Eastern Europe bad. West good.

Steve Hayes <hayesmstw RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
: On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 04:29:53 GMT, Sean <no.spam RemoveThis @no.spam> wrote:

:>Steve Hayes wrote:
:>
:>> Which part of Europe did that "child of the kindly West" live in, then?
:>
:> "Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past,
:> and the shape of all lands has been changed; but the regions
:> in which Hobbits then lived were doubtless the same as those
:> in which they still linger: the North-West of the Old World,
:> east of the Sea."
:>
:>ie, Western Europe, at least as I read it. However, I was
:>more interested in Tolkien's attitude behind that quote.
:>
:>For long millenia, Western Europe looked uneasily at the East
:>because of waves of invasions -- Huns, Mongols, Tartars,
:>Turks, Ostrogoths, etc. I wonder if that's what the author
:>had in mind.

: That would tend to make it allegorical, and Tolkien wasn't too keen on
: allegory.


Middle Earth was our Earth, according to Tolkien, so the people
from the eastern parts of Middle Earth were the people from the
eastern parts of our Earth, and the people from the southern
parts of Middle Earth were the people from the southern parts
of our Earth. If you consider this allegory, then your
definition of allegory differs from Tolkien's.

Stephen
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 11:21:31 +0200, Tarjei Vagstol
<tarjei.vagstol DeleteThis @nynorsk.no> posted the following:

 >The world of LOTR isn't all that different from the world-view of the
 >traditional history-telling of Western Europe: The West is the centre of
 >civilization and goodness. To the south and east the evil forces roam,
 >and cast forth waves of invasions on the West.

Both the Elves and Men awoke in the East, so I guess they're evil too?
And in the First Age, Morgoth's stronghold is in the north. I believe
that Tolkien specifically says in one of his letters that Sauron's
position in the east has nothing to do with any real historical or
geographical concerns.

Your opinion is a sadly common one, but one with little to no
foundation. I don't know why some people are so eager to believe that
Tolkien had racist or nationalistic ideas despite the overwhelming
evidence to the contrary.

-Chris<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

In article <dalji09jcaneucgovtmv9u7rc9vemklp14.DeleteThis@4ax.com>,
Chris Kern <chriskern99.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
 >On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 11:21:31 +0200, Tarjei Vagstol
 ><tarjei.vagstol.DeleteThis@nynorsk.no> posted the following:

  >>The world of LOTR isn't all that different from the world-view of the
  >>traditional history-telling of Western Europe: The West is the centre of
  >>civilization and goodness. To the south and east the evil forces roam,
  >>and cast forth waves of invasions on the West.

 >Both the Elves and Men awoke in the East, so I guess they're evil too?
 >And in the First Age, Morgoth's stronghold is in the north. I believe
 >that Tolkien specifically says in one of his letters that Sauron's
 >position in the east has nothing to do with any real historical or
 >geographical concerns.
 >
 >Your opinion is a sadly common one, but one with little to no
 >foundation. I don't know why some people are so eager to believe that
 >Tolkien had racist or nationalistic ideas despite the overwhelming
 >evidence to the contrary.

Of course both Elves and Men awoke in the East. They had to awake
in the East or else they couldn't make great migrations into the
West, and Tolkien's mythos would have been deprived of one of its
grand themes! I'm not saying that Tolkien saw the East as
intrinsically evil. But it does seem to represent an unenlightened
state of nature, and the Great Journey from East to West does seem
to have the appearance of a sort of pilgrim's progress from ignorance
to salvation. I would agree with Tarjei that Tolkien's attitude
towards the East in LOTR at least gives the appearance of being
that of a very traditional 19th century Western European intellectual.
And why should this be a surprise?
--
John Brock
jbrock.DeleteThis@panix.com<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

"jsberry" <jsberry.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:51431c0.0408230954.d22ce2b@posting.google.com...

 > You can't ignore the similarities to European
 > geography and history:

There are deliberate similarities to various cultures... however, I
would question many of the connections you make;

 > SOUTHEAST: mountainous, inaccessible, hordes of
 > enemies, evil religion

There was an evil religion to the SE of Europe?

 > NORTH: angmar/viking invasions

What does Angmar have to do with Vikings?

 > WEST: sail to the promised land, vanished island
 > with advanced civilization

Atlantis was real?<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Conrad Dunkerson <conrad.dunkerson RemoveThis @worldnet.att.net> wrote:
: "jsberry" <jsberry RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote in message
: news:51431c0.0408230954.d22ce2b@posting.google.com...

:> You can't ignore the similarities to European
:> geography and history:

: There are deliberate similarities to various cultures... however, I
: would question many of the connections you make;

:> SOUTHEAST: mountainous, inaccessible, hordes of
:> enemies, evil religion

: There was an evil religion to the SE of Europe?

Islam could match that description. Who after all were
the crusades fought against?

Stephen
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

<stephen.DeleteThis@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:cgdokq$of6$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu...

> Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
> : "jsberry" <jsberry.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote;

> :> SOUTHEAST: mountainous, inaccessible, hordes of
> :> enemies, evil religion

> : There was an evil religion to the SE of Europe?

> Islam could match that description. Who after all were
> the crusades fought against?

Hrrmmm... so, Islam was found in a mountainous region? :]
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

hayesmstw DeleteThis @hotmail.com (Steve Hayes) wrote in
news:412974c1.96237020@news.saix.net:

 > On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 22:35:57 GMT, Sean <no.spam DeleteThis @no.spam>
 > wrote:
 >
  >>Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
  >>
   >>> > Strangely enough, the first light of dawn this morning
   >>> > didn't turn me to stone.
   >>>
   >>> Aha! You are one of the Olog-hai!
  >>
  >>Which brings the dialog around to my original thesis about
  >>Eastern Europe. "Olog" has a Slavic sound to it, or perhaps
  >>Slavic influenced by the Varangian Rus (riverine Vikings),
  >>who established a kingdom in the Ukraine under their King
  >>Oleg in 882 AD.
  >>
  >>All sorts of thugs seemed to have come out of Rhun and
  >>beyond, giving the East a sinister reputation. The
  >>Wainriders, for instance. Perhaps the Wainriders were
  >>actually Huns or Mongols who were a bit unsteady on
  >>horseback so they travelled the endless grassy steppe in
  >>wagons.
 >
 > And did America take off into outer space after the two
 > trees died?
 >
 >

California did. It's still "out there".

As far as our behavoir and attitudes, many think America, or at
leas the USAn part, is "out there" too.

--
TeaLady (mari)

"Indeed, literary analysis will be a serious undertaking only
when it adopts the mindset of quantum physics and regards the
observer as part of the experiment."
Flame of the West on litcrit<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

On 23 Aug 2004 10:54:36 -0700, jsberry.DeleteThis@yahoo.com (jsberry) wrote:

 >Didn't Tolkien's quote about allegory referred to religion? Anyway,
 >just because he denounced allegory after writing his myths, doesn't
 >mean he was consciously or unconsciously applying geographical
 >allegory between Europe and Middle Earth at the time he was writing.

What makes you think it referred only to religion? He said he hated it in all
its forms.

You are free to interpret Tolkien's writting as sllegory in whole or in part,
but you cannot in truth ascribe your interpretation to Tolkien.

You may choose to see the Shire as an allegory of England, if you wish, taking
on the Teutonic hordes of Hitler and Kaiser Bill and the Mongol hordes of
Genghis Khan. And it works, to a point. Hobbits do indeed have some
characterisitcs of idealised Englishmen, and perhaps Sam Gamgee was based on a
character Tolkien met in a rural pub.

Some have chosen to see the ring as an allegory for the atomic bomb, and
that's OK. You can see that, and the allegory works, to a point. But it's not
legitimate to ascribe such allegorical interpretations to Tolkien -- much of
LotR was written or at least conceived before there were atomic bombs.

I could make a case, based on the fact of Tolkien's having been born in
Southern Africa, that the geography of Middle Earth in general, and the
journey of the ring bearers in particular, is similar to one from the
shire-like setting of Nottingham Road in the Natal Midlands, over the
Drakensberg (Misty Mountains), down the Orange River, across the highveld
(Plains of the Rihirrim) and into Namibia and up the Brandberg (Mount Doom)
with Shelob's Lair being located somewhere in the Karasberg. It works, but
it's probably not what Tolkien had in mind.


--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: hayesmstw.DeleteThis@hotmail.com
Web: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

AC <mightymartianca DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote in
news:2otbofFeb3l1U1@uni-berlin.de:

 > Sean wrote:
  >> Steve Hayes wrote:
  >>
  >>
   >>>Which part of Europe did that "child of the kindly West"
   >>>live in, then?
  >>
  >>
  >> "Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long
  >> past, and the shape of all lands has been changed; but
  >> the regions in which Hobbits then lived were doubtless
  >> the same as those in which they still linger: the
  >> North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea."
  >>
  >> ie, Western Europe, at least as I read it. However, I was
  >> more interested in Tolkien's attitude behind that quote.
  >>
  >> For long millenia, Western Europe looked uneasily at the
  >> East because of waves of invasions -- Huns, Mongols,
  >> Tartars, Turks, Ostrogoths, etc. I wonder if that's what
  >> the author had in mind.
 >
 > I see that you are sufficiently unaware of JRRT's works that
 > you do not know what he thinks of allegory.
 >
 > "But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations,
 > and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to
 > detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or
 > feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and
 > experience of readers." Letter #131
 >

"Wikipedia
An allegory (from Greek a????, allos, "other", and a???e?e??,
agoreuein, "to speak in public") is a figurative representation
conveying a meaning other than and in addition to the literal.
It is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory
does not have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed
to the eye, and is often found in painting, sculpture or some
form of mimetic art. The etymological meaning of the word is
wider than that which it bears in actual use. An allegory is
distinguished from a metaphor by being longer sustained and more
fully carried out in its details, and from an analogy by the
fact that the one appeals to the imagination and the other to
the reason. The fable or parable is a short allegory with one
definite moral. "

I do think, and I believe it is not disputed (entirely), that
Tolkien used real history and historical myths as an aid in
creating Middle-earth - geography (perhaps not at 1st, the Earth
doesn't resemble a giant viking ship in a bubble floating
through the void), peoples, history - I don't think Middle-earth
is an allegory of Europe/Asia, or was meant to be. It seems the
best fantasy/fiction uses elements that are familiar in some way
to the readers, even if most of the story is clearly not "real"
and contains often highly fantastic themes and characters (a
talking tree ? one that walks and sings and shepherds other
trees ? Yeah, I saw one down by the river last week - he bummed
a cigarette from me, drank something from a large crockery, and
wandered off drunkenly, mumbling about the water quality being
so very poor now-a-days)

I think what Sean is trying to discover, or discuss, is the
similarity in LoTR to what was felt to be a truth at some times
in the past, both distant and not-so-distant. I don't think he
is alluding to any sort of allegorical meaning - just the
happenstance of similarity between Middle-earth's East-West view
point and our own historical East-West view point. And if
Tolkien was indeed using our Earth and its peoples, myths and
history as a model, or an aid to modeling, Middle-earth, then
yes, there will be similarities.

--
TeaLady (mari)

"Indeed, literary analysis will be a serious undertaking only
when it adopts the mindset of quantum physics and regards the
observer as part of the experiment."
Flame of the West on litcrit<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

On 23 Aug 2004 18:43:26 GMT, stephen.TakeThisOut@nomail.com wrote:

 >Steve Hayes <hayesmstw.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
 >: On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 04:29:53 GMT, Sean <no.spam.TakeThisOut@no.spam> wrote:
 >:>For long millenia, Western Europe looked uneasily at the East
 >:>because of waves of invasions -- Huns, Mongols, Tartars,
 >:>Turks, Ostrogoths, etc. I wonder if that's what the author
 >:>had in mind.
 >
 >: That would tend to make it allegorical, and Tolkien wasn't too keen on
 >: allegory.
 >
 >
 >Middle Earth was our Earth, according to Tolkien, so the people
 >from the eastern parts of Middle Earth were the people from the
 >eastern parts of our Earth, and the people from the southern
 >parts of Middle Earth were the people from the southern parts
 >of our Earth. If you consider this allegory, then your
 >definition of allegory differs from Tolkien's.

And what is Tolkien's definition?


--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: hayesmstw.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com
Web: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

hayesmstw DeleteThis @hotmail.com (Steve Hayes) wrote in message news:<412acaca.77888081 DeleteThis @news.saix.net>...
  >> Middle Earth was our Earth, according to Tolkien, so the people
  >> from the eastern parts of Middle Earth were the people from the
  >> eastern parts of our Earth, and the people from the southern
  >> parts of Middle Earth were the people from the southern parts
  >> of our Earth. If you consider this allegory, then your
  >> definition of allegory differs from Tolkien's.
 > And what is Tolkien's definition?

I believe this is the central question.

When Tolkien declares that LOTR is no allegory, he says that it has no
"hidden meaning". It is not - for instance - a tale about WW2 under
the guise of an epic saga. We can safely assume that this is true.

However, every text written refers to other texts in some way. The
most basic form of reference (intertextuality) is called "shared
codes". This implies the whole body of world-views, double meanings
etc. that is a part of our culture. All works of fiction depends on
these "shared codes". A text written without them would be utterly
alien.

"Semotics for Beginners" by Daniel Chandler dicusses this in more
detail: <http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html>

What determined the geography of Middle-Earth? Chance is not a likely
answer, given his attention to all details. It seems to me that
Tolkien chose a geography that would seem "natural" to english
readers. As I said in an earlier post, a world turned upside-down
would certainly confuse a lot of readers. They would have to think
that "well, east in Middle-Earth is what is west to me". Or, perhaps
not _think_, but at least adjust to the thought.

Regards,
Tarjei<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Chris Kern wrote:
  >>The world of LOTR isn't all that different from the world-view of the
  >>traditional history-telling of Western Europe: The West is the centre of
  >>[...]
 > Both the Elves and Men awoke in the East, so I guess they're evil too?

FWIW: At the beginning of the 20th century, it was almost held as a fact
that the indo-european people originated on the plains of southern
Russia, and migrated into Europe.

 > that Tolkien specifically says in one of his letters that Sauron's
 > position in the east has nothing to do with any real historical or
 > geographical concerns.

I'm not trying to indentify neither Mordor nor Sauron with real-world
lands or persons. What I'm saying is that Tolkien simply adopted the
"world-view" of his readers. After all, why should he turn the map
upside down? He could have made the North hot and the South cold, the
West a continent and the East a sea, but _why_ _should_ _he_?

 > foundation. I don't know why some people are so eager to believe that
 > Tolkien had racist or nationalistic ideas despite the overwhelming
 > evidence to the contrary.

Do you think I'm trying to say Tolkien was a racist?

Regards,
Tarjei<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Steve Hayes <hayesmstw.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
: On 23 Aug 2004 18:43:26 GMT, stephen.TakeThisOut@nomail.com wrote:

:>Steve Hayes <hayesmstw.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
:>: On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 04:29:53 GMT, Sean <no.spam.TakeThisOut@no.spam> wrote:
:>:>For long millenia, Western Europe looked uneasily at the East
:>:>because of waves of invasions -- Huns, Mongols, Tartars,
:>:>Turks, Ostrogoths, etc. I wonder if that's what the author
:>:>had in mind.
:>
:>: That would tend to make it allegorical, and Tolkien wasn't too keen on
:>: allegory.
:>
:>
:>Middle Earth was our Earth, according to Tolkien, so the people
:>from the eastern parts of Middle Earth were the people from the
:>eastern parts of our Earth, and the people from the southern
:>parts of Middle Earth were the people from the southern parts
:>of our Earth. If you consider this allegory, then your
:>definition of allegory differs from Tolkien's.

: And what is Tolkien's definition?

It is obviously not yours. The Shire and Gondor are in Western Europe.
They are not meant to be symbols for locations in present day Europe,
they are meant to be real locations in the Europe of long ago. Likewise
the different humans are humans of our Earth from long ago. That is
what Tolkien intended. You apparently disagree.

Stephen
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good.