Phl 361K

Fall '03

Questions for Reflections and Discussion: The Old Forest(Sept. 9, 11)

Feel free to use one or more of these in writing your reaction paper..

FOTR, I, ch. 6-7.

1. Compare Frodo’s song (p.159) with the Elves’ song to Elbereth in the Shire (p. 117). What do “woods”/”trees” represent in this context?

2. Who and what is Tom Bombadil? Does the encounter with Bombadil constitute a sheer digression from the story? What does Bombadil mean by “chance brought me, if chance you call it”? (p. 175)

The Silmarillion

1. How is discord introduced into the music? What is Melkor’s motivation? How can Melkor’s gradual transformation be explained? Melkor spent time alone in the void -- what does this mean?

2. What are the three themes of Iluvator? Why does Iluvator’s attitude shift from one theme to the next? What is the significance of the final, decisive chord?

3. Is Iluvator the ultimate source of evil/discord? “No theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me.”

4. What are the similarities and differences between the account of creation in the Silmarillion and that in the Bible (especially Genesis 1)? Why do the Ainur have nothing to do with the creation of the “children of Iluvator” (the Elves and Men)?

Shippey, pp. 56-68

1. Why is LOTR filled with so many names (especially place names)? Why did Tolkien draw so heavily on actual place names, and on the social structure and customs of the ancient Britons?

2. Does Tolkien succeed in making the familiar, safe landscape of England seemed haunted? Is his use of folklore important?

Birzer, pp. 23-28.

1. Can myths express greater truths than can historical facts?

2. “The great tales never end.” In what sense is the tale of the LOTR unended?

3. What did Tolkien mean by saying that God was the true author of the LOTR?

4. According to Tolkien, the appearance of the Ringwraiths surprised and disturbed him as much as they did the characters. Tolkien treated certain mysteries (like the character and fate of the two blue wizards) as though these were questions of fact he did not know how to answer. Can this be taken literally? Do stories, or at least some stories, really pre-exist their author’s imagination? Can writing (at its best) be an act of discovery as opposed to invention?

Sayers, pp. 21-46.

1. Is it true that all language about God is metaphorical? Why or why not? What does “analogical” language mean?

2. Is “God the creator” a metaphor? Do we understand God’s act of creation by using human creators as the model? What does Berdyaev mean by “God created the world by imagination.”
3. Are authors/srtists like God in creating out of nothing (ex nihilo)? Are there no limits to the scope of thought? (p. 29)

4. How does Sayers see the theory of art and theology as illuminating each other? Is she right?

5. Sayers claims that the Trinity is mysterious because it is universal. What does she mean by this?

6. Explain Sayers threefold model of the creative process: Idea, Energy and Power.

7. Does Sayers model shed light on Tolkien’s claim to have discovered Middle Earth? (p. 39)

8. Is Sayers right in claiming that poetry and metaphors do not go out of date, and are not subject to a “law of progress”?

Lewis, “On Science Fiction”

1. Explain Lewis’s five species of science fiction: accidental, the engineer’s tale, speculative, eschatological, and sub-creative.

2. Why does sub-creation now require outer space? How does Tolkien avoid this constraint?

3. How successful is the Lewis/Tolkien defense of sub-creation from the charge of “escapism”?

John Cox, “Tolkien’s Neo-Platonic Fantasy”

1. How does Tolkien’s use of hobbits as heroes reflect a Christianized version of Platonism?

2. How close is the parallel between Sauron’s One Ring and the Ring of Gyges in Plato’s Republic? How do Bilbo and Frodo falsify Glaucon’s pessimistic assessment of the effects of such a ring on the good?

3. Is the Music of Ainur in the Silmarillion closer to Plato’s Timaeus than to the Bible? Do the Ainur play the role of mediating between an eternal, infinite God and the temporal, finite world of matter?

4. Does Tolkien’s world conform to the neo-platonic model of creation as imitation?

5. Neo-Platonists thought of light as the most spiritual of all physical phenomena. How is this idea reflected in Tolkien’s work? Is Light=good, Darkness=evil a metaphor, or something more?

6. What is the “evil as privation” theory? How is volition or choice involved in the origin of evil, according to Plotinus and Augustine? How is this theory of evil embedded in Tolkien’s story -- especially, Melkor, Gollum, the Elves’ obsession with the Silmarils?

7. How are evil and sub-creation related? Contrast Melkor and Feanor with Aule.