Homer, Home and Middle-earth

I've got to write a paper on the ODYSSEY. I've posted the following thoughtful questions on both the Mythopoeic Society Group on Yahoo! Groups and in the Green Dragon message board at Heron Istarion:

Noting Paul Tillich's definition of faith, we might say that getting home is Odysseus' "ultimate concern," and a rather static one, as it remains a constant, and quite central, point of reference throughout the epic. But the question of why Homer spends half of the text of the ODYSSEY in Ithaca, telling about Odysseus' adventure of regaining his own after he has returned there, is interesting and important. Thinking about "myth" and how it functions in literature in general, and the ODYSSEY in particular, the image of "home" as identified in Homer's works seems to possess immense gravity and power.

Of course, the idea of home in Tolkien's works does not have such mythological centrality. It would be interesting to contrast these two views of home. Tolkien was an orphan by the age of 12. Maybe this experience informs his more generalized idea of home; it is either simply a place to hang one's hat, one's country in a rather pedestrian sense, or (and more ultimately) an unknown place beyond the world. After their adventures of saving the world (everybody's home) from ruin, the hobbits certainly return to their home to many changes, both in the Shire and in their own identities, but in Frodo's case especially, there can be no return to the innocence of the past, and he can not partake of rest or fulfillment there. He will not be healed until he goes into the "uttermost West," which for all practical purposes might as well be "heaven," as there is no returning back to the Shire from there. It is Gandalf's charge to preserve from the threat of evil any place where anything good can grow, whether it is Gondor, Rohan or the well-tilled fields of the West Farthing. But where is Gandalf's home?

Proposal for Derrick

Walter Padgett
English 600
Dr. Derrick
April 11, 2005

Formal Topic Proposal for Research Project

Proclaimed “Author of the Century” by one fervent critic, J. R. R. Tolkien is reputed to have created a mythology through his invention of new languages. “To me a name comes first and the story follows,” he once said while explaining the process of his creation of Middle-earth, “the invention of languages is the foundation. The stories were made rather to provide a world for the language than the reverse.” (Grotta 99)
A professional philologist, Tolkien spent his life acquiring an extensive knowledge of the ancient languages of Western Europe, including Anglo-Saxon and Middle English. Scholars of his work have traced the sources of many of the stories he wrote to the sagas and legends that survive in the ancient literature he studied. But in what way does his retelling of the traditional stories and folk tales that he found in them relate to the languages he invented? Were the mythologies connected to the ancient cultures of Scandinavia and Western Europe translated into Tolkien’s work? If so, it would seem incorrect to assert that Tolkien created a mythology, because those mythologies would have already existed. Did the effect of his invented languages somehow appropriate the essence of these myths into his literary creation?
There are many theories of myth. How have proponents claiming that Tolkien created a mythology theorized myth? How do divergent theories of myth conflict with assertions that a mythology exists in the literature written by Tolkien? Is it correct, for example, to suggest that Milton created a mythology in his writing of Paradise Lost? Did Robert E. Howard create a mythology in his Conan novels? How does Tolkien’s Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Silmarillion categorically differ from these and other such works in order to satisfy the dominant theory of myth accepted by Tolkien scholars like Tom Shippey and Jane Chance?
How would the noted authority on comparative mythology, Joseph Campbell, answer this question in a way which explains his reported indifference to Tolkien’s works, and his dismissal of them as a fad? Are we to imagine that Campbell must not have noticed Tolkien, or might there be a reason connected to Campbell’s theory of myth? How does Northrop Frye’s theory of myth fit? What about Claude Levi-Strauss?
There are many potential subjects to explore within the context of the mythological status of Tolkien’s work. I am particularly interested in an exploration of Tolkien’s created languages, Elvish in particular, but also his other languages for other creatures in his Middle-earth. As a philologist, Tolkien was an expert in how languages change over time, because he had traced the development of Anglo-Saxon, Old and Middle English, and Gothic forms into modern English. As noted by Daniel Grotta above, Tolkien’s assertion was that the stories he wrote grew out of the languages he invented. Scholars like Chance and Shippey, who claim that Tolkien created a mythology, stress this aspect of his creative process in their theories of myth. It is this curious link between language and mythology that I want to explore. My previous studies related to ideology suggest a similar link between language and the production of meaning, truth and the organization of values in social groups. By considering Tolkien’s relationship between language and mythology as a contribution to the scholarship as well as to the creative realm will help me to a fuller understanding ideology. But any overt concern with ideology goes beyond the scope of my proposal for this research project.
The primary focus of the paper I want to produce for the ENG 600 course concerns the relationship between language and mythology in Tolkien’s works. Tolkien’s contribution to literary theory, in so far as demonstrating the relationship between language and mythology, mainly arose out of his invention of Elvish languages and the congruent creation, or perhaps even ‘discovery’ of the tales chronicling the development of their cultures and civilizations. But the actual real-world proof of this relationship exists in comparing the development of the ancient languages that Tolkien studied with the traditional tales, folklore and mythology connected to the cultures of the peoples who spoke them. Tolkien understood this relationship quite well, and he successfully applied it to the languages and mythology he created, in the writing of, or rather re-writing (and hence-forth re-creating) of these same traditional tales, folk stories and myths according to the linguistic matrix established in his invented languages, resulting in new and quite distinct cultural flavors for the races and peoples of Middle-earth.
Most people at some time in their life become curious about the larger questions of life, such as, ‘Who am I? What am I? Where am I from? What am I doing here in this world? And, why?’ I’m really curious about the possibility of designing a Humanities course around myth and Tolkien because I want to share some insights that come from my own enthusiastic immersion in his works. I have found that these insights continue to relate to a larger philosophy of life. Many of the most important humanistic-philosophical issues get addressed in a study of Tolkien. He thought they are important for a variety of reasons, and I think it is good for people to learn how Tolkien treated them. It is rewarding to me personally to engage in learning-centered discourses that address these questions as they arise in the metacontext surrounding Tolkien’s work. The philosophical and theological sensibilities expressed in Tolkien’s work are important to me because they can provide a valuable common ground for others to participate in the discussions which invariably arise around them, often concerning personal and public morality, as well as many other subjects of concern to those who practice in the humanistic disciplines. It is important to me that I am involved in this activity during my life. It is fulfilling to me. It’s what I want to do professionally.
In addition to the goal of gaining a better understanding of the relationship between language and meaning through researching this subject, I hope to learn and be able to demonstrate the skills of a scholar, in terms both of researching and writing. My efforts will involve the coherent documentation of the process outlined in the course for researching the information and criticism relevant to my topic in a number of different places and in a systematic way. I plan to look for good source material in several journals and other periodicals, dictionaries, directories and encyclopedias. I plan to look up key search terms in the Library of Congress subject headings, such as Tolkien and mythology, theories of mythology, mythology and language, and others as they may arise. When I have found good terms, I will query online databases such as WorldCat with these search terms. I made some important contacts through networking with scholars I met at a Tolkien Convention at Marquette University last October. I plan to contact them and other noted experts on Tolkien and mythology in order to find out more about Joseph Campbell’s reported indifference to Tolkien, for example.
There is a very healthy, even vibrant, ongoing scholarly discourse related to my topic. Tolkien enthusiasts in every corner of the world celebrate his literary legacy in every imaginable way. Music has been composed and performed, movies have been made, cartographers have created detailed maps of Middle-earth, and scholars in every discipline continue to produce textual analysis, criticism and philosophy all as an effect of being inspired by his work.
The momentous triple release of Peter Jackson’s film, The Lord of the Rings, starting in January of 2001, precipitated a gush of books and articles about Tolkien and his literary creation of Middle-earth at various levels of sophistication, and many of these appear to lack much depth or value. But a steady stream of rather serious scholarship concerned with Tolkien continues to appear, much of it in annual journals and bi-monthly periodicals published by Tolkien scholars and enthusiasts. The academic community of Tolkien scholarship is who I will be thinking of as an audience for the written work produced by this project. Those participating in the ongoing discourse would appreciate the new work that my investigation of the proposed topic can provide.

Working Towards a Proposal for my Research topic: 2

Working Towards a Proposal for your Research topic:

1. The most important terms / concept words that I expect to define, or at least to depend on in the development of my research are myth /mythology and ideology. But myth will come first, and ideology will come much later. Actually, I want to try and totally forget about ideology in an effort to better understand it through an investigation of the relationship between language and mythology in Tolkien’s works. I want to be clear on this strategy for understanding ideology; I am going to try and forget about it! I will intentionally avoid the use of this term (though perhaps not the concept, as it may arise under a different name) in my research on Tolkien’s purported production of mythology through his invention of Elvish languages, but precisely in order to understand it better later, perhaps in a master’s thesis. But by the time I finish this research paper, I might not care about ideology anymore, and that would be ok. So to revise my answer accordingly, the terms I expect to define are myth and mythology, and it might be a good idea to discriminate between myth and mythology. I expect to discuss different theories of myth / mythology in order to better understand a theory of mythology which depends upon its relationship to language.

2. Tolkien created languages, Elvish in particular, but also other languages for other beings in his Middle-earth. As a philologist, he was an expert in how languages change over time, because, for example, he had traced the development of Anglo-Saxon and Gothic forms into modern English. Tolkien’s assertion was that the stories he wrote grew out of the languages he invented. Scholars who claim that Tolkien created a mythology stress this aspect of his creative process in their theories of myth. So this is a curious link between language and mythology, and it’s this connection that I want to learn more about. Because my previous studies of ideology suggest a similar link between language and the production of meaning. I hope that learning more about Tolkien’s contribution to the scholarship on the relationship between language and mythology will help me to explain a similar theory for understanding ideology. But again, I want to stress that I only expect to join in a separate discussion about ideology after I have completely investigated the theory of mythology held by Tolkien scholars who claim he created it in his literary works set in Middle-earth through his invention of languages.

The basic question I will try to answer through my research is something like, “how is language related to mythology?” A more focused version would be, “how does a particular mythology relate to the language of the culture in which it emerges?” Actually, that pre-supposes a role for culture, and I don’t want to do that if it doesn’t have anything to do with Tolkien’s demonstration of the relation between language and myth. So maybe it is better to focus it another way, like, “how is the relationship between language and mythology demonstrated in Tolkien’s work?” Maybe it’s better to formulate the basic question as, “what is the relationship between language and mythology demonstrated in Tolkien’s work?” I’ve already formulated the line of questioning that grounds this inquiry in Tolkien’s work. I’ll put it in the final version of the proposal. I don’t have the Craft text.

3. Many scholars have addressed theories of myth, and several Tolkien scholars have espoused a theory of myth which is consistent with the claim that he created mythology through his invention of languages. My research will seek to test the validity of this claim by investigating conflicting theories of myth. It may be that I will find in my research that this issue has been entirely resolved in such a way as to make any further inquiry into the theory of mythology that agrees with the claim that Tolkien created one through his invention of languages utterly unnecessary, or perhaps even absurd. As I read the critical works of my mentors in Tolkien scholarship, I am frequently abashed as my own ignorance becomes more apparent. Titles of articles, such as Joseph Campbell and Tolkien, blah, blah, blah, which I have seen in different bibliographies, for example, make me think that this issue of qualifying what we mean by myth when we talk about Tolkien’s mythology has been addressed. But I am not sure, as of yet. And I’ll have a list of such articles to look through before too long. I’ve got a line of questioning that qualifies the relevance of this inquiry. And I’ll put it in my proposal. But probably the most honest answer to this question lies in the fact that my perspective is uninformed on this issue. I just haven’t looked at this issue carefully enough in the reading that I have done, but it seems important to me whenever I come across this notion in reading Tolkien criticism. Maybe it reminds me of something I thought about ideology, but I’m sure it’s worthy of being investigated as an end in itself.

What is it about the reliability of scholarly resources in Craft (pp. 75-78)?

All right, I’ll identify a documented essay that comes close to showing the approach I want to use. What is it about Mann’s and Harner’s lists …? Check the specialized encyclopedia or dictionary for the name of a reputable research-writer? Then I could look up that name and see if they wrote anything that comes close to showing the approach I want to use? Ok, that’s a good idea, but I’ve got a whole slew of them right here. Let’s see…

Well, it’s time to look over a little existing scholarship and add to the bibiliography…

Working Towards a Proposal for my Research topic: 1

Thoughts on the ESSAY DEVELOPMENT WORKSHEET

It’s always difficult for me to answer questions like this with a single line of handwritten text. Often, I’ve thought about issues deeply enough to arrive at a point of confusion, and explaining the answer to these questions designed to help me develop the topic of my research warrants the use of more words than can be written on a single line.
It’s clear from the answers I’ve written in items # 1 and 2 that I’m interested in myth and the work of Tolkien, that I think this is an important aspect of his work, and that I think it makes him important as an author and scholar. My interest in selling hobbit dolls and the like obviously indicates my awareness that I’ll need to be making some money, or it’s an expression of my desire to make money.
I didn’t understand the marking of the potential projects exercise in item #3. Ahh, Now I see…
C – I’m CURIOUS about it
G – It’s GOOD
B – It BUILDS
OK. I would put a G on item A., about selling hobbit dolls. But that’s only because money is good. The truth is, I would just like to move on to my concern about the topic and move the issue of meeting financial needs to another arena. Now, it’s clear that I both want to write about and teach about Tolkien and myth. And I would apply all three kinds of interest to each of these potential projects.

I’m really curious about designing a course around myth and Tolkien because I want to share some insights that come from my own investigation of this topic. I have found that these insights continue to relate to a larger philosophy of life. I think some of the issues that come up in a study of Tolkien are important for a variety of reasons, and I think it is good for people to learn about them. Many people are curious about the larger questions of life, and it is rewarding to me personally to engage in learning-centered discourses that arise as a result of Tolkien’s work. The philosophical and theological sensibilities expressed in Tolkien’s work are important to me because they can provide a valuable common ground for others to participate in the discussions which invariably arise around them, often concerning personal and public morality, as well as many other objects of concern to those who practice in the humanistic disciplines. It is important to me that I am involved in this activity during my life. It is fulfilling to me. It’s what I want to do. There is probably more G than B type interest associated with this potential project.
Well, that is my short answer for item B, a project to design a course around myth and Tolkien in the Humanities. The last item, C, which is a research project to ‘“say who Tolkien is and why his work is important” – persuasively, explicitly, and enthusiastically in a master’s thesis,’ seems to relate pretty directly to the professional activity in which I was engaged four and a half years ago, when I wrote this item, and in which I am still engaged yet today. At this point, I think the G and B kinds of interest apply more than the curiosity aspect. Not finishing this work in a timely manner has damaged my professional life. I’ve lost probably three years. The other things I did during that time that I had put my thesis work on hold were important, too. But now it is time for me to go back and finish the thesis work and earn the MA degree so I can go on to pursue the professional career that I need to live the kind of life that we all want for me to live. I need to participate in and contribute to the lives of other people, besides my immediate family. I hope that I will be able to make some progress toward the accomplishment of what is necessary in order for me to do that, today. There is probably more B than G type interest linked to this project. But though both projects go hand in hand, I’ll have to complete project C before the product of project B can be relevantly applied. I’m not going to teach a course on myth and Tolkien until I write this master’s thesis. And I’m not going to write this master’s thesis until I write the research paper for this course. And I’m not going to write the research paper for this course until I write the First Report, the Second Report, the Project Proposal and the annotated working bibliography. It’s a shame that things take so much time. But these things can’t just be written. Without the preparation and time consuming thought, research and revision, without careful selective researching and an immense attention to detail, what gets produced is shameful junk. I can’t move on professionally if I’m going to submit crappy junk that only serves as evidence that I have not done the work of a scholar, that I will not demonstrate the skills of a scholar, and that I am not a good candidate for a position as a scholar— all of which I have demonstrated successfully.
See how I’ve had to write all this to address the issues in item # 3? It’s ridiculous!
Item number four is OK the way it is. Getting sober took some effort. I had to actually do what was suggested. Instead of letting advice go in one ear and out the other, which was one of the chief causes of my continuing to fail at the project of sobriety, I had to listen and double listen and make an effort to be clear on what I understood was being suggested, and then, most importantly, I had to take the appropriate action. I often categorize the event of my doing that as a miracle. Now I have to apply the same kind of miraculous dedication to the project in front of me. I don’t think I was ready to do this back in the fall of 2000, when I first took this English 600 course. Now I am ready to ask questions instead of assuming I know something. I’m ready to do the work, take the actions, actually, which are necessary for me to continue on the path to the winner’s circle. I’m answering these questions, addressing these issues, one at a time. Another thing that I pointed out in item number four is that I had to join the community, and by that I meant the recovering community. I just think this is absolutely necessary to achieve sobriety, at least in terms of the level of well-being that I understood was possible as a result of working the program. This also required the exercise of conscious effort, reaching out, often taking risks. I didn’t want to do it, sometimes; I didn’t feel like it. But I know that it’s better being a member of a larger community. You get to commune with others who are dealing with the same issues. You share what you know and others share what they know with you. Learning happens. And I see the relevance of this point to my situation now. I went to a Tolkien conference in Milwaukee last October, and I met and talked with Tom Shippey and Jane Chance and John Garth, Ted Nasmith, Wayne Hammond, Christina Scull, Richard West, John Rateliff, and perhaps most importantly, David Bratman. Verlyn Fleiger was there, too, but I didn’t have an opportunity to speak with her. These are big names in Tolkien scholarship today. I realize the value of communicating with them on a regular basis. I realize that they are willing to help me grow. I am not afraid to ask them for help or suggestions or advice. I am willing to do what they suggest.
Item number 5 is pretty straight forward, but my answer points out that I will need all these things to do it, like “structure, discipline, guidance, inspiration, drive, and even perhaps desperation.” I have made the pursuit of the master’s degree a top priority, even going into a kind of “detox center” for a period of time in order to get going on this project. It seems like all I have been doing since I left Terre Haute is orienting myself to do this. The other comment I make on this item is “now as then,” signifying the similarity of this project to the project of getting sober in terms of dedication and sacrifice. “That was my job then, this is my job now,” sounds a little canned or artificial, but it makes sense, and I am sure that I meant it back then, even if I couldn’t follow through. I won’t offer an analysis of why I couldn’t follow through now. Well, maybe I will say a little something about that. My first impression is that it was just too much for one person to try to do. I was teaching two classes and taking two classes, and I had a lot of other stuff going on, as well. Then I started working for Chuck, and all of a sudden I was running non-stop living a double-life! Eventually, it was so stressful for me that I really began to buckle under the pressure. I want to do this project right, and for me that takes a lot of time and attention, more than anyone can give when they have so much else to do. I wouldn’t be able to do it now if it weren’t for the support of my wife. She’s paying the house payment and the car payments and everything else. The business brings in a little money, but not enough to be of much help to her when I’m not working it.
The academic standards in my discipline… Well, I think I addressed a little bit about what it takes to meet these standards above. Also, I think I’ve already addressed the priority status of the project. The suggested actions: “composing re-researching, planning, drafting, editing, and perfecting a piece of scholarship …” are duly noted. I’m answering these questions one at a time.
In column A, the list of qualities that distinguish Garth’s book from … let’s see…. I think David Day’s book is probably the crappiest one I’ve got here. Maybe not, though. But Garth’s book provides new insights in a thoughtful way. I can tell that he really took the time, five years, to meditate on what he says and his craftwork is really beautiful, in terms of the development of his points and his thought. But I don’t have five years to write this thesis, although I am behaving as if I do… In light of this consideration, I will respectfully and consciously leave off the compiling of qualities of good and bad pieces of scholarship. I’ll sit here reflecting on pieces I’ve read for another couple of hours doing that. Perhaps I can post and add to this list as examples arise.
OK… other side of the page, now.
Here’s the real effort, to describe my topic so that an educated person not in my discipline can understand it. And that’s a relatively small space for me to try to do this. What I would say is that Tolkien created languages, Elvish in particular, but also other languages for other creatures in his Middle-earth. But as a philologist, he was an expert in how languages change over time, because he had traced the development of Anglo-Saxon and Gothic forms into modern English. Tolkien’s assertion was that the stories he wrote grew out of the languages he invented. Scholars who claim that Tolkien created a mythology stress this aspect of his creative process in their theories of myth. So this is a curious link between language and mythology, and it’s this connection that I want to learn more about. Because my previous studies of ideology suggest a similar link between language and the production of meaning. I hope that learning more about Tolkien’s contribution to the scholarship on the relationship between language and mythology will help me to explain a similar theory for understanding ideology.
Wow! That’s great! I did it in a little space! At least I think an educated person not in my discipline could understand that.
Ok, about the reality check, I think I was accurate on all points in this section, especially when I marked a low likelihood of maintaining mental and physical health under the stress of this project. That’s certainly one of the chief reasons why this project had been delayed for so long. I’m stronger now. I have the support I need, the time and freedom from other obligations. I’m focused, now. I’m on the path. I am not sure how to address the last part of the reality check because the other students and team activities aren’t part of my current project, as far as I can tell, anyway. I wonder what the consequences of this are.
When I speculated on the external utility of this project, for some reason I was thinking about the unity of consciousness. I don’t know how such a phenomenon might exist, actually. But at the time, this idea must have been of central importance to my understanding of the kind of contribution I wanted to make to the life of the mind (there it is) or everyone concerned with such issues. Joseph Campbell, evidently used the phrase ‘experience of unity with the godhead’ in such a way as to affirm the validity of my perspective, which was evidently centered around the notion that on some level of consciousness, everyone, or perhaps even everyone and everything, is connected in terms of their energy or metaphysically, somehow. And that my efforts to discover and work with the relations between ideology and mythology or these things and language and meaning, or whatever it might be, might somehow lead to an enlightened approach to or understanding of reality in an ultimate sense. This idea seems kind of crazy to me now. I just want to get a job, you know. But this is the kind of inspiration I had about mythology and ideology, and I’m sure that my thinking is aimed in this direction. Now I’m expressing it in terms of ‘the roots of man’s consciousness,’ although that terminology comes from Olga Markova’s essay on the reception of Tolkien’s works in Russia in the recently published collection of scholarly articles in Tolkien Studies. My thinking seems to be that everyone who reads Tolkien’s books will benefit from the project I propose, though there is a lack of an intelligible reason why this should be so. Do I imagine that I will personally be somehow empowered with a master’s level fiat to access the universal consciousness or that I will be able to charge our collective awareness with a love of Tolkien? Maybe it’s something crazy like that.
The truth is that I don’t think that the piece of scholarship produced by this project will be of interest to very many people at all. Most Tolkien fans will be repulsed by its focus on theory, I suspect. And those who have any real experience dealing with modern theoretical issues will probably find lots of errors in what I come up with in that area. But both audiences may like it after all. The academic community of Tolkien scholarship is who I will be talking to. They eat this shit up. It’s like food to them. If David Bratman says it’s ok, then I will be exactly where I want to be. But I have nightmarish visions of him looking over my paper, shaking his head back and forth, wrinkling his nose to the side and saying, “no, no, no.”
In my earlier assessment of success, I seem to focus on the approval of a larger literary community. “Rave reviews,” I may have dreamed of, but my aspirations are far removed from that today. It may be that if I had been able to write my thesis two years ago, it would have been published. A lot of junk has been published about Tolkien and mythology. I wanted to talk about Tolkien’s philosophical and theological sensibilities and lots of books and articles about this topic have appeared in the last four years. Most of them have not been good. Several of them have been downright junk. I know of one heartfelt account that was written by a young "Christian" girl in her teens. There is still a market for such writing on this topic, but for me the notice or approval of the general public is of little concern, now. All I want to do is to follow the suggestions and assignments in the course, take the actions that are suggested and complete the tasks in the proper manner. If I do my best, and follow the course, I have faith that the end product will be ok. I need to produce this work in order to continue my career in academia. It is the top priority in my life now, and it will be until it is completed.
I have made a decision to do this. I am totally committed. I’m done thinking about it. I’ve written and re-written what I want to do. I know what it is now and I’m going to do it.
Earlier, I said that I needed to discover how to make this more digestible. I think that the work of making these ideas going into this project digestible has already been done, and I have only to paraphrase and quote existing scholarship. But the ideas coming out of this project need to be digestible and understandable and understandable, also. An important part of this course comes in the later part when I will be asked to do all sorts of things with metaphor and structure. I will do those things, and I am sure that the paper will be the better for it. Now when I ponder this question about what I need to discover, I just have to stop and really think about it.
I need to talk to the people who will be reading the drafts of my thesis.

Getting Back to the Drawing Board

March 24, 2005
Hi Dr. Derrick,

I'm very serious about completing all that is required in order for me to earn the MA in Humanities that I was working on, and as expeditiously as possible. On January 21, I got a graduate study carrel in the library. I loaded it up with books and everything I thought I needed to get going on this project, but because of distractions of home and business occurring since then, my efforts to complete my thesis work have been sparse and ineffective. Last Friday, March 18, 2005, in a drastic attempt to change this situation, I left the distractions of my home and business in Terre Haute, along with my loving wife and step-daughter, and drove to my Dad’s house in Coshocton, Ohio, in order to start writing my thesis.

Now, nearly a week later, I sit here in the basement of his house surrounded by about 50 books, about half of which are by or about Tolkien. The rest of them are about ideology and related subjects. I also have all the data I produced as a grad student during my active period at ISU. At least I thought I had everything. Now I'm sure I don't, because I have been looking through the folders containing all the paper work for our ENG 600 class, and I can't find a copy of the annotated bibliography I produced for one of the first assignments. Neither is there a copy of it in the ENG 600 file on my computer. I remember doing it, for sure. And I believe I posted an html version of it on my student page on the blackboard website we used for that course. I'm sure I printed off a copy of that student page, but now I'm wondering why it isn't with the rest of the paper work I saved from that class. I guess it's probably at home in a box somewhere. I hope so, anyway. What I do have with me seems pretty incomplete. For example, I have assignment sheets from some class meeting times, and not from others. I have the evaluation guide for the second report, but not for the first. And I don't have a comprehensive description of what the second report should include, even though the evaluation guide advises me that I should cover “3 topics (bibliographies/ editions/ criticism).”

The last time we talked about it, my understanding was that we agreed on what I had to do in order to complete our ENG 600 course. That must have been some time ago. I know it was at least a year ago because my wedding reception at Westminster Village was held in February of last year. (Thanks again for coming to our reception.) But I'm not even sure we discussed this issue at that time. What I do remember, and this is what I keep saying even though it is your decision, is that I need to complete the First Report, which is to “document the status of the life records, literary remains and selected criticism of the works of the person most central to the topic,” which is Tolkien, of course. And I need to complete the Second Report, which I believe concerns bibliographical issues and textual criticism. As I remember it, you were looking for each report to be about 4 pages in length. So that's fine. I think I will try to produce these reports before coming back home. I think I can do this.

I have a copy of Greetham, pages 153-169, 270-305, 322-372, and parts of Appendix I and II which give examples of types of scholarly edition. I have other paperwork and reference material from the class, also, including the Harner and Mann texts. I only detailed the Greetham work because it seems to be of supreme importance in understanding these issues, for the purpose of the Second Report.

I understand the content of the Research Methods course. My goal for these reports will involve coherently documenting my efforts at searching for information and criticism relevant to my topic in a number of different places and in a systematic way. I have found good source material in several journals and other periodicals, dictionaries, directories and encyclopedias, by searching the Library of Congress subject headings, posting queries on online databases such as WorldCat and even through networking with scholars I met at a Tolkien Convention at Marquette University last October.

But in addition to the First and Second Reports, I believe you will require me to produce a Third culminating essay, which makes use of the information and insights gathered through the experience of creating the first two reports. Also, I will need to assemble a portfolio of “some of the most meaningful (“learning-ful”?) activities from English 600 … and write a brief self-assessment of how they contributed to my learning.”

I believe I can do this, although the portfolio might be a little skimpy. It’s possible that I might be able to locate another folder full of documents from the course, and that would help provide more possibilities for the portfolio.

A problem is the absence of the Course Documents from the blackboard website. Is there a current web site that I could access? Do you have a backup of the old web pages?

Could you comment on my assessment of what is required for me to complete this course? Would you be willing to take a look at your earlier assessment of my performance and completion of course assignments? It was the Fall semester of 2000 when I took that course. I’m sure I completed the final exam for the course, as I have the graded paper with your comments. And I also have a transcription which I composed of the title page of A Middle English Vocabulary, by J.R.R. Tolkien, for which I received a check mark. Do you have it recorded that I completed the Annotated Working Bibliography assignment? Did I have an approved proposal for the research paper topic?

Would you like to offer an alternative way for me to complete the course?

My topic is slightly more refined than it was four years ago. Though I’m still struggling with it, I’ve decided to minimize the force of my concern with a relationship between mythology and ideology and eliminate long discussions attempting to arrive at suitable definitions for them to use as components of my inquiry, and simply say that my perspective and approach is textured by an awareness of their functions in literature, generally, and in Tolkien’s creation, in particular. Aside from stating the necessary ideological status of my own perspective, the main point about ideology, I suspect, is best left alone after establishing that literature posits values of which both the writer and reader may be unaware, and it is the goal of my critical analysis to discover what these values might be. Actually, a residual effect or consequence of such an admission of my own ideological perspective or bias is an impulse to attempt to nullify it with a pretense to the kind of objective analysis that often leads to relativistic conclusions. The resulting stance is rather disabling considering the need of the thesis to engage an issue, take sides and argue for a position. Actually, for me, sometimes, I suspect that the notion of ideology moves my thinking from a contemplation of religious issues to political ones, linking them somehow. Possibly, for me, at least, this notion of ideology is valuable in affirming the urgency of activism. But maybe it just reminds me that Bush is robbing all of us poor people, or something like that. But seriously, I think the link I mentioned between religious and political thinking is the same thing as the relationship between myth and ideology. And it’s an effect of ideology separating man’s consciousness from its origins, which is perhaps a result of modernity. Science and industry have blotted out the mythologically oriented consciousness in the mind of contemporary man. And Tolkien’s myth, especially the cosmological revelations in the Silmarillion, even if they only apply to Middle-earth, puts at least my consciousness, though by no means mine only, back in touch with the origins of consciousness, or what one might also think of as ‘reality’ in a more ultimate sense.

The primary focus of the paper I want to produce for the ENG 600 course concerns the relationship between language and mythology in Tolkien’s works. Tolkien’s contribution, whether it’s narrowly thought of as a contribution to the science or discipline of philology or more widely thought of as a contribution to the broader Humanistic subject areas of Language and Mythological Studies or Comparative Mythology Studies, has been clearly documented by both Tom Shippey, a noted philologist and Professor of Humanities at St. Louis University with close ties to Tolkien himself, and John Garth, an English journalist who produced a recent biography of Tolkien which focused on the impact of World War I on his work. Both Shippey, who has produced possibly the two most important critical book-length works on Tolkien, and Garth have the rare and rather exclusive distinction, along with Humphrey Carpenter, of being authorized by the Tolkien Estate to study Tolkien’s original drafts and letters.

Tolkien’s contribution, in so far as demonstrating the relationship between language and mythology, mainly arose out of his invention of Elvish languages and the congruent creation, or perhaps even ‘discovery’ of the tales chronicling the development of their cultures and civilizations. But the actual real-world proof of this relationship exists in comparing the development of the ancient languages that Tolkien studied with the traditional tales, folklore and mythology connected to the cultures of the peoples who spoke them. As a professional philologist, Tolkien understood this relationship quite will, and he successfully applied it to the languages and mythology he created, in the writing of, or rather re-writing (and hence-forth re-creating) of these same traditional tales, folk stories and myths according to the linguistic matrix established in his invented languages, resulting in new and quite distinct cultural flavors for the races and peoples of Middle-earth.

There’s more to it. For example, these insights can lead us to a better understanding of the way a member of one of these cultures might think, because we can determine the order in which their language would link the individual concepts in a complete thought. But I think this kind of discussion would be beyond the limits of the thesis of the paper I want to produce to complete our English 600 course.

To conclude this message, I’ll just say that I hope it is not too late now for me to complete our English 600 course. I am not sure what kind of petition will have to be made to the graduate school on my behalf, whether it is something I can do or what they will require. Both Dr. Jennerman and Dr. Nicol are in their final transitional sabbatical semester of employment at ISU, and though I hope they will be able to continue their official participation as members of my MA thesis committee, I am not sure how it all will actually go down.

I still have to produce a paper for Jennerman on the Odyssey. And I need to produce a paper for Michael Shelton in order to get him to change the incomplete in an English Literature course I took from him in the Fall of 2002. He said that all I had to do to complete the course was to write a paper on Tolkien. But I think it should be more interpretive, concerning Tolkien’s political orientation or rather his response to the ideology (or ideologies) of his time. I have the backbone of that paper , as far as Tolkien himself is concerned. It’s just the trick of describing the literary atmosphere of his time, and I’ll be tempted to get caught up in confusing theoretical issues, like whether the literary atmosphere is related to the political atmosphere, or whether it’s the same thing calling the political atmosphere the dominant ideology, or trying to use a new term like ideological climate, and then not knowing whether I’m still talking about the residual effects on “Tolkien’s ideology” of literature or politics anymore. Shippey puts it simply as “war, despair, failure, [and] disillusionment.” And that’s not so different from both Garth and Marjorie Wright, another critic I’m looking at very closely. The larger context of Shippey’s characterization follows:

“The standard accusation made by my critical colleagues about Tolkien is that his work is "escapist." I think this is the exact reverse of the truth. Like Orwell's 1984, or Golding's Lord of the Flies, or Laxness's Gerpla, Tolkien's fantastic or antiquarian works confront the major problems of the twentieth century, which have been war, despair, failure, disillusionment. And they provide answers which seem strangely old-fashioned, but which have come alive again. They are serious answers to serious questions, which in my opinion it is escapist to ignore.” (Shippey “TOLKIEN AND ICELAND: THE PHILOLOGY OF ENVY”)

The point is that when so many of the most talented and highly acclaimed authors,were writing a negative response to their time, this time in history, Tolkien (as well as CS Lewis and Charles Williams, incidentally) responded to the same disillusionment, but in a positive way, affirming those beliefs and values behind the themes which are expressed in his writings. I am aware of the circular reasoning in this statement. But the illustrations that substantiate this point are both the matter of Wright’s posthumously published PhD dissertation, and the paper I plan to write for Dr. Shelton. In their critical works, both Garth and Shippey also amply supply points which illustrate and support this thesis.

I look forward to your response to this message. I hope some of what I have said here is interesting to you. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely, Walter.

Why the title?

I'm writing a graduate thesis for a master's degree in Humanities. My idea is to document the development of my thesis on this blog. Generally, the thesis purports the existence of a theoretical relationship between myth and ideology and attempts to describe it within the metacontext of the work of J. R. R. Tolkien. More later...