Hard times are temptations; and World War I was a hard time.
Tolkien was simultaneously a devout Catholic and a veteran of the trenches of World War I, which he described as “an animal horror.â€
Tolkien was certainly caught up in the general trauma of the event, but also specifically as a soldier, where fellowship is all one has to hang onto in the middle of hell.
The world had experienced its first episode of 20th Century exterminism, and its newfound technological capacity for evil, even as that same technology was emptying the world of its meanings. Like Middle Earth as the great war approached, the newborn 20th Century was already a world being “covered in shadowâ€â€¦ that shadow finally of the mushroom cloud.
A psychoanalytical standpoint might suggest Tolkien sought refuge in his quasi-medieval universe. The coherence of his vision, however, does not support that idea. His choice of an almost Beowulfian hero narrative as a response to the war was atypical of his day, when WWI was being described by its veterans from the standpoint of modernity’s alienation and despair.
Tolkien spoke for himself on this account, and said he just grew up listening to “faery stories,†as he called these elaborate fantasies.
As readers know from the story of Frodo and his cohort, there is one damning sin; and that is despair. The absence of hope is despair. Despair is the loss of faith, the opposite of faith, the denial of faith, and the betrayal of faith. Only the expression of disbelief, or actual hatred of God, are seen as deeper (and despair-associated!) sins.
Because Tolkien’s genre is also his message, the protagonists are exemplary for their virtue. No virtuous person can despair, because despair is the loss of virtue.
How would we define virtue? The dictionary says something to the effect of righteousness, or seeking the good.
Stories are very often stories that elucidate Virtue, how we are expected to do good and avoid evil in our own time.
Tolkien was simultaneously a devout Catholic and a veteran of the trenches of World War I, which he described as “an animal horror.â€
Tolkien was certainly caught up in the general trauma of the event, but also specifically as a soldier, where fellowship is all one has to hang onto in the middle of hell.
The world had experienced its first episode of 20th Century exterminism, and its newfound technological capacity for evil, even as that same technology was emptying the world of its meanings. Like Middle Earth as the great war approached, the newborn 20th Century was already a world being “covered in shadowâ€â€¦ that shadow finally of the mushroom cloud.
A psychoanalytical standpoint might suggest Tolkien sought refuge in his quasi-medieval universe. The coherence of his vision, however, does not support that idea. His choice of an almost Beowulfian hero narrative as a response to the war was atypical of his day, when WWI was being described by its veterans from the standpoint of modernity’s alienation and despair.
Tolkien spoke for himself on this account, and said he just grew up listening to “faery stories,†as he called these elaborate fantasies.
As readers know from the story of Frodo and his cohort, there is one damning sin; and that is despair. The absence of hope is despair. Despair is the loss of faith, the opposite of faith, the denial of faith, and the betrayal of faith. Only the expression of disbelief, or actual hatred of God, are seen as deeper (and despair-associated!) sins.
Because Tolkien’s genre is also his message, the protagonists are exemplary for their virtue. No virtuous person can despair, because despair is the loss of virtue.
How would we define virtue? The dictionary says something to the effect of righteousness, or seeking the good.
Stories are very often stories that elucidate Virtue, how we are expected to do good and avoid evil in our own time.
