'Mythopoeia': Tolkien's Poetic Defense of Myth and Fantasy with Commantary

My favorite Tolkien poem 'Mythopoeia' with some (ongoing) observations and commentary; enjoy.

 Tolkien the Mythmaker: Master of Middle-Earth

To one [C.S. Lewis] who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver'.

Philomythus [myth-lover] to Misomythus [myth-hater]

You look at trees and label them just so,
(for trees are 'trees', and growing is 'to grow');
you walk the earth and tread with solemn pace
one of the many minor globes of Space:
a star's a star, some matter in a ball
compelled to courses mathematical
amid the regimented, cold, inane,
where destined atoms are each moment slain.

At bidding of a Will, to which we bend
(and must), but only dimly apprehend,
great processes march on, as Time unrolls
from dark beginnings to uncertain goals;
and as on page o'er-written without clue,
with script and limning packed of various hue,
an endless multitude of forms appear,
some grim, some frail, some beautiful, some queer,
each alien, except as kin from one
remote Origo, gnat, man, stone, and sun.
God made the petreous rocks, the arboreal trees,
tellurian earth, and stellar stars, and these
homuncular men, who walk upon the ground
with nerves that tingle touched by light and sound.
The movements of the sea, the wind in boughs,
green grass, the large slow oddity of cows,
thunder and lightning, birds that wheel and cry,
slime crawling up from mud to live and die,
these each are duly registered and print
the brain's contortions with a separate dint.

Yet trees are not 'trees', until so named and seen
and never were so named, tifi those had been
who speech's involuted breath unfurled,
faint echo and dim picture of the world,
but neither record nor a photograph,
being divination, judgement, and a laugh
response of those that felt astir within
by deep monition movements that were kin
to life and death of trees, of beasts, of stars:
free captives undermining shadowy bars,
digging the foreknown from experience
and panning the vein of spirit out of sense.
Great powers they slowly brought out of themselves
and looking backward they beheld the elves
that wrought on cunning forges in the mind,
and light and dark on secret looms entwined.

He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers bencath an ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother's womb whence all have birth.
The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-Creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

Yes! 'wish-fulfillment dreams' we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!
Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem?
All wishes are not idle, nor in vain
fulfillment we devise - for pain is pain,
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is deadly certain: Evil is.

Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate
that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate;
that seek no parley, and in guarded room,
though small and bate, upon a clumsy loom
weave tissues gilded by the far-off day
hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway.
Blessed are the men of Noah's race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbor guessed by faith.

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have tuned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends
if by God's mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and that,
your world immutable wherein no part
the little maker has with maker's art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.
Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see
that all is as it is, and yet made free:
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.
Evil it will not see, for evil lies
not in God's picture but in crooked eyes,
not in the source but in malicious choice,
and not in sound but in the tuneless voice.

In Paradise they look no more awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their heads,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.

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(please note that this commentary is ongoing; check back often)

I consider this poem not only one of Tolkien's most finest but also the most telling and revealing about his worldview and beliefs. This poem does in one fell swoop what a hundred letters and book summations could barely do in Tolkien's lifetime: it explains why Middle-Earth was brought into existence and why people need stories like LOTR and The Hobbit for their moral, spiritual, and imaginative well-being. I will be adding to this commentary as the days go by but I want to focus my first observations on this brief stanza:

Yes! 'wish-fulfillment dreams' we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!

This what I want to focus on: escapism; or rather our need (and right) to spin 'wish-fulfillment dreams' and 'ugly Fact defeat.'  We all know what the ugly Facts are - our wide range of newspapers are dedicated to reporting them to us faithfully every single day. They are indeed quite ugly, and when they invade our own personal lives (in my case, it was my parents' divorce) they become an utter torment. Imagine being imprisoned in a hellish dungeon filled with orc-like jailers who are well versed in the use of whips, racks and sleep/food deprivation and that we (you, good reader, and I) are their favorite victims. In addition to being held captive in such a place, we are told that this is how things always have been, always will be, and always should be for us. We should be grateful for the old rancid water we are given, and God help us if we should remember - or imagine - that we once drank sweet wine instead. We are entrapped by Ugly Facts, we are told by our jailers Who Seem to Know Everything all we need to know about 'Real Life'; they tell us that

  a star's a star, some matter in a ball
compelled to courses mathematical
amid the regimented, cold, inane,
where destined atoms are each moment slain.    

We are told this about stars, those mysterious awesome lights that adorn the heavens and have held mankind captivated and wonder-filled since before recorded history. Before Science came and freed us from our delusions we rarely thought that stars were just 'some matter in a ball,' they were always Something More; something amazing and wonderful; high and holy. In Middle-Earth the Big Dipper is known as the Sickle of the Valar, those seven mighty stars were placed in the sky by the gods to foretell of the Last Battle and the final doom of all evil. By doing this, the Sub-Creator of Middle-Earth - Tolkien - 'cheats' the 'facts.' The seven stars that make up the Big Dipper remain unchanged in their nature, but now they have once again regained some of their wonder and mystery and take on a new meaning. Whenever I see the Big Dipper now, I envision the end of sorrow and death and evil, and I am liberated from the Jailers and their 'realities'.
This is the right use of escapism: you escape from the 'real' world of cold hard 'facts' into a 'imaginary' world that has been rebaptized with mystery and magic; were simple everyday things like trees and flowers and horses and horns and swords and sailing ships and mountains and eagles and kings and kingdoms are made into things 'new and wonderful'. Tolkien continually denied that ME was another planet or an alternative universe. The stars by themselves proclaim that it is not so. The constellations that Frodo and his friends see and name while traveling through the Shire are the same ones I look at while riding home from work at night. This is one of the main reasons Middle-Earth has such a hold on so many people; it is filled with amazing fantastical things like Elves and Ents and dragons and Silmarils yet at the same time contains all the 'ordinary' things like forests and horses and humans and war and all the things we take for granted in the 'real world'. After a jaunt through Tolkien's Kingdom of Arda the world wherein I live is changed. I find myself paying more attention to trees, I walk on green grass and imagine the fair fields of Rohan, I see the snow-caped Rocky Mountains afar off and I am reminded of the Misty Mountains and the Dwarf kingdom of Moria. I contemplate on what it means to be a real hero and and to be self-sacrificial and learn to be grateful for the 'little things' like bread and butter and wine and friends and my horse. I have Escaped, and am Consoled, and am now on my way to Recovery.      


 Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time...

They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have tuned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

This is what Tolkien spent almost his entire life doing. This man was no stranger to the grim realities of the 'real world'. The Genesis of Middle-Earth was begun amid the muddy trenches and the Nazgul-like 

screams of mortar shells during World War I. He lost is mother and father to illness at an early age and almost all of his close friends were killed in the war. He indeed saw 'Death and ultimate defeat,' but he did not in 'despair retreat.' He labored long in Middle-Earth, creating and re-creating, writing and re-writing. 

The Lord of the Rings by itself took him 18 years to write, and even though he often despaired over ever finishing it and often wondered if it would be fit for anyone to read, he stuck through it to the end and 'kindled hearts with legendary fire.' 

To be continued... 

The Enthronement (and Dethronement) of Evil in Middle-Earth

Note: these musings contain references to The Silmarillion, therefore this post will be best understood by those who have read it as well as The Lord of the Rings. This should be read in conjunction with my post about Tolkien's heroes. 

*   *   *

Melkor-Morgoth; the 'Dark Foe of the World'

It wasn't until after I finally read the Silmarillian (and then reread The Lord of the Rings in its light) that I realized just what terrifying, horrific, glorious, beautiful and very disastrous history stretched out behind the events and characters in the War of the Ring. Indeed, the events in The Lord of the Rings are the tail-end last-ditch efforts in an Ages-long attempt to make a final, complete end to a visible, incarnate manifestation of Evil. This evil is not an abstract nebulous concept. It is not some man's - or elf's - matter of opinion (as in: I think this is evil, but you don't think this is evil; I guess we'll have to agree to disagree). The two great incarnate manifestations of evil, the fallen Vala Melkor-Morgoth and Saroun his servent, both directly, personally and willfully choose corruption and darkness and wage physical, spiritual and psychological warfare on all those who appose them and do not follow them or worship them. Melkor is one of the greatest of the Valar (the 'gods' of Middle-Earth - known in The Lord of the Rings as the 'Lords of the West') with great knowledge and power given to him by God (Eru Iluvatar). Only Manwe, the Elder King, is his equal. But this was not enough for Melkor, he actually envies Iluvatar's Children, the Elves and Men, for whom the the Earth, Arda, was made and whom the Valar are called to serve. He 'desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men, envying the gifts with which Iluvatar promised to endow them; and he wished himself to have subjects and servants, and to be called Lord, and to be a master over other wills.' When some of the Valar enter into the newly-created world to help make it a beautiful place for Elves and Men to dwell in, Melkor declairs: ''This shall be my own kingdom; and I name it unto myself!'' But Manwe and the others refuse to let him have dominion over Arda and before Elves or Men come into existence they wage war and the earth is broken and refashioned over and over as Melkor continually mars and ruins all the beautiful things the other Valar do.

Melkor and Ungoliant destroy the Two Trees of Valinor

This is the most telling thing about the nature of evil beings - be they elves, men, gods or angels: they are consumed with narcissism, for to them there is no 'we' or 'us,' there is only 'me; myself and I'. They can never be satisfied by what they have; they always must have more, and if some one else should have something they themselves do not possess they become filled with envy and hatred for that person. This is the choice of Melkor, who has been given much, but wants all...to be sole Lord and God, to be worshiped and feared alone, for he desires all honor and begrudges the love and honor the Elves have for the other Valar and the love and honor the Valar have among themselves. He stands on the outside, looking inward, though he is one of them and for a time dwells among them he is alone, even within the earthly paradise of Valinor the gods finally establish; all other beings are to him either rivals he must battle against, slaves he must command, or innocents he must corrupt. And he does. If The Lord of the Rings begins in darkness and ends in light then the The Silmarillion begins with light and falls into darkness. It begins in light and music and ends for many of the heroes with madness, death and despair. This is why the Elves are so sorrowful; why ancient heroes like Beren and Luthien and Hurin and Earendil the Mariner are so lauded and sung about in LOTR; why orcs and balrogs and dragons and cruel men ravage Middle-Earth, why certain servants of the Valar, the Maiar, are made incarnate as old-looking men and sent to Middle-earth to aid in the struggle against Sauron. It is a tale about the great Falls: the fall of gods, the fall of Elves and the fall of the great kingdom of men, Numenor.

The Eye of Sauron and the Ring of Power

Morgoth, the 'Dark Foe of the World' and Sauron, the 'Base Master of Treachery' are not some pitiful, misunderstood, bullied/abused creatures looking for love and acceptance.
These are two of the most fully realized
villains ever to be written of in all of literature.
If Elrond, Theoden, Aragorn, Sam and Glorfindel are the ultimate end-result of virtue, grace, bravery and love, then these beings are the ultimate end-product of self-love, envy, greed, power-hunger, hate and pride. In the The Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movies) Sauron never speaks. He never tries to justify himself, defend himself or make excuses as to why he's trying to ruin/rule Middle-earth. He does not have to. He is above it all, completely enthroned in and dominated by his malice, his contempt for others, his lust for power. There is only him. Wielding his One Ring he assaults the Elves and Men and other free beings of Middle-earth, slaying, torturing, pillaging and corrupting until all should acknowledge him to be the''King of Men'' and god of Arda or be destroyed. If he ever says anything during the War of the Ring, it is when the Witch-King speaks to Eowyn or 'the Mouth of Sauron' mocks the Captains of the West before the gates of Mordor. The other evil or deluded beings like the orcs and balrogs and Southrons and even the Nazgul are just tools, expendable weapons used to wear down and demoralize his foes, priming them for the kill. He is the ultimate Enemy of the world, though he was not the first, nor, as Gandalf points out, will he be the last.

Sauron's armies leaving Mordor 

You cannot treat with Sauron; you cannot plead with him; you cannot makes deals with him. You cannot objectify him or wish him to go away or buy him off. The words Tokien uses to depict Sauron's Dark Tower of Barad-dur can be used for Suaron himself - 'suffering no rival, laughing at flattery, biding his time, secure in his pride and his immeasurable strength.' But although Sauron is very powerful and knows much,
in one regard he makes a great error: because he is so self-centered, he assumes that our heroes are just the same. In addition to holding all other beings (save only his master, Morgoth) in contempt, he also assumes that all these other heroic beings are secretly just like him, desiring power, wanting to control others, having no other gods or masters before them. This assumption is not completely unfounded: it was by these desires existing in the Dunadan that he helped bring about the Downfall of Numenor. But this assumption is what eventually leads to his downfall, by believing all others are of same mind as well. Gandalf calls him a 'wise fool' and says: 'He [Sauron] supposes that we [the Fellowship] were all going to Minas Tirith; for that is what he would have done in our place. And according to his wisdom it would have been a heavy stroke against his power. Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place.That we should wish to cast him down and have no one take his place is not a thought that occurs in his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.' Ever since his Ring was taken Sauron has existed in constant fear that he will eventually be dethroned by a new Dark Lord seeking to rule in his stead. This is why, after he finds out that Aragorn, the Heir of Elendil, actually lives, he throws a great force against Minas Tirith, wanting to wipe-out the Lord of Gondor and his realms so he will remain unchallenged, secure in his dominion. Sauron does not believe in heroes but in anti-heroes: 'heroes' whose motives are self-serving, and self-centered, just like his own. He cannot imagine other beings apart from himself that do not desire the same things he desires. He desires the One Ring and so must they, to master and use, but to destroy? Unconceivable. The some goes for the wizard Sauruman (who is not Sauron's pocket-pal as the movies would have us believe). He assumes the same thing and pours his armies into the land of Rohan, fearing that King Theoden might himself obtain the Ring. Both Sauron and Saruman wind up squandering great portions of their power and armies not just because they want to eliminate their foes but also because they assume their foes are also their competitors, would-be Ringlords also seeking dominion of the world that must be destroyed first at all costs. Of course Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel know that they are in danger of becoming Dark Lords (or Queens) if they attempt to master the One Ring, which is why they won't even touch it. The great power and glory that they possess to help others becomes also their greatest risk factor. The greater you are, the greater is the corruption of the Ring. The Ring must be unmade not just to defeat Sauron but to ensure that no new Dark Lord ever arises again in Middle-Earth, be it a man, an elf, a hobbit, or a fallen god.

One Ring to rule them all

This is the kind of villain Gandalf, Aragorn and Frodo have to deal with. For to have terrible foes means you must have mighty heroes, which is why Tolkien made his heroes the way they are. On one extreme side of the righteous stand Elrond, Sam, Theoden, Aragorn, Frodo, Faramir, Glorfendel and Galadriel. On the other side of corrupted beings is Sauruman, Gorbag, the Ringwraiths, the balrog, Smaug, Grima Wormtongue, the man who is known only as 'the Mouth of Sauron' because he has forgotten his own name, and Sauron himself. Between them are the 'shades of gray' where we often stand, like Boromir and Denathor and Gollum, and with each choice we either moving toward one camp or the other. Many there are who do not even want to make the choice; many lie and say that there are no choices, just opinions or different points of view. There are even many who are mad at God for even giving them a choice. But Tolkien's characters make their choices, choose their sides and take their stands and we are shown the end-results of their selected fates and what becomes of them; of their downfalls, their triumphs, their glories, their struggles, their sorrows, their deaths, their wounds that never fully heal. Middle-Earth is full of extremes. The most extreme villains; the most extreme heroes, and everything in-between: be it a song, a sword, a ring, a horse, a tree, a tower, an eagle, or a ship heading out to Sea. There is nothing trivial or petty residing in Tolkien's world. If even the ordinary worldly things we ourselves are familiar with are taken and refashioned into things 'new and wonderful;' how could the otherworldly foes - the ones who hate or want to kill/dominate these things be other then the most wicked and the most terrible? How could the heroes (despite their weakness and mistakes) be other then the most epic and the most glorious?

Morgoth the Dark Lord and Fingolfin the Elf-King

War, death, battles, charges, last stands, sieges, challenges - over and over it is played out through all the ages of Middle-earth: because Dark Lords will not stop their endless conquest for power and their victims never stop resisting and defying them, even when they are doomed to fail. They keep on going, to good ends and bad ends, and they never turn back; and thus are they remembered. If anything, the dark hate of their foes only make them stand out all the more, 'like stars that shine the brighter as the night deepens.' But the cost is high, and the War seems endless.

C.S. Lewis in his LOTR review, ''The Dethronement of Power,'' sums up the battle against Evil quite well:

''But the text [of The Lord of the Rings] teaches us that Sauron is eternal; the War of the Ring is only one of a thousand wars against him. Every time we shall be wise to fear his ultimate victory, after which there will be ''no more songs''...Every time we win we shall know that our victory is impermanent. If we insist on asking the moral of the story, that is its moral: a recall from facile optimism and wailing pessimism alike, to that hard, yet not quite desperate, insight into Man's unchanging predicament by which heroic ages have lived.''

Evil walks to and fro over Arda, visible, tangible, with a personality and a will. Once Morgoth and Sauron could take forms in which they appeared beautiful and fair, in order to deceive Elves and Men easier, but that power was taken from them, along with their physical forms. By the time the War of the Ring comes around no one is pretending anymore. No one is confused or hampered by doubt as to what's going on.
The Lord of the Rings is the final, deciding chapter in the long sad saga of the 'long defeat', the last desperate push to bring an end to an ancient evil being that desires nothing less then the god-ship of the world by right of conquest. It is about the last of the heroes called to go forth and confront this being, for many have come before them; and where gods and elves and men have failed, it will be the small, simple, overlooked Hobbits - both corrupt and uncorrupted - that will bring about his complete and final end.

Frodo, Gollum and Sam at the Cracks of Doom

This is a great overwhelming
theme (and, one could argue, the true 'plot' of the story): the dethronement of Evil.  Many people do not like this kind of story. Many people do not understand this kind of story. But all those loyal LOTR fans out there, as different as they are, whether they know it or not, love 'the Tale of Frodo of the Nine-Fingers and the Ring of Doom' because, even if it's not a 'real' story, it is a true story. It speaks to us of realities that are true. Because, as the great poet T.S. Eliot wrote:

''The world turns and the world changes,

But one thing does not change.

In all of my years, one thing does not change.

However you disguise it, this thing does not change:

The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.'' 

Now days, most authors do not tackle the struggle of Good and Evil. Indeed most people have been taught to believe that there is no good or evil, just varying viewpoints and opinions that can be changed or switched at a whim. The lines are not drawn; no one has the integrity to say 'Go back to the abyss!' in the face of wickedness and wrong-doing. The Balrog is allowed to pass as long as he doesn't do anything unpleasant to you personally - the 'friends' behind you will have deal with him in their own way; 'Whatever' is the modern response to everything morally unsettling. But not in Middle-Earth. Why else would we flee there, if not to find relief and consolation in the fact that there is true Evil and that this evil can be confronted and defeated and Paradise (or at least a shadow of it, for a time) can be restored? That Heroes are real? That the weak can become strong? That real-life things like flowers and trees and horses and eagles and ships and towers and beer and singing and fireworks and horns can be made beautiful and mysterious and wonderful because that's how God truly made them to be, and not because certain people have pleasant objective opinions about them? We flee to Middle-Earth, not because it's a safe world (far from it) but because it's a true world; a world created by a man who knows good from evil, heroes from anti-heroes, beauty from ugliness, joy from despair, light from the darkness and knows what - and to whom - honor and praise should be given - and that there is nothing wrong with singing out loud in front of your companions. Let us now rejoice at the downfall of tyrants and at the return of the King, crying along with the Eagle of the Valar:

 ''Sing now you people of the Tower of Anor,

for the realm of Sauron is ended for ever,

and the Tower is thrown down.  

The Shadow of Sauron and the fall of Mordor

 

Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard,

for your watch hath not been in vain,

and the Black Gate is broken,

and your King hath passed through,

and he is victorious.

Sing and be glad, and ye children of the West,

for your King shall come again,

and he shall dwell among you

all the days of your life.

And the Tree that was withered shall be renewed,

and he shall plant it the high places,

and the City shall be blessed.

Sing all ye people!''

The new White Tree of Gondor