J.R.R. Tolkien and the secondary world

The one who perfectly reproduce the Father Christmas figure, J.R.R. Tolkien fascinates the audience within his unique personality not only as an artist nor as a highly placed name in the universal culture, but most essentially as a man who actually lived as he wrote and his writings emerged the fundamental of his own living. Every once in a while, with some sharp periodicity, the universal literature unlocks once more it’s gigantically universe of fantasy and caress our spirit with masterpiece works such as “The Lord of the Rings”, a trilogy saga written by one of the most, all-times valuable fiction writers, J.R.R. Tolkning. Considered by most philologists, as one of the outstanding figures who stood for decades in the top lead of literature’s modernism trend, university professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973), has being dedicating his entirely life by exploring the unreal world and transcend it with his unique master control of artistic languages into a fantastic, perfectly fitted reality of the human kind. The beginning starts for J.R.R. Tolkien1 on January the 3rd 1892 in South Africa, the country where he was born and lived for a short time until his mother returned to England, with John and his younger brother Hilary, for visiting. During this time, his father, left to his job back in Africa, passed away. The family decided to settle back in England and up to that moment, little Tolkien’s journey into the surreal world of words and languages, has began. From his mother he took the basic in Latin and French being able to write and read by an early age. His first years of studies were spent at King Edward's School, Birmingham. On November 1904 when John was only twelve, their mother, Mabel, passed away. As she converted herself on Catholicism, the boys were remaining in Father’s Francis Morgan good care under their educational time at St. Phillips Catholic School. Some years after, J.R.R. Tolkien met Edith Bratt, the one who later become his wife and the mother of their four children, John, Michael, Chris and Priscilla Mary. Things were moved on progressively for the student Tolkien and therefore, Oxford University offered him the opportunity to attend. Unfortunately for the young couple John and Edith, their relationship had to be set on hold for couple of years until they reunited and legalized it. Shortly after, in 1914, the War World I started and JRR Tolkien joined the army a year after, giving his studies at Oxford, a proper ending. Once returned from the battle field, Lieutenant Tolkien restored his connections with the academically environment and has been accepted to work for Oxford English Dictionary. Later on, his particular appealing for special languages helped him not only achieve a considerably upper professional position as a Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon but also to issue a significant amount of specialty works such as A Middle English Vocabulary and Sir Gawaian and the Green Knight. Thanks to their success, Tolkien proceeds in writing. The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings4 are the result of an extremely inspirational time of the author, early thirty’s. As European’s political course turned its orientations to the extreme right and ultra-nationalism grew in intensity, the War World II ignites. Due to his reputation for major contributions in words constructing and decipher, JRR Tolkien’s served Great Britain as a code breaking in the cryptographically department of the Foreign Office. In 1959, JRR Tolkien decided to step aside and retire. As his fame and success increased, he soon realizes that he should resign earlier. Both, his life and his entirely career as a philologist have been widely debated. In 1992, thanks to a very fortunate collaboration with the author’s family, editors and art critiques, BBC produced an extremely comprehensive documentary , “The History of Middle-Earth by Christopher Tolkien”, having as a major subject Tolkien’s life and his work philosophy. I tried to reproduce significant parts of the interviews which is offers a very pertinent analysis and qualified overviews of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works manifest. "- I think that I would say that the appeal, the attraction lays in my father's extraordinary power of compelling literally belief in an unreal world, what he called, a secondary world. That is a world that exists only in the mind. It cannot be seen, cannot be found, it is exist only in the mind. And many people who discovered, perhaps many people for the first time in their lives who discovered that this is a very delightful thing. And this world they enter proves to be an extraordinary, interesting place, with a long imagine past. In these world, strange beings, beautiful, noble, terrifying, hideous, strange places, strange events uncounted. But in this world of his devising when you enter, they are true. Their existence cannot be doubted so long that you're in that world because they are caught with the laws that govern.” – Christopher Tolkien, literature Executive2, first part " - I think the ultimate secret of J.R.R. Tolkien's continuing public appeal is some of a mystery even to him and I would say it was quality of imagination. He was able to imagine and to make real things which nobody ever thought about before; the kind of think I mean is for instance: ants. Nobody has talked about ants before (...), they are not part of the tradition, he just made them up! But once he made them up, everybody understood them, everybody can recognize them. Another, even more of it example, is HOBBIT."Hobbit" doesn't even sound like a proper English word but it isn't, he made it up! And he made the whole conception of behind it and yet once he invent it that everybody understood it and many people actually imitated it." Professor Tom Shippey - Leeds University2, first part As the author himself declare in an interview took by Dennis Gueroulti in1964, he visualized the Middle – earth as the world we live in, yet not on a different era, as the editor assumed but on a different stage of the imagination. Having said that, released in about same time when Tolkien was born, Herbert George Wells (1866 – 1946) was to be called a similar time traveler as Tolkien seemed to be. The modernist H.G. Wells, issue in 1898, The War of the Worlds3 novel which creates at the time of reading the same comments and reactions as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, decades later. But what its strikes immediately about these two, as the lecture ends, is the narrative’s quintessence. Even though, H.G. Wells placed the action somewhere in the future and not in the old time’s suspended era as Tolkien did, the plots have tremendously much in common. Imperialism would be one of the first themes. If one (H. G. Wells) has build up his theories as an alarming signal of what was about to happened or was under its developing process, the other one (J.R.R. Tolkien) creates a whole perspective based on the consequences of peoples obey to evil and unnatural. “- In his "his secondary world", which he worked on all his life, he developed into this extraordinary vastness solidity and coherence, which is, I suppose, unique. And this secondary world, which is usually referred to as mistakenly but entirely understandably as middle-earth, this comprehensive secondary world, inevitably it’s his world. He....it's content will be, his content....it will contain his grief’s, his hopes, his experience, his concept of beauty, his concept of good and evil. It will not be an ideal world, he wasn't interested in utopias....far from it, but it will to, inevitable I think, be an archaic world in some aspects...its archaism shows itself it worked in the relatively small space that the man-maid takes in it in relation to the world we inhabit now and for him, the man-maid, was the great problem, he once said to me:"You know, it isn't the NOT-Man like the weather, no man even at the bad level, it's the man-maid which is so ultimately don't need supportable. So his secondary world contains an extraordinary small - relatively speaking to our world of math - of a man-maid. And its very well known, its often said, he disliked the modern world, and who’s absolutely true - but what I would like to say is that it was absolutely inevitable that he’s surely, its bring from exactly the same source, as his desire for fantasy.” 2, first part Many conclusions were drawn that The Lord of the Rings, written during the most devastating world’s wars, it is an allegory of them. Some even speculated that the Ring symbolized the atomic bomb5or as Sauron and Saruman are neither more nor less than Hitler or Stalin. Tolkien though, declines both associations and to me, makes perfectly sense. For the first, it is a very well known thing his commitment to his religious confession and so the Ring might rather be seen as a Coin, for instance; a powerful, yet extremely dangerous tool in a wrong possession. As the second comparing, well, I guess the author’s political convictions were neither right or left orientated as he was an active supporter of the philosophy of anarchism 6 ideology . “- In the modern world - the word modern is the word who must be emphasized - he loved the world and he was in no considerable sense of misinterpret - the modern world meant for him essentially, THE MACHINE. And once again, this was a word that he tend it....he tried to enlarge, so the way he speaks to the Machine and he more than once, expressly said, that it was one of the underline themes for him in The Lord of the Rings was, THE MACHINE! But we should think of something rather more than what were the Machine naturally suggested was trains, medical cars, airplanes’. He used it very compendiously.....to me almost you might say, an alternative solution to the development of the inanity inherent powers and talents of the human beans, the Machine means for him - meant for him - the....THE WRONG solution! The attempt to…actualize our desires…like our desire to fly. It meant coercion, domination...for him, the great enemy: coercion of other minds and other wills. This is tyranny! But he also saw the characteristic activity of the modern world....is the coercion, the tyranny’s reformation of the Earth, our place. That is really why he hates the Machine.... of course; it is perfectly true, he hate the internal combusting engine for perfectly, good practically reason....I mean, noise, congestion, destructions of cities and....many people greatly agree with him now...(and Tolkien distaste extended to modern, labor-saving machinery) “…he actually mentioned this, in a letter that I thinks it was quickly that he wrote to me when I was in South Africa and he spoke of "the tragedy and despair of all machinery labor.....unlike art, which is contempt to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualized desire and so to create power in its world and that cannot really be done with any real satisfaction....labor-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labor. In in-addition to this fundamental disability of a creature, is added before: "which makes advises not only fail of that desire, but turned to new and horrible evil! And so we come inevitably from Dadulos and Echoers, to the giant bomber.” And of course in his secondary world, the Machine is - as he would say - mythologized....in the mythological mode, because he is dealing, entirely, in representation of his perception of the primary world in the secondary world form… well if you like, the Middle Earth. And, I think, it is undoubtedly true that in this very large sense of the word "Machine"....the supreme Machine, in the mythological terms, is the Ring! Is the one Ring! This of course, makes him extraordinary because maybe if you would feel like saying "Yes, but surely, the Ring is the most Magic think of all!” To which he would say, "The Magic is very closed to the Machine!" Magic is coercion, is the coercion of the world! The attempt by operators to transform the world! And ended, the Elves, as he again said and saying on the same largely drawing on what of himself did and put it to my way…the Elves represent, obviously they represent in the sense of aspect, they must do, of the…the Human! They represent an aspect of the Man-kind but raised in a certain direction, to a higher power.....with powers that meant actually possess.....and the ultimate aim of the Elves, is art and not power! Whereas Man have taking the solution of...of Power, representing by Machine....the Ring is the ultimate Machine, because it was made for coercion! Made by Sauron to coerce! And that is why the only solution to the problem of the Ring, as the why they driven their sword, was...its distraction! And if the Ring were not destroyed, it wouldn't in the long run matter with the Sauron got in himself. As he said once,”Gandalf, if he had the Ring, will be far worse than Sauron, because he would be righteous and self-righteous and all though coerce the world for its own good and that was one of my father's greatest hears....was the coercion for good ends. He wasn't an unreasonable man, he wasn't an eccentric, he wasn't absurd and of course he recognized that one must live in a world to an extend as it is..... So he had a telephone, he even had a tape recorder when they were quite new fangled. But as a vision of how the world could be, the Machinery of telecommunications just as much as the airliner....no, they were not what he wanted in the world. (Aspects of the primary world did Tolkien value enough to bring them into his secondary one) I think that the answer to that lies in the intensity of his love for the PRIMARY, fundamental simplicities of a....not necessarily of the natural world, but of the materials of the natural world, as used by Man - using tools and not machines. Say in Food: bread, cheese and wine. The materials of craftsmanship: stone, wood and so on. But also that was his extraordinarily intense feeling and amazing ability to visualized landscapes. Although in fact he traveled, as people traveled now very, very little it seems that a little went very long way and he had a great...a great range of taste. Many people went naturally...I think rightly associate him....well, of course, with trees, which perhaps been in a certain sense exaggerated...as I’m sort of thinking about trees, but trees are part of a much larger.... or, when is says “it's in a Shire“ because he so often said he’s a Hobbit like”2, second part J.R.R. Tolkien was not only a master of the words and a fantasy father; he visualized everything which was about to come, although I have seriously doubts that he would be pleasantly surprised to find out today, how right he was. Of course, the wars played a major part in Tolkien’s life especially on its intellectual level and as his son said, the whole conception of the middle-earth is grounded on the author’s personal repressions. However, not only once he openly expresses his disapproval to doctrines as Nazi Party or Communism revolution1. His mainly concern though, was his secondary world which he end up identify with. Through his fantastical characters and actions, Tolkien not only that he created a half-real story but he also sort off, unconsciously, “hided” inside its chapters, answers to many issues we might face today. As, written back then, the book meant to be read only the day we speaking. Tolkien primary passion – “A passion of mine, "ab inizio", was for myth and for fairy story. And above all, for heroic legend on the brick of fairy tale and history of which there is far too little in the world accessible to me, for my appetite. I m not learned in the matter of myth and fairy story, however. For in such things, I have always been seeking material, things of a certain tone and air and not simple knowledge. Also, and here I hope I shall not sound absurd, I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country. It had no stories of its own, bound up with its tongue and soil, not of the quality that I sort and found as an ingredient, in legends of other lands. That was Greek, Celtic, Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian and Finish, which greatly affected me. But nothing English, save in power of chapbook staff. Of course, there was indeed all the affable world but powerful as it is; it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain, but not with English! That's not the place that I felt to be missing.”2, third part Professor Tom Shippey from Leeds University pointed extremely wisely what it seemed to occur within English traditional chain of stories. For once, there were historical notes, such as defeat from 1066. Bach then, England lost the battle in front of the Normans. Then Industrial revolution comes along, much sooner than in the other countries and took away the people - mostly juvenile – interest from the tales. To me, the one who perfectly reproduce the Father Christmas figure, J.R.R. Tolkien fascinates the audience within his unique personality not only as an artist nor as a highly placed name in the universal culture, but most essentially as a man who actually lived as he wrote and his writings emerged the fundamental of his own living. Carmen Nymoen