya on Thu Oct 31, 2024 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dragonborn
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Hi Priya,

We agree that every word is carefully considered when it comes to Tolkien, and also of the supreme importance of context. I will add also the value of precision in reading (and reporting on) his words. For example.
The Professor continues to address the critics for many paragraphs after the Tower Allegory. Towards the middle of the essay, is when he starts interjecting more forcefully his ideas behind authorial intent, structural considerations and his own views about the monsters.
Following the allegory of the tower many paragraphs indeed address the critics. But it is more precise - and so more useful - to say that after passing rapidly over the babel of friendly critical voices the great part of these paragraphs are dedicated to 3 descendants - Ker, Chambers, and Girvan (of Glasgow University), each of whom is quoted and their criticism discussed at length. One cumulative result of these three engagements with the descendants is that by the end of this section the term of art of the descendants, folklore, has been replaced by Tolkien's preferred term, myth. This sets up the specific argument about the monsters and fusion, wherein fusion is discovered in the realm of mythology.

Precise reading of the text unearths its structure. The criticism of the critics that follows the tower allegory on pp. 7-8 continues to p. 18, where Tolkien proclaims an initital refutation ("The particular is on the outer edge, the essential in the centre") and then provides a panoramic view of the world of the story that takes in the Shoreless Sea but turns us now to Doom at the center. This vital paragraph returns us to the view from the tower of the allegory, albeit we now stand on the top of the tower and are shown the view.

After this panoramic view from the tower, and a follow up paragraph that underlines that at the center of this poem is Doom = death, the argument about the monsters and fusion begins...

***

So we know where we are, would you mind giving anew your solutions to the 'equations' of the allegory?

field
accumalation of old stone
older hall
house where he now lives
tower
friends
descendants
sea

I am not sure if you have revised your account of any of these (and possibly you never gave a solution to the sea?).
Eat earth. Dig deep. Drink water.

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