Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

Tolkien loved creation because he loved its creator and his creator’s artwork. He especially loved trees, animals, and gardens.

Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey believed that by creating his mythology and form of writing, Tolkien was trying to revive medievalist fantasy literature.

Tolkien once wrote of “that noble northern spirit…which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”

In The Keys of Middle-earth, Stuart Lee and Elizabeth Solopova argued that the keys to understanding Tolkien’s creation were to first understand the primary medievalist literature that influenced him.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Wed Jan 01, 2025 11:12 am I liked this:

Tolkien loved creation because he loved its creator and his creator’s artwork. He especially loved trees, animals, and gardens.

With the exception of Eden, gardens are not part of the Creation; they are sub-creation!

More generally, you should talk to @Ephtariat (though he has not posted for a while) who is absorbed in Tolkien's Middle-English studies, like Pearl and Gawain. This is the only 'Medieval' literature that could be said to have 'inspired' Tolkien, and the only literature that is overtly Christian.

Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey believed that by creating his mythology and form of writing, Tolkien was trying to revive medievalist fantasy literature.

Tolkien once wrote of “that noble northern spirit…which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”

In The Keys of Middle-earth, Stuart Lee and Elizabeth Solopova argued that the keys to understanding Tolkien’s creation were to first understand the primary medievalist literature that influenced him.

On the whole, Tolkien's reading did not suffer the Norman Conquest, but in addition to various Old English texts he also lectured on the Icelandic Eddas. This material can only be called 'Medieval' by terminological impoverishment. In 'Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics' Tolkien defines 'the Medieval' in relation to the synthesis of Christian and pagan that he discerns in Beowulf - but the point is that 'the Medieval' is what arises later.

The 'noble northern spirit' was first proclaimed by W.P. Ker in 1904 in his reading of the Eddas. Ker defined this northern spirit as the last guess of the Northmen as to the secret of the universe before they came into contact with Christianity. When Tolkien unveils the same image of the northern courage in Beowulf as Ker discerned in the Eddas, his point is that the author of Beowulf was celebrating an ancient heathen ethos of courage.

bilbobaggins764 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 9:22 pm I am not looking at "Medieval" literature as much as the Medieval worldview The/mindset that Tolkien had. If we look at it from that perspective then we find Medieval and Christian themes heavily influenced ME.

In The Keys of Middle-earth, Stuart Lee and Elizabeth Solopova argued that the keys to understanding Tolkien’s creation were to first understand the primary medievalist literature that influenced him.

Those documents provided the roots and ingredients that made up Tolkien’s imagination. C. S. Lewis once said to Tolkien, “There is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.”

Tolkien incorporated many elements of medieval literature into his works, such as poetry, quests, heroes, rings, and riddles

In addition, medieval literature heavily influenced Tolkien’s languages, characters, names, plots, the structure of his poetry, and songs.

By bringing back medievalist literature, Lewis and Tolkien were in part, attempting to resurrect the wonder of nature that had been lost by the widespread acceptance of materialism.

As in our own, in Tolkien’s day, the world was seen through the lens of the dominant philosophies of evolutionary materialism.

Those perspectives understand nature as matter originating from randomness and chaos. Christians and traditionalists G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J.R.R Tolkien still held a medievalist view of the natural world.

Wonder filled the medieval peasant’s existence. Nature and the mighty forces of nature provided him with all kinds of amazement and unexplained beings beyond his understanding.

But you must remember that these words, “tree,” “star,” were (in their original forms) names given to these objects by people with very different views from yours. To you, a tree is simply a vegetable organism, and a star simply a ball of inanimate matter moving along a mathematical course.

But the first men to talk of “trees” and “stars” saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings. They saw the stars as living silver, bursting into flame in answer to the eternal music. They saw the sky as a jeweled tent, and the earth as the womb whence all living things have come. To them, the whole of creation was ‘myth-woven and elf patterned.

Many things of the Middle Ages have counterparts in Middle-earth.

In particular, the monks remind me of the elves and Rivendell of a monastery. Like Rivendell, monasteries were built in secluded areas that were picked for their beautiful surroundings. Both were houses of learning, scholarship, and preservation of the past.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 7:06 am

bilbobaggins764 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 9:22 pm I am not looking at "Medieval" literature as much as the Medieval worldview The/mindset that Tolkien had. If we look at it from that perspective then we find Medieval and Christian themes heavily influenced ME.

Thank you for your response. I'll accept your point but you should perhaps take a little more care in the words you use. Here from the start of your post you are quite explicit about "Medieval literature".

In The Keys of Middle-earth, Stuart Lee and Elizabeth Solopova argued that the keys to understanding Tolkien’s creation were to first understand the primary medievalist literature that influenced him.

Those documents provided the roots and ingredients that made up Tolkien’s imagination. C. S. Lewis once said to Tolkien, “There is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.”

Tolkien incorporated many elements of medieval literature into his works, such as poetry, quests, heroes, rings, and riddles

In addition, medieval literature heavily influenced Tolkien’s languages, characters, names, plots, the structure of his poetry, and songs.

By bringing back medievalist literature, Lewis and Tolkien were in part, attempting to resurrect the wonder of nature that had been lost by the widespread acceptance of materialism.

So you can perhaps see why I read you as talking about 'Medieval literature'? As for "Medieval mindset", I don't understand what you mean.

As in our own, in Tolkien’s day, the world was seen through the lens of the dominant philosophies of evolutionary materialism.

Those perspectives understand nature as matter originating from randomness and chaos. Christians and traditionalists G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J.R.R Tolkien still held a medievalist view of the natural world.

Are you suggesting that Tolkien, Chesterton, and Lewis all held a geocentric model of the cosmos, with the Earth at the center? Did they believe that things fall down because they contain the element of Earth rather than because of gravity?

So far as I can make out, by 'Medieval mindset' you don't mean an educated Medieval mindset but only that of a medieval peasant:

Wonder filled the medieval peasant’s existence. Nature and the mighty forces of nature provided him with all kinds of amazement and unexplained beings beyond his understanding.

But how is the medieval peasant different from the peasant of any other past time? What is distinctly medieval about a lack of scientific understanding combined with a sense of wonder and the telling of fairy-tales about natural things? In general, you appear to consider any period before the modern era 'medieval'. You give this quote from Tolkien:

But you must remember that these words, “tree,” “star,” were (in their original forms) names given to these objects by people with very different views from yours. To you, a tree is simply a vegetable organism, and a star simply a ball of inanimate matter moving along a mathematical course.

But the first men to talk of “trees” and “stars” saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings. They saw the stars as living silver, bursting into flame in answer to the eternal music. They saw the sky as a jeweled tent, and the earth as the womb whence all living things have come. To them, the whole of creation was ‘myth-woven and elf patterned.

Tolkien is talking about the origins of language, which is far, far older than the Middle Ages. So far as I can make out, you simply label 'Medieval' anything that appears non-materialist in Tolkien. Possibly I am missing a key to your argument, but it seems to me that you have no grounds for so doing. At root, you have only your own subjective associations to go on.

Many things of the Middle Ages have counterparts in Middle-earth.

In particular, the monks remind me of the elves and Rivendell of a monastery. Like Rivendell, monasteries were built in secluded areas that were picked for their beautiful surroundings. Both were houses of learning, scholarship, and preservation of the past.

Well, I am not sure what Arwen and Galadriel would have to say to that! For my part, the elves do not remind me of monks nor Rivendell of a monastery.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 8:22 am Hello @bilbobaggins764,

Thank you for the polite reply. I was thinking on this last night and it did occur to me that 'Medieval' does have great significance for Tolkien, at least with regard to British history. Basically, Medieval England = Catholic England, and I think for Tolkien things go very wrong for his country with the Reformation.

Tolkien's older colleague at London, R.W. Chambers, was an Anglo-Catholic and made no bones about treating the history of English Literature in relation to this religious history. He wrote a (once) famous book on Thomas More, who he presented as England's great Catholic matryr, and the Pope commended the book. Tolkien avoided such direct statements. It is notable that all his English studies are pre-Reformation, but the only direct statements that I am aware of are found in his essay on his very late story 'Smith of Wootton Major', where the vanishing of traditional 'medieval' ways of life and worship are related to a crisis of Fairie.

I do think that a good case could be made for presenting the whole of Tolkien's fantasy efforts as attempts to provide an alternative road to the English medieval (Catholic) ways of experiencing and engaging with the world. It is just that it is a very subtle project. In other words, I do think that you are correct on a deep level, only the execution as it stands is too crude.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 8:50 am The devastation of culture resulting from the English reformation can be seen by comparison of two Cambridge colleges, Kings College and Queens College, which were founded at the same time. Kings College Chapel, the most famous building in Cambridge, took a century to build. It was commenced in a Catholic country but completed by Henry VIII.



The original plan for Kings College Chapel was to paint all the stone work! The great columns rising up were to be painted as trees, brown trunks with leafed branches holding up the ceiling, which itself was to be blue with stars painted on it.

A sense of what this building was meant to look like can be had from looking at Queens College.