Eastern Europe bad. West good.

stephen.TakeThisOut@nomail.com wrote:
> Shanahan <pogues.TakeThisOut@bluefrog.com> wrote:

> :> Who said anything about a one-to-one correspondence? LotR is set
> :> in our world. Its people are meant to be our people.
>
> I was assuming they meant that I had to identify exactly what
> real people the Easterling's were supposed to be.

But you do: You identify them with the people living in the East
in our time. Otherwise you cannot equate "in LotR people from the
East are Evil" and "the current English reader has a distate for
people from the East". That's a very specific identification
("specific" does not mean "people with a particular name").

> Obviously they represent people from the East of Europe,

No. The represent imaginary people in the East of ME. And while
you can relate the East of ME to the East of Europe, that relationship
breaks down when you try to argue something like "in ME, those
people were evil, so Tolkien must have thought that the people
in the East of Europe were Evil, too".

> but people argue that that does not mean anything unless you
> identify exactly which group of people from East of Europe they
> represent, e.g. Mongols, Tatars, etc.

No, that's not the argument. The argument is that while some general
characteristics of people of Eastern Europe and Africa may have
influenced the image of how the Easterlings and the Southrons, you
cannot reverse this relationsship and conclude that any attributes
of those people in ME also apply to those in the real world.
The reason is that there is no one-to-one correspondence between those
two, it is not an "allegory".

And as I have already said, you can see this much more clearly with
the Rohirrim and the Anglo-Saxons: While the Anglo-Saxons clearly
influenced the Rohirrim, not any random characteristic of the Rohirrim
(say, beeing riders) is meant to describe the Anglo-Saxons.

Is the argument now clearer? In a one-to-one correspondence, you
can reverse the relationship and conclude things "backward".
In the general case, you cannot.

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Steve Hayes wrote:

> I suppose that is much the same attitude as one finds at the beginning of
> "Dracula". Could the Misty Mountains be the Carpathians? A wild and
> uncivilised country where the trains don't run on time?

Ah but they had inns in Transylvania, but they did not take to strangers
very well in these inns. And after midnight everyone went how, locked
and shuttered there houses and hung wreaths of garlic about the places.
Translylvania was a fell palce, to use a Tolkienesque phrase.

Bob Kolker
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach.TakeThisOut@gmx.de> creatively typed:
> stephen.TakeThisOut@nomail.com wrote:
>> Shanahan <pogues.TakeThisOut@bluefrog.com> DIDN'T WRITE:
>
>>>> Who said anything about a one-to-one correspondence? LotR is
>>>> set in our world. Its people are meant to be our people.
>>
>> I was assuming they meant that I had to identify exactly what
>> real people the Easterling's were supposed to be.
>
> But you do: You identify them with the people living in the East
<snip>
> - Dirk

Dirk, you or somebody mis-snipped here. Neither of the people
quoted above are me (I think both quotes are Stephen). Nor do I or
the management of this email address agree with the statements made
therein...

Ciaran S.
--
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this--
the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea--
that Lúthien for a time should be.
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Shanahan <pogues DeleteThis @bluefrog.com> wrote:
> Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach DeleteThis @gmx.de> creatively typed:
>> stephen DeleteThis @nomail.com wrote:
>>> Shanahan <pogues DeleteThis @bluefrog.com> DIDN'T WRITE:

>>>>> Who said anything about a one-to-one correspondence? LotR is
>>>>> set in our world. Its people are meant to be our people.

>>> I was assuming they meant that I had to identify exactly what
>>> real people the Easterling's were supposed to be.

>> But you do: You identify them with the people living in the East

> Dirk, you or somebody mis-snipped here.

No. Count the '>': Only those parts with 4 '>' (as I quote it here)
belong to you. As you can see, there are none.

> Neither of the people quoted above are me (I think both quotes are
> Stephen).

Yes. And since the attribution for the part that has 5 '>' here were
no longer present, I left your attribution in, to make clear that they
don't come from you, because usually one does not answer his own
postings, so every consective level (here 4 and 5) belongs to someone
different. I am sorry if this caused confusion; I should probably
have made up stephen's attribution manually, but I was too lazy.

As a long as the number of '>' is not changed (what softrat did once
with a posting of mine), it is always clear who said what, and for any
parts that cannot be matched to some attribution, you'll have to look
up the referenced postings, anyway.

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

in <20040824200801.AF0.0.NOFFLE.TakeThisOut@ID-7776.user.dfncis.de>,
Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach.TakeThisOut@gmx.de> enriched us with:
>
> stephen.TakeThisOut@nomail.com wrote:
>>
>> Other than the fact that LotR is intended to be set in the real
>> world long ago.
>
> With an unspecified time, that does not correspond to any known
> history,

A time which is specifically stated as being 'imaginary' -- with
peoples who are as imaginary as the history described for these peoples.

> and a geography that doesn't match. So you cannot establish any
> one-to-one correspondence, other than "it's Earth, and the climate
> zones are the same".

It goes, I think, a bit beyond that with respect to geographical
correspondance. I seem to recall that it says somewhere (the LotR
foreword, and possibly elsewhere) that the story is intended as taking
place in an imaginary past where the Shire and Eriador is located in what
is now north-western Europe.

>> The Easterlings and Haradrim are intended to be people from the
>> real world who lived east and south of Europe long ago.

That depends, I would say, on what you mean by that. They are, IMO, /not/
intended to be the people who lived east and south of Europe at the
relevant time in /real/ history -- they are the peoples who lived there
in this imaginary history.

> In the same way as Elves and Dwarves are intended to be "people from
> the real world, who lived long ago". In other words, they are not
> supposed to match any people who *actually* lived or are living in
> the east and south (or north and west) of Europe, superficial
> similarities like skin color aside.

Precisely.

The histories and characteristics of the human peoples in LotR correspond
to real peoples at the same level as do the histories and characteristics
of Orcs, Dwarves, Ents, Elves etc. Each are supposed to represent typical
human traits -- not traits of specific peoples of the real world (neither
now or in real history), but rather traits common to all humans.

That the main protagonists are supposed to live in the north-west of
Europe and look somewhat akin to the peoples living there today (or more
closely those living there a couple of hundred years ago) is probably one
of the last remnants of Tolkien's anglo-centric idea of creating a
mythology not only for, but also about England.

--
Troels Forchhammer

The errors hardest
to condone
in other people
are one's own.
- Piet Hein, /Our Own Motes/
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Troels Forchhammer wrote:

> The histories and characteristics of the human peoples in LotR correspond
> to real peoples at the same level as do the histories and characteristics
> of Orcs, Dwarves, Ents, Elves etc. Each are supposed to represent typical
> human traits -- not traits of specific peoples of the real world (neither
> now or in real history), but rather traits common to all humans.

I am certain the Orcs became the Albanians.

Bob Kolker
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Troels Forchhammer <Troels.DeleteThis@thisisfake.invalid> wrote:
> Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach.DeleteThis@gmx.de> enriched us with:

>> With an unspecified time, that does not correspond to any known
>> history,

> A time which is specifically stated as being 'imaginary' -- with
> peoples who are as imaginary as the history described for these peoples.

Exactly.

>> and a geography that doesn't match. So you cannot establish any
>> one-to-one correspondence, other than "it's Earth, and the climate
>> zones are the same".

> It goes, I think, a bit beyond that with respect to geographical
> correspondance. I seem to recall that it says somewhere (the LotR
> foreword, and possibly elsewhere) that the story is intended as taking
> place in an imaginary past where the Shire and Eriador is located in what
> is now north-western Europe.

Do you mean this passage?

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.

Tolkien himself refers to it in letter 211:

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).

That sums it up pretty well, I think. Note the 'if it were'.

> The histories and characteristics of the human peoples in LotR correspond
> to real peoples at the same level as do the histories and characteristics
> of Orcs, Dwarves, Ents, Elves etc. Each are supposed to represent typical
> human traits -- not traits of specific peoples of the real world (neither
> now or in real history), but rather traits common to all humans.

I agree completely. For some reason, this is often overlooked.

> That the main protagonists are supposed to live in the north-west of
> Europe and look somewhat akin to the peoples living there today (or more
> closely those living there a couple of hundred years ago) is probably one
> of the last remnants of Tolkien's anglo-centric idea of creating a
> mythology not only for, but also about England.

Yes.

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: Eastern Europe bad. West good. 

Steve Hayes <hayesmstw.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Sean <no.spam.RemoveThis@no.spam> wrote:
>> Steve Hayes wrote:

[about the "There is more in you of good than you know, child of the
kindly West" quote from Thorin to Bilbo]

<snip>

>>> The "West" in the quotation refers not to western Europe, but to
>>> Valinor.
>>
>> Are you contending that Thorin considers Bilbo to be a child of
>> Valinor?
>
> That seems probable, yes.

Really?

<snip>

> But what is being compared is the values of the dwarves and the
> hobbits. The hobits prefer food and fellowship, and the dwarves are
> drawn by hoarded gold. If their love of hoarded gold represents
> attitudes to Eastern Europe, then it must mean that Tolkien ascribes
> the values of dwarves to the peoples of eastern Europe.
>
> But Thorin recognises in Bilbo the values of the lost and mythical
> realm of Valinor, the "true West", long since made inaccessible to
> dwellers in Middle Earth.

Um. Surely he means the Shire when he refers to the West?

<snip>

Christoher

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

Steve Hayes <hayesmstw RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:

> Now the Shire, though it lay west of the Lonely Mountain, was
> nevertheles part of the Wide World, which is why I think that what
> Thorin was getting at was that Bilbo had some of the qualities that
> could be discerned in those who had gone to the West.

Well, maybe. But if I had to pick between Valinor and the Shire as being
kindly (as in 'kindly West'), then I'd pick the Shire. To me, Valinor
has never been kindly, more cold and austere and divine. Remote and
almost unapproachable.

Christopher

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