Empire of Fantasy(aeon.co)
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Empire of Fantasy
https://aeon.co/essays/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-oxford-school-of-fantasy-literature
24 comments
Can you share more info on how they invalidated the idea that the Haradrim and Calormenes are racist?
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/503737-it-was-sam-s-first-v...
Aravis is a Calormen, but a heroine and joins Shasta in an interracial marriage. And while it's true that Narnia is an idealized culture (like Gondor under its good kings) and therefore portrayed as superior to Calormene culture, Lewis is willing to elevate an aspect of the latter above English culture when he writes "In Calormen story-telling is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays."
I don't think Tolkien or Lewis wholly escape the charge of racism; I think few people do, in their time or ours. I think they consciously resisted the idea that the English were some kind of master race.
Aravis is a Calormen, but a heroine and joins Shasta in an interracial marriage. And while it's true that Narnia is an idealized culture (like Gondor under its good kings) and therefore portrayed as superior to Calormene culture, Lewis is willing to elevate an aspect of the latter above English culture when he writes "In Calormen story-telling is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays."
I don't think Tolkien or Lewis wholly escape the charge of racism; I think few people do, in their time or ours. I think they consciously resisted the idea that the English were some kind of master race.
How is it not a racist archetype? Good guys = white people from the north with British features and bad guys = dark people from the South with Middle Eastern features is in fact how the British thought of the world for hundreds of years... Tolkien and Lewis writings simply crystallized world views that were prevalent.
> how the British thought
> crystallized world views that were prevalent
They were prevalent because they were correct. It has nothing to do with race. By the standards of history, nothing between two civilizations is as well documented as the protracted conflict (14 centuries) between the West and Islam [0]. You might argue that this perspective is biased, and you may be correct, but even critics of that perspective acknowledge that the long chain of historical events and accounts of historical events are undeniable, regardless of what you consider to be their cause.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37938325-sword-and-scimi...
> crystallized world views that were prevalent
They were prevalent because they were correct. It has nothing to do with race. By the standards of history, nothing between two civilizations is as well documented as the protracted conflict (14 centuries) between the West and Islam [0]. You might argue that this perspective is biased, and you may be correct, but even critics of that perspective acknowledge that the long chain of historical events and accounts of historical events are undeniable, regardless of what you consider to be their cause.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37938325-sword-and-scimi...
The idea of "The West versus Islam" as a clash of civilization is pretty recent. Probably only appeared after the end of the cold war and gained steam after 9/11.
If you think of the crusades they were more like Roman Catholicism against Islam (and Judaism and Eastern Christianity). For example the crusaders attacked and plundered Constantinople which was Christian at the time - just not catholic.
England have certainly been to war with France more than it has been to war with "Islam".
If you think of the crusades they were more like Roman Catholicism against Islam (and Judaism and Eastern Christianity). For example the crusaders attacked and plundered Constantinople which was Christian at the time - just not catholic.
England have certainly been to war with France more than it has been to war with "Islam".
You never heard of the 8th century Arab invasion of (present) Spain and invasion attempt of (present) France? It came as a conclusion of a century of Muslim conquests and attacks, and left just 2 small pockets in Asturias and the Pyrenees. They were quickly repelled from most of France (after coming as North as Poitiers or perhaps even Tours on the West flank, and as North as Burgondy on the East flank) except from a bit of the Mediterranean coast, but it took over 700 years to reclaim all Spain. The West (or North, or Europe) versus Islam and vice versa is really nothing new.
Sure you can group historical conflicts in many ways. If you say group all conflicts between Britain and opponents from continental Europe into a single conflict, surely you get a more protracted conflict than "West vs Islam", since you have at least 2000 years of conflict.
The "West vs Islam" is just a particular inane categorization since you are contrasting a geographic area with a religion. You could categorize the Reconquista as Christianity against Islam (and Judaism), and this is how it was framed at the time, but how can it be "the West" against Islam? It is a post-cold war construct to justify a certain ideology, not a meaningful way of understanding history.
The "West vs Islam" is just a particular inane categorization since you are contrasting a geographic area with a religion. You could categorize the Reconquista as Christianity against Islam (and Judaism), and this is how it was framed at the time, but how can it be "the West" against Islam? It is a post-cold war construct to justify a certain ideology, not a meaningful way of understanding history.
You are the one revising history. The christiaindom vs islam story is well evidenced in history. you cannot disentangle western culture from the christian foundations upon which it rests.
Ah yes who could forget famous Christians like Aristotle and Caesar.
The incursion of Islam, particularly by the Ottomans, was an long standing existential concern of European nations.
Remember the Ottomans took Constantinople in the 16th century (Capita of the E. Roman Empire aka Byzantium) and converted the largest Cathedral in the World into a Mosque.
The 'West' would have been referred to as 'Christendom' then, and the issue wasn't resolved until into the enlightenment, 1683, Battle of Vienna.
'Christendom v. Ottomans' is the original 'Cold War'.
One might argue that there are echoes in the Battle of Vienna in Lord of the Rings.
'Political Islam', as we've seen since the 1980's has basically nothing to do with any of that.
FYI a little known, crazy fact (which is likely but not infallibly accurate): you know your 'Croissant'? That delicacy was designed in Vienna by chefs in celebration of their victory in the battle, hence the crescent shape of the bread is literally the Islamic Crescent. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna [2] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/23/a-short....
Remember the Ottomans took Constantinople in the 16th century (Capita of the E. Roman Empire aka Byzantium) and converted the largest Cathedral in the World into a Mosque.
The 'West' would have been referred to as 'Christendom' then, and the issue wasn't resolved until into the enlightenment, 1683, Battle of Vienna.
'Christendom v. Ottomans' is the original 'Cold War'.
One might argue that there are echoes in the Battle of Vienna in Lord of the Rings.
'Political Islam', as we've seen since the 1980's has basically nothing to do with any of that.
FYI a little known, crazy fact (which is likely but not infallibly accurate): you know your 'Croissant'? That delicacy was designed in Vienna by chefs in celebration of their victory in the battle, hence the crescent shape of the bread is literally the Islamic Crescent. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna [2] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/23/a-short....
This is just ... not even approaching the truth. only by studiously ignoring history and cherry picking facts could get to your arguement.
Christianity vs islam is a long theme in our history.
You badly misread the crusades as well - the crusaders and the byzantines collaborated. In fact, the byzantines welcomed the crusaders and often helped them in military matters - the crusaders states were used as a buffer from the armies of islam.
The crusaders did attack and plunder constantinople, but this was after the first crusades ; in fact, a couple decades before the sack Latins were sold into slavery and massacred by the byzantines. Reading a single event and turning it into a pattern for latin and byzantine relations in the era is at best sophomoric and at worst dissembling.
Christianity vs islam is a long theme in our history.
You badly misread the crusades as well - the crusaders and the byzantines collaborated. In fact, the byzantines welcomed the crusaders and often helped them in military matters - the crusaders states were used as a buffer from the armies of islam.
The crusaders did attack and plunder constantinople, but this was after the first crusades ; in fact, a couple decades before the sack Latins were sold into slavery and massacred by the byzantines. Reading a single event and turning it into a pattern for latin and byzantine relations in the era is at best sophomoric and at worst dissembling.
There are no people on this planet that would ever portray themselves as the "bad guy" in their stories. You are always the good guy in your story and the 'others' are the bad. This is human nature not an exclusively white thing.
Saying that some people with dark skin are bad is not being racist.
That’s not at all what I am saying, you are straw-manning.
And Harry potter a medieval world remind me again where the steam train is in Malory :-)
And Tolkien's successful campaign to put old English at the heat of English studies is well known by this point if you read any biography of Tolkien.
True Tolkien and Lewis where "of their time" but they are no Lovecraft
And Tolkien's successful campaign to put old English at the heat of English studies is well known by this point if you read any biography of Tolkien.
True Tolkien and Lewis where "of their time" but they are no Lovecraft
I always thought that if you took the coastline of Turkey and created a mountain range out of it, you would have a basic representation of Mordor. Then took Gondor mainly based around the city of Minas Tirith, Rohan based mainly around Edoras etc. and you would have the Greek City states. Minas Ithil would be Troy or other overrun ex colonies of the early Greeks. And then you have the Haradrim et al and they look a lot like the Persian empire.
There are many other aspects as well such as the last stand at the Battle of the Black Gate being a lot like the Battle of Marathon.
So to me the Lord of the Rings in some parts often sounds like the defense against the Persian Empire (there are various aspects that don't fit of course), so to only see it through the myopic eyes of Identity politics is I agree lazy.
There are many other aspects as well such as the last stand at the Battle of the Black Gate being a lot like the Battle of Marathon.
So to me the Lord of the Rings in some parts often sounds like the defense against the Persian Empire (there are various aspects that don't fit of course), so to only see it through the myopic eyes of Identity politics is I agree lazy.
How about a map of Europe at the time of the invasion of the Huns? Mordor is the realm of the Huns, Rohan is the German tribes, Gondor is the Franks or perhaps the crumbling Roman Empire.
The legends in the Niebelungelied is from this time.
The legends in the Niebelungelied is from this time.
This is an odd essay, ignoring a couple of huge elephants in the pub room where the Inklings hung out.
Tolkien and Lewis were both deeply conservative (not Conservative), and represented a last, textual, gasp of the pre-Raphaëlite movement (for which they had both been born just a little too late).
And though they were friends, collaborators, and, as friends can be, competitors, there was one huge gulf between them: christianity. Tolkien loved and was a scholar of the pre-christian Sagas, which he felt were a deeply influential part of the English cultural underpinning. Middle Earth was a complex experiment in creating the Ursprung of that culture, but perhaps also a more English one.
While Lewis, upon seeing the success of The Hobbit, wanted to emphasize christianity as the core of the English culture. His novels, despite their settings (swords, no machinery, etc) and his conservatism, were very much 20th century in structure, sparseness, and the speed with which the plots developed: more Dorothy Parker than Thomas Mallory. But they were also unabashedly christian; deliberately not using christian vocabulary in an attempt to cast it as a universal truth.* In a way they were opposites.
* he was so convinced of the universalism of christianity that he simply presumed his readers would get it. Though I have spoken English all my life I had had no exposure at all to christianity when I read “The Lion, The Witch..” and so the whole scene where Aslan is killed, the stone table breaks and then aslan maybe returns just seemed strange and incomprehensible to me. I thought some pages must have been lost in a misprint of the book!
Tolkien and Lewis were both deeply conservative (not Conservative), and represented a last, textual, gasp of the pre-Raphaëlite movement (for which they had both been born just a little too late).
And though they were friends, collaborators, and, as friends can be, competitors, there was one huge gulf between them: christianity. Tolkien loved and was a scholar of the pre-christian Sagas, which he felt were a deeply influential part of the English cultural underpinning. Middle Earth was a complex experiment in creating the Ursprung of that culture, but perhaps also a more English one.
While Lewis, upon seeing the success of The Hobbit, wanted to emphasize christianity as the core of the English culture. His novels, despite their settings (swords, no machinery, etc) and his conservatism, were very much 20th century in structure, sparseness, and the speed with which the plots developed: more Dorothy Parker than Thomas Mallory. But they were also unabashedly christian; deliberately not using christian vocabulary in an attempt to cast it as a universal truth.* In a way they were opposites.
* he was so convinced of the universalism of christianity that he simply presumed his readers would get it. Though I have spoken English all my life I had had no exposure at all to christianity when I read “The Lion, The Witch..” and so the whole scene where Aslan is killed, the stone table breaks and then aslan maybe returns just seemed strange and incomprehensible to me. I thought some pages must have been lost in a misprint of the book!
Wasn't Tolkien a lifelong, devout Catholic, who himself inspired Lewis's conversion to Christianity? I don't think it was a gulf between them.
Tolkien famously rejected the Vatican II reformations, and continued to respond to the priest in mass in Latin, rather than the vernacular.
Tolkien famously rejected the Vatican II reformations, and continued to respond to the priest in mass in Latin, rather than the vernacular.
Thanks, yes: Tolkein was quite a catholic (a bit oddly, given his upbringing -- perhaps due to his deep conservatism?). I had not known he had converted Lewis! That might explain Lewis' desire to write his explicitly catholic books.
That being said, apart from one letter in which he talked about christian influence, Tolkein was enamored, and his philological work concentrated on, Northern European pre-christian languages and cultures. Remember the Inklings recited the Sagas in old Icelandic at his encouragement. There are no popes, even by metaphor, in Middle Earth; no transubstantiation nor rebirth. In fact the destruction of the ring restores nothing.
It was in the intent and structure of their work that there was a gulf. I certainly didn't intend to imply that they were in any way personally estranged (though Carpenter wrote that T was a miffed at Lewis' success with his much less complex books).
Lewis's fiction (the Narnia books, Hideous strength etc) may not have risen to the level of "propaganda" in its modern sense, but they were explicitly intended to be at least "persuasive writing". I don't see Tolkein's as that at all.
That being said, apart from one letter in which he talked about christian influence, Tolkein was enamored, and his philological work concentrated on, Northern European pre-christian languages and cultures. Remember the Inklings recited the Sagas in old Icelandic at his encouragement. There are no popes, even by metaphor, in Middle Earth; no transubstantiation nor rebirth. In fact the destruction of the ring restores nothing.
It was in the intent and structure of their work that there was a gulf. I certainly didn't intend to imply that they were in any way personally estranged (though Carpenter wrote that T was a miffed at Lewis' success with his much less complex books).
Lewis's fiction (the Narnia books, Hideous strength etc) may not have risen to the level of "propaganda" in its modern sense, but they were explicitly intended to be at least "persuasive writing". I don't see Tolkein's as that at all.
Tolkien's work shows influences of both the sagas and his own Catholicism. Often, they began with the North European influences and reconceived them in his own world-view. Most prominently, the story of Turin Turambar is inspired by the Finnish Kalevala, but became very different over decades of rewrites. Due to his son's lifetime of effort, we have an extraordinary wealth of information on the evolution of his work.
The universe containing Arda is very different from ours, but Tolkien used it to work out his philosophy of what humans mean in the universe. The Elves are bound to the world, but Men have the "gift of death" and get to go beyond it. The analogy to Heaven is too facile; what's really being explored is the problem of evil, suffering, and the fear of death. It's all an explicitly pre-Christian world, before the sacrifice of Christ and salvation, which allows him to dispense with the trappings of Christianity to look at the real nature of humans (as viewed through the eyes of a people who don't have that gift of death).
All of that is much, much more subtle than Lewis's simple allegories. (Tolkien famously wrote that he "cordially detested" allegories, though he indulged in them once in a while as well.) Reading Tolkien's influences deeply requires a Middle Ages mind-set, both medieval Catholic and pagan views.
None of that is necessary to enjoy, appreciate, and even study his books. But we have the luxury of being able to read the works as they developed, and that gives us an almost unique insight into the multiple worlds that influenced them.
The universe containing Arda is very different from ours, but Tolkien used it to work out his philosophy of what humans mean in the universe. The Elves are bound to the world, but Men have the "gift of death" and get to go beyond it. The analogy to Heaven is too facile; what's really being explored is the problem of evil, suffering, and the fear of death. It's all an explicitly pre-Christian world, before the sacrifice of Christ and salvation, which allows him to dispense with the trappings of Christianity to look at the real nature of humans (as viewed through the eyes of a people who don't have that gift of death).
All of that is much, much more subtle than Lewis's simple allegories. (Tolkien famously wrote that he "cordially detested" allegories, though he indulged in them once in a while as well.) Reading Tolkien's influences deeply requires a Middle Ages mind-set, both medieval Catholic and pagan views.
None of that is necessary to enjoy, appreciate, and even study his books. But we have the luxury of being able to read the works as they developed, and that gives us an almost unique insight into the multiple worlds that influenced them.
Isn't blaming English writers for writing for English children (Anglocentrism, white youth) kind of ridiculous ?
Ah, yeah, I had noticed the conservative aspects in the Lord of the Rings : relationship between Frodo and Sam, his gardener ; anti-industrialism...
Dismissing the Haradrim and Calormenes as racist archetypes is lazy, though. Tolkien and Lewis went out of their way to invalidate that interpretation.