1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,268 Okay, let's make a start. 2 00:00:02,268 --> 00:00:04,671 Thank you very much, everyone, for coming. 3 00:00:04,671 --> 00:00:07,540 This is the last in the seminar series which we put on, really 4 00:00:07,540 --> 00:00:11,311 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Lord of the rings. 5 00:00:11,311 --> 00:00:13,546 So it's it's possibly appropriate. 6 00:00:13,546 --> 00:00:15,215 I'm speaking about what 7 00:00:15,215 --> 00:00:18,618 the title of this talk was, the key spring of the Lord of the rings. 8 00:00:18,985 --> 00:00:22,122 With a question mark at the end and the question mark in the title 9 00:00:22,389 --> 00:00:24,324 will carry a lot of weight, as we will see. 10 00:00:24,324 --> 00:00:27,360 For those of you later, I'm afraid the projector isn't working, but, 11 00:00:28,261 --> 00:00:29,229 that's nice, isn't it? 12 00:00:29,229 --> 00:00:32,232 Because we're we're all sick of PowerPoint slides. 13 00:00:33,166 --> 00:00:34,701 So let us begin 14 00:00:34,701 --> 00:00:40,206 on the 30th of March, 1968, from 950 to 1035, the BBC2 aired 15 00:00:40,206 --> 00:00:44,110 the latest episode of the documentary series release. 16 00:00:44,444 --> 00:00:47,914 First half of that was about the sculptress, Barbara Hepworth. 17 00:00:48,348 --> 00:00:51,217 The second of it, half was entitled 18 00:00:51,217 --> 00:00:55,989 Tolkien in Oxford, which the Radio Times of the 28th of March 19 00:00:55,989 --> 00:00:58,992 described as about the Lord of the rings. 20 00:00:59,192 --> 00:01:01,828 Now, the program, I'm sure, is very familiar to many of you. 21 00:01:01,828 --> 00:01:04,831 It's it's widely available on YouTube, 22 00:01:04,898 --> 00:01:08,134 and I reconstructed all the interviews that happened. 23 00:01:08,435 --> 00:01:09,869 The offcuts. 24 00:01:09,869 --> 00:01:13,573 There's an article in Tolkien Studies and there's an archive, for radio 25 00:01:13,573 --> 00:01:16,576 four show if you want to listen to that, which is quite fun. 26 00:01:17,043 --> 00:01:20,880 For those of you who've seen the film, it's definitely a product of 1968. 27 00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:23,883 There's over the top narration by the actor Joss Ackland. 28 00:01:24,317 --> 00:01:27,754 There's some hilarious interviews with the Oxford students from the time, 29 00:01:28,021 --> 00:01:31,958 radiophonic music, from the cutting edge Doctor Who team, and so on and so on. 30 00:01:32,325 --> 00:01:35,962 And when I spoke to the director, Lesley McGahey, who's now, sadly, 31 00:01:35,962 --> 00:01:39,799 no longer with us, and I said, it's a bit funny, and you said, that's fine. 32 00:01:39,799 --> 00:01:41,868 It was meant to be funny. 33 00:01:41,868 --> 00:01:44,304 So if you find yourself laughing, that's okay. 34 00:01:44,304 --> 00:01:46,473 But it was meant to capture the essence of Tolkien. 35 00:01:46,473 --> 00:01:49,442 And the crew were instructed when they filmed the interviews. 36 00:01:49,476 --> 00:01:52,912 Imagine you're interviewing Lewis Carroll now. 37 00:01:52,912 --> 00:01:56,149 One such moment that has been kept in, and it was kept on purely 38 00:01:56,149 --> 00:01:57,684 for the comedic value. 39 00:01:57,684 --> 00:02:00,620 I won't be able to show it, but I am going to play it so you can hear. 40 00:02:00,620 --> 00:02:03,490 The audio is about 22 minutes into the show, 41 00:02:03,490 --> 00:02:07,827 and if you look at your handout on item one, there is a transcript. 42 00:02:07,827 --> 00:02:11,030 But let's see if we can get this to play. 43 00:02:11,931 --> 00:02:15,802 If you want to come down to any lunch to interest people, 44 00:02:16,035 --> 00:02:19,038 I can hold them that tension for considerable time or make them 45 00:02:20,206 --> 00:02:20,940 stories. 46 00:02:20,940 --> 00:02:21,341 Thank you. 47 00:02:21,341 --> 00:02:23,943 Always a human stories make you always about one thing. 48 00:02:23,943 --> 00:02:26,946 That that. 49 00:02:27,780 --> 00:02:29,949 Inevitability of death. 50 00:02:29,949 --> 00:02:31,951 I don't know who you'll be with me. 51 00:02:31,951 --> 00:02:34,921 That is one. 52 00:02:34,921 --> 00:02:36,122 Love them 53 00:02:36,122 --> 00:02:39,592 I there was a quotation from this one 54 00:02:39,926 --> 00:02:43,796 there in the paper the other day, which seems to me I. 55 00:02:44,497 --> 00:02:47,500 I think I really do. 56 00:02:48,234 --> 00:02:49,068 Love this. This. 57 00:02:49,068 --> 00:02:52,071 Is that about the untimely death of, 58 00:02:54,174 --> 00:02:55,642 Music composer who I am? 59 00:02:55,642 --> 00:02:58,411 I shall always be interesting to ponder. 60 00:02:58,411 --> 00:02:59,012 Carl Maria. 61 00:02:59,012 --> 00:03:01,281 Viva, 62 00:03:01,281 --> 00:03:04,284 who died 39 of them. 63 00:03:07,086 --> 00:03:09,455 And the man who was Nazism 64 00:03:09,455 --> 00:03:12,225 biography actually quotes these words of Simon. 65 00:03:12,225 --> 00:03:15,228 There is no such thing as a natural death. 66 00:03:15,828 --> 00:03:18,831 Nothing that happens to men is of a natural, 67 00:03:19,165 --> 00:03:22,168 since his presence calls the whole world into question. 68 00:03:22,635 --> 00:03:24,504 All men must die. 69 00:03:24,504 --> 00:03:26,606 But for every man his death is an accident, 70 00:03:27,540 --> 00:03:28,374 even if he knows it. 71 00:03:28,374 --> 00:03:31,377 An insensitivity, an unjustifiable violation. 72 00:03:31,978 --> 00:03:34,948 We may agree with the words or not, 73 00:03:34,948 --> 00:03:37,083 but those are the, 74 00:03:37,083 --> 00:03:40,086 The keys bring a little or. 75 00:03:40,853 --> 00:03:42,655 So if you could imagine the scene. 76 00:03:42,655 --> 00:03:43,623 Let's see. And you watch it. 77 00:03:43,623 --> 00:03:47,160 Professor Tolkien sitting in an old room up at the Catholic Chaplaincy. 78 00:03:47,660 --> 00:03:49,462 And just as he's about to read that quote, 79 00:03:49,462 --> 00:03:52,465 he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a newspaper cutting. 80 00:03:52,865 --> 00:03:55,401 And Lesley McGahey again, the director, said that 81 00:03:55,401 --> 00:03:58,905 they kept that clip in because they just thought it was so hilarious 82 00:03:59,205 --> 00:04:02,642 that it was this elderly Dom in an old suit, quoting 83 00:04:02,642 --> 00:04:05,712 one of the great contemporary feminist writers of the 20th century. 84 00:04:05,712 --> 00:04:08,881 If you heard it somewhere in the boudoir, they had no idea that he was going 85 00:04:08,881 --> 00:04:11,951 to pull the cutting out of his pocket at the time and start reading it. 86 00:04:13,019 --> 00:04:14,654 But what do you think is going on here? 87 00:04:14,654 --> 00:04:17,490 And what we mean by what I think is critical phrase. 88 00:04:17,490 --> 00:04:20,159 Those are the key spring of the Lord of the rings, 89 00:04:20,159 --> 00:04:21,861 the vast, sprawling epic romances. 90 00:04:21,861 --> 00:04:23,329 Enchanted is for many others. 91 00:04:23,329 --> 00:04:27,667 For 70 years now in his moved and inspired generation general after generation. 92 00:04:27,667 --> 00:04:30,670 But it has a multitude of themes. 93 00:04:31,504 --> 00:04:34,907 But here he is, only five years before he actually passed away, saying, 94 00:04:34,907 --> 00:04:40,013 well, it's primarily about this death, the unjustifiable violation of death. 95 00:04:41,214 --> 00:04:44,183 And when I personally first encountered that program, 96 00:04:44,183 --> 00:04:47,186 the 1968 show, I is puzzled. 97 00:04:48,187 --> 00:04:51,858 And, I was reading his letters around the same time, though, 98 00:04:52,659 --> 00:04:56,062 so maybe where he, I found he was saying some similar things. 99 00:04:56,929 --> 00:05:00,933 For example, in the draft letter from April 1956, he wrote, the real 100 00:05:00,933 --> 00:05:03,936 theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult 101 00:05:04,237 --> 00:05:08,374 death and immortality in a letter from 1957. 102 00:05:08,374 --> 00:05:10,310 It is about death and the desire for death. 103 00:05:10,310 --> 00:05:15,415 Lessness in October 1958 to own a beer, he states, power seeking 104 00:05:15,415 --> 00:05:19,485 is only the motive power that sets events going and is relatively unimportant. 105 00:05:19,485 --> 00:05:22,455 I think it's mainly concerned with death and immortality 106 00:05:22,455 --> 00:05:25,458 and the escaped serial longevity and hoarding memory 107 00:05:25,725 --> 00:05:27,927 and even Christopher Tolkien at the end of J.R.R. 108 00:05:27,927 --> 00:05:31,264 Tolkien, A film portrait, which again you can find on YouTube, confirmed 109 00:05:31,698 --> 00:05:34,701 the fundamental underpinning concern of all his work was death. 110 00:05:35,134 --> 00:05:36,469 The intolerable fact, 111 00:05:37,470 --> 00:05:38,171 this is about 112 00:05:38,171 --> 00:05:41,641 as near as you can get in literary studies to what we call a slam dunk. 113 00:05:42,008 --> 00:05:45,011 It basically tells you what a great work is about. 114 00:05:45,244 --> 00:05:46,412 But why did this puzzled me? 115 00:05:46,412 --> 00:05:48,247 Well, I first read Lord of the rings. 116 00:05:48,247 --> 00:05:50,983 I was probably about 15. 117 00:05:50,983 --> 00:05:53,152 And, if this really was 118 00:05:53,152 --> 00:05:56,689 what it was all about, it had completely bypassed me at the time. 119 00:05:56,689 --> 00:05:59,192 For me, it was this great sweeping adventure 120 00:05:59,192 --> 00:06:01,861 full of action, a wondrous journey into an immersive world, 121 00:06:01,861 --> 00:06:04,864 a heroic romance, as Tolkien would have termed it. 122 00:06:05,264 --> 00:06:07,567 And if I'd been told, then it was really about an exploration 123 00:06:07,567 --> 00:06:08,568 of the theme of death. 124 00:06:08,568 --> 00:06:10,703 That would have been news to me. 125 00:06:10,703 --> 00:06:12,705 Now, I may be alone here. 126 00:06:12,705 --> 00:06:16,142 You may all recall the first time you read the Lord of the rings and you went, 127 00:06:16,142 --> 00:06:19,579 oh, of course, it's all about death and immortality and everything. 128 00:06:20,546 --> 00:06:21,848 If so, that's fine. 129 00:06:21,848 --> 00:06:24,050 Let's look on this tour, because a bit of an exploration 130 00:06:24,050 --> 00:06:27,887 and methodology is how we can explore this a bit, a bit deeper. 131 00:06:27,887 --> 00:06:32,759 But if not, then and you're like me then, then follow me along now. 132 00:06:32,759 --> 00:06:34,494 So return to the clip itself. 133 00:06:34,494 --> 00:06:39,098 I'm sorry you can't see it, but it was, it was called shot 12 in the filming. 134 00:06:39,899 --> 00:06:40,633 And the directorate 135 00:06:40,633 --> 00:06:44,904 labeled the attitude of life and death, and it was about nine minutes long. 136 00:06:44,904 --> 00:06:48,474 The shot that they only used, just under a minute from from the footage. 137 00:06:49,108 --> 00:06:52,111 And he does pull out a newspaper article. 138 00:06:52,211 --> 00:06:53,413 And you can trace that. 139 00:06:53,413 --> 00:06:57,183 It's from the times dated Saturday, the 3rd of February, 1968. 140 00:06:57,617 --> 00:07:00,620 It was a review by Michael Ratcliffe of, 141 00:07:00,620 --> 00:07:04,290 a biography of the composer is he says, Carl Faber. 142 00:07:05,491 --> 00:07:08,628 And you can I can find it or I would shown it to you, 143 00:07:08,628 --> 00:07:12,498 but the quote highlighted, which is in the extract, number one, 144 00:07:12,498 --> 00:07:16,702 comes from A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir, the 1964 essay 145 00:07:17,270 --> 00:07:21,441 on the time she spends with her mother, who is dying in hospital. 146 00:07:22,008 --> 00:07:25,778 Now, there is absolutely no indication that talking read Simone de Beauvoir. 147 00:07:25,778 --> 00:07:29,816 In fact, Alonzo Chilly and Holly Ordway, both looking at Tolkien's library 148 00:07:29,816 --> 00:07:32,819 and Tolkien's modern reading, devote quite a bit of time to this site, 149 00:07:32,852 --> 00:07:36,022 and there's absolutely no evidence he owned any of the books or read this. 150 00:07:36,322 --> 00:07:40,860 So what he's reading the quote is exactly the quote from the newspaper. 151 00:07:41,427 --> 00:07:44,430 However, the central theme to de Beauvoir's book 152 00:07:44,564 --> 00:07:48,734 is the desperate desire of any human being, regardless of their however strong 153 00:07:48,734 --> 00:07:53,005 their religious beliefs might be, to cling on to life as long as possible. 154 00:07:53,573 --> 00:07:55,575 Do not go gentle into that good night. 155 00:07:55,575 --> 00:07:57,844 As Dylan Thomas once wrote. 156 00:07:57,844 --> 00:08:00,646 So perhaps it doesn't really matter how Tolkien came 157 00:08:00,646 --> 00:08:03,649 to de Beauvoir's text, or indeed, whether he read it or not. 158 00:08:03,816 --> 00:08:06,819 The important point is that the quote chimed with him 159 00:08:06,886 --> 00:08:08,855 and his own thinking about the Lord of the rings, 160 00:08:09,822 --> 00:08:11,991 not just having a look again at number one. 161 00:08:11,991 --> 00:08:14,160 And I just want to pull out a few things. 162 00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:16,629 If you really come down to any large story that interest people, 163 00:08:16,629 --> 00:08:18,231 they are always about one thing, aren't they? 164 00:08:18,231 --> 00:08:20,433 Death, inevitability of death. 165 00:08:20,433 --> 00:08:22,668 And then there is no such thing as a natural death. 166 00:08:22,668 --> 00:08:24,971 Death is an unjustifiable violation. 167 00:08:24,971 --> 00:08:29,041 But these are the key spring of the Lord of the rings key spring. 168 00:08:29,942 --> 00:08:31,310 This is one of those odd phrases 169 00:08:31,310 --> 00:08:34,313 that we probably all hear and think we know exactly what it means. 170 00:08:35,248 --> 00:08:37,183 But it's a bit nonsensical. 171 00:08:37,183 --> 00:08:39,118 Those are in fact, no such word is key. 172 00:08:39,118 --> 00:08:40,820 Spring. Certainly not recorded in the Oxford 173 00:08:40,820 --> 00:08:42,855 English Dictionary or elsewhere that I know. 174 00:08:42,855 --> 00:08:46,025 If you search it, all you find is this quote from Tolkien. 175 00:08:46,893 --> 00:08:48,060 But I suspect what he was 176 00:08:48,060 --> 00:08:51,230 probably using or saying or thinking of saying was mainspring. 177 00:08:51,864 --> 00:08:54,000 And that's the principle of spring in a watch or clock. 178 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:57,003 The spring which drives the hammer in a gun, or figuratively, 179 00:08:57,236 --> 00:09:00,106 the chief motive, the main incentive. 180 00:09:00,106 --> 00:09:04,710 But it could be key, as in the essential and spring as in source. 181 00:09:05,177 --> 00:09:05,945 We just don't know. 182 00:09:05,945 --> 00:09:08,581 We don't have any evidence, is what Tolkien was trying to say. 183 00:09:08,581 --> 00:09:12,118 But clearly there's something about death that was either the inspiration 184 00:09:12,118 --> 00:09:15,121 for the Lord of the rings, the motivation for some of the characters, 185 00:09:15,454 --> 00:09:18,591 the driving force for the plot, the central theme, or all of these 186 00:09:19,158 --> 00:09:23,229 and if we accept that and the toolkit is not simply resorting to hyperbole, 187 00:09:23,229 --> 00:09:25,197 which was his wont, I'm afraid, 188 00:09:25,197 --> 00:09:28,200 and he was winding the crew up quite a bit in the interview. 189 00:09:28,634 --> 00:09:31,604 But the further references in the letters are quoted earlier. 190 00:09:31,604 --> 00:09:32,939 Then what are we to make of it? 191 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:34,674 What, for 192 00:09:34,674 --> 00:09:37,677 example, is so intolerable about death? 193 00:09:38,244 --> 00:09:42,214 That might seem a bit of an odd question to come to ask people, but anyway, 194 00:09:43,015 --> 00:09:45,351 why would we see it as a violation? 195 00:09:45,351 --> 00:09:48,421 Is it the fact of its inevitability that you can't escape it? 196 00:09:48,421 --> 00:09:51,624 As in the ancient Mesopotamian tale Appointment in Samarra? 197 00:09:52,358 --> 00:09:54,493 Is it that it's just unfair and cruel? 198 00:09:54,493 --> 00:09:57,363 Is it the fear of death and the unknown? 199 00:09:57,363 --> 00:10:01,067 I'll attempt to show that Tolkien explores all of these in the Lord of the rings 200 00:10:01,067 --> 00:10:04,937 and his wider mythology, and that he presented his own conclusions. 201 00:10:04,937 --> 00:10:07,907 But they were deeply rooted in the experiences of his life 202 00:10:07,907 --> 00:10:10,776 and also his faith. 203 00:10:10,776 --> 00:10:13,112 So as I pondered this problem, 204 00:10:13,112 --> 00:10:17,350 and I would say I'm not alone in focusing in on this quote, 205 00:10:18,084 --> 00:10:21,420 in the reading list at the back you will find many articles and chapters 206 00:10:21,420 --> 00:10:22,355 by people who've looked at it. 207 00:10:22,355 --> 00:10:28,394 And Signum University, in fact, did an entire day on death in Tolkien last year. 208 00:10:28,661 --> 00:10:31,797 But what I do find is that people sort of skirt over it. 209 00:10:31,797 --> 00:10:34,266 They mention it a bit, and then they skirt quickly over it, 210 00:10:34,266 --> 00:10:35,468 and none of them think of it 211 00:10:35,468 --> 00:10:38,471 in the context of Tolkien's life, which is what I'd like to do. 212 00:10:38,938 --> 00:10:42,875 However, as I begin to ponder it, the bit I came back to was any large story 213 00:10:42,875 --> 00:10:46,846 that interests people, and this felt to me like a way you should always look 214 00:10:46,846 --> 00:10:49,982 for a way in to try and understanding what an author's talking about. 215 00:10:50,716 --> 00:10:53,552 So I started to think, what large stories might these be? 216 00:10:53,552 --> 00:10:55,755 So let's start with these. 217 00:10:56,789 --> 00:10:57,757 First of all, I think 218 00:10:57,757 --> 00:11:00,760 there are other stories he read tool studied. 219 00:11:00,893 --> 00:11:03,462 Second, there's the most probably important story 220 00:11:03,462 --> 00:11:05,665 to his life the story of Christ. 221 00:11:05,665 --> 00:11:08,367 And then thirdly, there is the story of his own life, 222 00:11:08,367 --> 00:11:11,370 the context in which he lived and wrote. 223 00:11:11,904 --> 00:11:13,406 So I'm just going to start 224 00:11:13,406 --> 00:11:16,409 with the stories he read, taught, or studied. 225 00:11:17,343 --> 00:11:18,944 And here just have your hand 226 00:11:18,944 --> 00:11:21,947 up, to hand because I'll be reading some quotes. 227 00:11:22,682 --> 00:11:26,152 So let's start with what is often cited as the first fantasy story, 228 00:11:26,852 --> 00:11:28,421 the Epic of Gilgamesh. 229 00:11:28,421 --> 00:11:30,423 We know that Tolkien owned E Wallace 230 00:11:30,423 --> 00:11:33,759 fudges the Babylonian story of the deluge and the Epic of Gilgamesh. 231 00:11:34,293 --> 00:11:37,396 And as some of you will know, the second part of that tale recounts 232 00:11:37,396 --> 00:11:40,399 the failed quest to find the secret of eternal life, 233 00:11:40,533 --> 00:11:44,303 with the protagonist being told by the gods that death was man's fate. 234 00:11:44,904 --> 00:11:46,372 So we're on to a good start. 235 00:11:47,540 --> 00:11:49,375 I'm going to skip classical literature 236 00:11:49,375 --> 00:11:53,579 and direct you to the really excellent talk last year in this series by 237 00:11:54,046 --> 00:11:57,683 See me on that very subject, and it's on our podcast series. 238 00:11:58,050 --> 00:12:00,753 But I'm going to concentrate instead on the the text that Tolkien 239 00:12:00,753 --> 00:12:03,723 studied and taught, particularly in medieval literature. 240 00:12:05,491 --> 00:12:06,759 It's not hard to find the 241 00:12:06,759 --> 00:12:09,762 theme of death being dealt with across the board. 242 00:12:09,862 --> 00:12:11,664 For example, in the spiritual in Bede's 243 00:12:11,664 --> 00:12:13,899 Ecclesiastical History of the English People book, 244 00:12:13,899 --> 00:12:18,237 for there are a number of instances of the dead returning in a good way. 245 00:12:18,871 --> 00:12:23,109 Or there's the horror in the Old Norse sagas of the droga and how we, 246 00:12:23,843 --> 00:12:26,879 we through these bloodthirsty revenants that come back 247 00:12:26,879 --> 00:12:29,882 and terrorize the protagonists of the text. 248 00:12:29,915 --> 00:12:32,551 But let's talk about a few texts, which we know Tolkien 249 00:12:32,551 --> 00:12:33,919 paid a lot of attention to. 250 00:12:33,919 --> 00:12:35,521 First, Beowulf. 251 00:12:35,521 --> 00:12:37,223 It's always Beowulf, isn't it? 252 00:12:37,223 --> 00:12:40,626 The great epic of Old English literature which tells the tale of a hero 253 00:12:40,626 --> 00:12:43,629 fight three monsters Grendel, Grendel, his mother, and then a dragon 254 00:12:43,829 --> 00:12:46,899 warrior at the end is mortally wounded and die or dies. 255 00:12:47,299 --> 00:12:50,669 Crucially, at the midpoint of that poem, we get a speech by Hrothgar, 256 00:12:50,669 --> 00:12:52,404 the old Danish king. 257 00:12:52,404 --> 00:12:56,876 The young Beowulf has come over to save, and having done that, Hrothgar subjects 258 00:12:56,909 --> 00:13:00,813 him to what we often call cross sermon, which always seems to be important to me. 259 00:13:01,313 --> 00:13:05,718 But the extract on the handout from section two is Tolkien's own translation. 260 00:13:06,285 --> 00:13:08,788 Now, for a little while they valor is in flower. 261 00:13:08,788 --> 00:13:09,522 But soon shall it 262 00:13:09,522 --> 00:13:13,225 be that sickness or the sword rob thee of they might as far as embrace 263 00:13:13,492 --> 00:13:17,863 or waters wave or bite of blade or fight of spear, or dreadful 264 00:13:17,863 --> 00:13:21,000 old age, or the flashing of thine eyes should fail and fade. 265 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:24,670 Very soon will come that the proud knight shall death lay low. 266 00:13:25,538 --> 00:13:27,740 And Tolkien considered this may have been inserted 267 00:13:27,740 --> 00:13:29,441 by another poet called Colonel Wolf, 268 00:13:29,441 --> 00:13:33,078 but even so he thought it was a fitting end to the first part of Beowulf, 269 00:13:33,445 --> 00:13:37,583 which depicted the rise of the hero, but foreshadowing the coming of old age. 270 00:13:37,983 --> 00:13:41,487 And in these notes to the text, Tolkien showed the contrast of youth 271 00:13:41,487 --> 00:13:45,157 and age, age and death, the inevitable sequel of Youth and Triumph. 272 00:13:45,891 --> 00:13:46,892 At the end of the text. 273 00:13:46,892 --> 00:13:51,363 Spoiler Beowulf dies, of course, perhaps a needless death due to his pride, 274 00:13:51,997 --> 00:13:55,201 which seems to be what Tolkien also suggests with his comment 275 00:13:55,201 --> 00:13:59,538 in his lecture on Beowulf and the monsters and the critics quote, but 276 00:13:59,538 --> 00:14:04,510 we may remember that the poet of Beowulf saw clearly the wages of heroism is death, 277 00:14:05,010 --> 00:14:08,881 and the whole poem quote was a solemn funeral ale with the taste of death 278 00:14:10,516 --> 00:14:12,051 moving on in time. 279 00:14:12,051 --> 00:14:15,721 So Gawain in the Green Knight, you know, he produced an edition of this book. 280 00:14:15,721 --> 00:14:19,925 We also have his lecture and translation so clearly another text, which Tolkien 281 00:14:19,925 --> 00:14:21,060 probably would have said. 282 00:14:21,060 --> 00:14:23,128 This is a great story. 283 00:14:23,128 --> 00:14:26,198 And with Sir Gawain, the whole quest is to seek out death, 284 00:14:26,832 --> 00:14:30,369 the return blow by the Green Knight to be delivered at the Green Chapel. 285 00:14:31,103 --> 00:14:34,206 In his essay on the poem, Tolkien makes several references to the point 286 00:14:34,206 --> 00:14:38,143 that Gawain is off to meet death, but Gawain is given hope. 287 00:14:38,143 --> 00:14:42,214 If you know the tale, he's handed this magic belt by the lady which he could use, 288 00:14:42,214 --> 00:14:45,217 which he potentially might well have saved him. 289 00:14:45,384 --> 00:14:48,821 But Tolkien, in his lecture on this, decidedly underplays that. 290 00:14:50,356 --> 00:14:51,891 To quote again, number three. 291 00:14:51,891 --> 00:14:52,892 But even at the moment 292 00:14:52,892 --> 00:14:56,028 when the idea of helping escaping death first wakes in his mind 293 00:14:56,295 --> 00:14:58,731 and is strongest before he has time to reflect 294 00:14:58,731 --> 00:15:01,066 all that the poet strictly reports him is thinking is 295 00:15:01,066 --> 00:15:04,436 it would be a marvelous thing to have in the desperate business allotted to me. 296 00:15:04,670 --> 00:15:09,074 If I could somehow escape being slain, it would be a splendid trick. 297 00:15:09,174 --> 00:15:11,043 He's really underplaying this idea, 298 00:15:11,043 --> 00:15:14,780 and if you know the text going doesn't use the magic belt to save himself. 299 00:15:14,780 --> 00:15:19,451 He saved from death by his own righteousness and humility. 300 00:15:20,653 --> 00:15:22,221 Two more text. 301 00:15:22,221 --> 00:15:23,822 Next one is Pearl. 302 00:15:23,822 --> 00:15:26,792 This is a wonderful poem from medieval literature, one which is, 303 00:15:27,559 --> 00:15:29,028 one of the great masterpieces. 304 00:15:29,028 --> 00:15:33,933 And Tolkien, marveled at the intricate verse from the poet, at the time. 305 00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:37,336 And there was an edition with Gordon that you probably know, 306 00:15:37,336 --> 00:15:40,339 and he returns to the text and provides a translation. 307 00:15:40,873 --> 00:15:45,544 It is a poem purely about death, the death of the poet's daughter, 308 00:15:45,544 --> 00:15:50,482 the poet, the protagonist in the poem, falls asleep and then sees this vision 309 00:15:50,683 --> 00:15:54,119 of his daughter, who has died as a child but is now grown up. 310 00:15:55,688 --> 00:15:57,289 She's in Paradise, 311 00:15:57,289 --> 00:16:01,593 and she remonstrated with him for grieving when she is in such an idyllic place. 312 00:16:02,161 --> 00:16:04,563 And the end of the poem is when the poet wakes, when he attempts 313 00:16:04,563 --> 00:16:09,768 to cross the stream to her and, in effect, an attempt to circumvent death. 314 00:16:11,103 --> 00:16:14,106 And finally, briefly, there is Sir Orfeo. 315 00:16:15,274 --> 00:16:17,977 Again, we know Tolkien worked on this, and has been argued 316 00:16:17,977 --> 00:16:21,213 was very possibly a source for the inspiration for the elves. 317 00:16:21,213 --> 00:16:25,250 Certainly The Hobbit, and the tale itself focuses on the ancient myth of Orpheus. 318 00:16:25,250 --> 00:16:28,754 But in Middle English the Queen is taken to Faerie, not the underworld, 319 00:16:29,254 --> 00:16:32,091 and the main elements of the plot, though, are still there from the Orpheus 320 00:16:32,091 --> 00:16:36,595 tale, so Rovio has to rescue her, manage to do so through his music. 321 00:16:37,029 --> 00:16:39,932 And as an aside, it's interesting, which I've put there. 322 00:16:39,932 --> 00:16:42,267 That's the end of Tolkien's translation now. 323 00:16:42,267 --> 00:16:46,372 Is King Orfeo crowned a new and here it is his lady two and long 324 00:16:46,372 --> 00:16:49,375 they lived till they were dead, and King was the steward in their stead. 325 00:16:50,109 --> 00:16:53,946 The halfling two lady were dead is not in the manuscript. 326 00:16:53,946 --> 00:16:55,147 He just inserts it. Now. 327 00:16:55,147 --> 00:16:58,717 He inserts it for reasons to keep up the rhyme, as you can see. 328 00:16:59,284 --> 00:17:02,554 And maybe that's just coincidence, but I just thought it was a nice little 329 00:17:02,554 --> 00:17:03,489 touch to bring in. 330 00:17:05,724 --> 00:17:08,660 This brings us to the books Tolkien read, namely fairy stories, 331 00:17:08,660 --> 00:17:11,130 which he famously encountered as a young boy. 332 00:17:11,130 --> 00:17:15,768 Sir Orfeo employs the trope of fairy, the perilous realm being a substitute 333 00:17:15,768 --> 00:17:19,938 for death, or at least a place of separation from normal human existence. 334 00:17:20,472 --> 00:17:23,275 It's a place of wonder and enchantment, yes, 335 00:17:23,275 --> 00:17:26,245 but also where time operates on a different plane. 336 00:17:26,245 --> 00:17:28,680 The mainstay of many fairy tales, 337 00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:31,683 the fairy or elf or wherever it is, leaves differently to us 338 00:17:31,984 --> 00:17:36,288 and most importantly, is often depicted as ageless, timeless, deathless. 339 00:17:37,022 --> 00:17:39,291 In this sense, then, the land of fairy is in fact 340 00:17:39,291 --> 00:17:42,394 a way of cheating, death or cheating time. 341 00:17:42,394 --> 00:17:45,764 Sorry. And to a degree death do age there. 342 00:17:45,931 --> 00:17:47,933 You do not die. 343 00:17:47,933 --> 00:17:50,769 Of course, we have lots of fairy tales which deal directly with the threat 344 00:17:50,769 --> 00:17:55,140 of death Hansel and Gretel, the juniper tree or symbolism of death? 345 00:17:55,140 --> 00:17:57,476 Fearlessness, like Sleeping Beauty, 346 00:17:57,476 --> 00:18:01,313 or tales, where the hero, but usually the villain, tries to seek immortality. 347 00:18:01,713 --> 00:18:05,884 But the symbolic importance of fairy tales is depicting another way of existence, 348 00:18:06,151 --> 00:18:11,123 especially when it comes to mortality, was important to Tolkien, as can be seen 349 00:18:11,123 --> 00:18:14,860 from his comment, which I think is item five on fairy stories. 350 00:18:14,860 --> 00:18:15,294 At last 351 00:18:15,294 --> 00:18:19,198 there is the oldest and deepest desire the Great Escape, the escape from death. 352 00:18:19,531 --> 00:18:23,068 Fairy stories provide many examples and modes of this, which might be called 353 00:18:23,368 --> 00:18:26,705 the genuine escapist, or should I say fugitive spirit. 354 00:18:27,172 --> 00:18:30,042 The human stories of the elves are doubtless 355 00:18:30,042 --> 00:18:33,712 full of the escape from death lessness few lessons are taught more 356 00:18:33,712 --> 00:18:36,849 clearly in them that the burden of that kind of immortality, 357 00:18:37,149 --> 00:18:42,554 or rather endless serial living to which the fugitive would fly for the fairy 358 00:18:42,554 --> 00:18:45,924 story, is especially apt to teach such things of old and still today. 359 00:18:46,825 --> 00:18:50,496 Death is the theme that most inspired George MacDonald. 360 00:18:52,531 --> 00:18:54,933 As an aside, as an aside, 361 00:18:54,933 --> 00:18:57,703 the reference to George MacDonald is probably, 362 00:18:57,703 --> 00:19:02,541 his explorations of death in text light at the back of the North Wind, or Lilith, 363 00:19:02,975 --> 00:19:07,045 a MacDonald's famous statement that death is simply more life or 364 00:19:07,613 --> 00:19:09,781 death to MacDonald was not a problem. 365 00:19:09,781 --> 00:19:12,017 It was a promise of fulfillment. 366 00:19:12,017 --> 00:19:14,419 But note in that quote from, fairy stories. 367 00:19:14,419 --> 00:19:16,788 Tolkien has that bit of an undercurrent casting doubt 368 00:19:16,788 --> 00:19:21,026 on where the death of his death lessness is really that ideal. 369 00:19:21,393 --> 00:19:22,661 It's a burden. 370 00:19:22,661 --> 00:19:25,697 And the fairy story was a great way of exploring this. 371 00:19:26,732 --> 00:19:28,367 Hold on to that thought. 372 00:19:28,367 --> 00:19:31,470 Now, we don't know if Tolkien read Arthur Machen or E.F. 373 00:19:31,470 --> 00:19:35,407 Benson, but if he had, or at least I don't know, he no doubt 374 00:19:35,407 --> 00:19:39,444 would have been intrigued by the use of the great classical fairy pen 375 00:19:40,012 --> 00:19:43,282 and the promise the pen could bring immortality in such tales 376 00:19:43,282 --> 00:19:47,252 as McEwan's The Great God Pan, or most notably in Benson's 377 00:19:47,553 --> 00:19:51,223 horrific tale from 1912, The Man Who Went Too Far. 378 00:19:51,690 --> 00:19:53,859 I would strongly recommend Go and read that 379 00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:55,994 token, of course. 380 00:19:55,994 --> 00:19:57,763 Also read for fun. 381 00:19:57,763 --> 00:20:01,733 And whilst no doubt there are hundreds thousands of books 382 00:20:01,733 --> 00:20:03,535 he read or tales I'm going to be very, 383 00:20:03,535 --> 00:20:06,905 very selective and focus on one author which we know he really liked. 384 00:20:07,739 --> 00:20:10,309 Because he went off and collected eight novels by him H. 385 00:20:10,309 --> 00:20:14,880 Rider Haggard, and particularly his story she A History of Adventure, 386 00:20:14,880 --> 00:20:18,183 which we think Tolkien was reading about 1908 to 1910. 387 00:20:19,084 --> 00:20:22,588 This, as you may know, if you haven't read it, you've probably seen the film. 388 00:20:22,588 --> 00:20:23,855 The hammer film 389 00:20:23,855 --> 00:20:27,659 is the story of Aisha, who was discovered the secret of immortality. 390 00:20:28,193 --> 00:20:31,830 But when the male protagonist, Leo, refuses to enter the sacred fire 391 00:20:31,830 --> 00:20:36,868 and to join her in that immortality, Aisha does and reverts to a true age. 392 00:20:37,202 --> 00:20:39,171 But there are sequels I issue the return of. 393 00:20:39,171 --> 00:20:43,475 She, she and Allen Wisdom's daughter, and Tolkien owned all of those. 394 00:20:43,475 --> 00:20:45,277 So you're still buying Haggard's books? 395 00:20:45,277 --> 00:20:46,712 It looks like, into the 20s. 396 00:20:48,213 --> 00:20:49,815 So where does this get us to? 397 00:20:49,815 --> 00:20:53,318 And I do appreciate I've been incredibly selective here, but taking these few 398 00:20:53,318 --> 00:20:57,723 great stories, they do seem to give some substance to Tolkien's observation. 399 00:20:57,956 --> 00:21:00,959 The death is also a central theme of many tales, 400 00:21:01,226 --> 00:21:02,961 or at least that's what he encountered. 401 00:21:02,961 --> 00:21:04,263 Death needs to be faced. 402 00:21:04,263 --> 00:21:05,831 Death will come to us all. 403 00:21:05,831 --> 00:21:07,366 That can be unfair. 404 00:21:07,366 --> 00:21:10,235 But for as long as we have told tales, we have wondered 405 00:21:10,235 --> 00:21:13,672 whether it may be possible to escape death and what it might mean 406 00:21:13,672 --> 00:21:16,675 to be immortal. 407 00:21:17,643 --> 00:21:20,912 When I was younger, I was brought up a Catholic. 408 00:21:21,813 --> 00:21:25,417 And it always struck me as I sat in the church, just how much iconography 409 00:21:25,417 --> 00:21:28,420 there was around me of horrific ways that people got killed. 410 00:21:29,087 --> 00:21:31,490 There were statues to martyrs that were very realistic. 411 00:21:31,490 --> 00:21:35,761 Stations of the cross, the large crucifix with blood pouring from Christ, 412 00:21:36,161 --> 00:21:40,966 media vat in mortal summers, in the midst of life, we were in death. 413 00:21:42,167 --> 00:21:43,368 This all transfixed me. 414 00:21:43,368 --> 00:21:44,870 Didn't do anything spiritually for me. 415 00:21:44,870 --> 00:21:48,373 I just went off and watched a load of horror films and really enjoyed those. 416 00:21:48,373 --> 00:21:51,476 But nevertheless, death plays an important role in the way 417 00:21:51,476 --> 00:21:55,180 Catholics and Christians of suppose see the story of Christ. 418 00:21:55,681 --> 00:21:58,417 So it's critically important to Tolkien, 419 00:21:58,417 --> 00:22:01,386 and as he's well known, the fall of man occurs. 420 00:22:01,386 --> 00:22:04,990 When are or is the leaf is the first parents, Adam and Eve, 421 00:22:05,123 --> 00:22:09,094 the fruit of the tree of the knowledge, thus disobeying God, and having done 422 00:22:09,094 --> 00:22:12,998 so due to the wiles of Satan, they fall from God's grace, expelled from Eden. 423 00:22:13,532 --> 00:22:16,234 And it's for this reason that mankind is subject to sin, 424 00:22:16,234 --> 00:22:19,237 temptation, hardship, and importantly, death. 425 00:22:20,505 --> 00:22:24,776 And from those early chapters of Genesis, then death is in God's plan. 426 00:22:25,210 --> 00:22:27,779 Christ's death, however, is the redemption from this. 427 00:22:27,779 --> 00:22:32,384 Moreover, his resurrection the greatest you catastrophe of them all for talking 428 00:22:32,751 --> 00:22:36,488 so as a glimpse of the truth, a ray of light reveals 429 00:22:36,488 --> 00:22:38,256 not only that Christ was the Son of God, 430 00:22:38,256 --> 00:22:41,259 but also that we can all escape the nothingness of death. 431 00:22:41,326 --> 00:22:44,329 As Christ's sacrifice allowed us to enter heaven, 432 00:22:44,963 --> 00:22:47,032 he's victorious over death, 433 00:22:47,032 --> 00:22:50,402 as foreshadowed by his last miracle, the raising of Lazarus. 434 00:22:50,669 --> 00:22:52,971 And he says, I am the resurrection and the life, 435 00:22:52,971 --> 00:22:56,007 and he that believeth in me, that we were dead, yet shall he live. 436 00:22:56,742 --> 00:23:01,380 In Romans 838 to 39, Christians are told they need not fear. 437 00:23:01,380 --> 00:23:03,949 Death is nothing will separate them from God. 438 00:23:03,949 --> 00:23:07,219 The resurrection gives meaning to the famous one Corinthians 439 00:23:07,652 --> 00:23:10,522 O death, where is thy sting at the victory? 440 00:23:10,522 --> 00:23:11,757 Oh death, what is thy sting? 441 00:23:11,757 --> 00:23:15,127 And in revelations 21, for we're told death will be eradicated. 442 00:23:15,660 --> 00:23:18,897 Moreover, the Bible tells us that to attempt to evade or escape 443 00:23:18,897 --> 00:23:22,401 death is unacceptable, is made clear in the Old Testament 444 00:23:22,401 --> 00:23:25,437 Deuteronomy, where there is a prohibition on witchcraft, 445 00:23:25,837 --> 00:23:28,440 specifically necromancy, 446 00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,443 and most famous in one Samuel with the Witch of indoor. 447 00:23:32,611 --> 00:23:35,447 Now, it doesn't matter if you don't believe any of this, 448 00:23:35,447 --> 00:23:38,216 this doesn't align with your own spiritual or religious beliefs. 449 00:23:38,216 --> 00:23:39,151 But what is key here? 450 00:23:39,151 --> 00:23:42,721 This was central to Tolkien's conception of death, that it was not the end. 451 00:23:42,721 --> 00:23:44,689 That through Christ we have redemption. 452 00:23:44,689 --> 00:23:48,126 There's an afterlife, and to evade or cheat death is not something 453 00:23:48,126 --> 00:23:51,196 that is acceptable, and even worse is in direct conflict 454 00:23:51,196 --> 00:23:54,199 with God's will and the purpose of Christ's passion. 455 00:23:54,399 --> 00:23:57,202 Miracles are allowed, of course, as Christ did, 456 00:23:57,202 --> 00:24:01,473 but also miracles can be performed if it kind of temporarily stays off death. 457 00:24:01,807 --> 00:24:03,108 And we know Tolkien was 458 00:24:03,108 --> 00:24:06,745 really got a great lot of solace from the story of Bernadette, of Lourdes. 459 00:24:07,112 --> 00:24:10,081 And in one letter, 1944, he ecstatically recounts 460 00:24:10,081 --> 00:24:13,084 the story of a young boy in the 20s who was seriously ill 461 00:24:13,084 --> 00:24:17,088 but passed by the grotto on a train and was miraculously cured. 462 00:24:17,689 --> 00:24:20,325 So we can imagine told we took a very active 463 00:24:20,325 --> 00:24:23,328 Catholic part in the discussions by the inklings of death 464 00:24:23,728 --> 00:24:26,932 and the afterlife, which we know they debated in Hollywood. 465 00:24:26,932 --> 00:24:27,466 We spoke, 466 00:24:29,334 --> 00:24:29,801 and death 467 00:24:29,801 --> 00:24:32,971 was, of course, something told not to come too early in his life. 468 00:24:32,971 --> 00:24:35,941 His father died in 1896, as you know. 469 00:24:36,308 --> 00:24:39,311 But more crucially, was the death of his mother. 470 00:24:39,578 --> 00:24:41,746 As Hollywood. Well noted. 471 00:24:41,746 --> 00:24:45,750 Tolkien commented decades later that she died in the postman's cottage, 472 00:24:46,051 --> 00:24:51,289 but right now he still had the image of that death in his head generations later. 473 00:24:51,990 --> 00:24:55,227 And if that was not enough, only a few years later, like the rest of 474 00:24:55,227 --> 00:24:58,697 his generation, he was to experience the cataclysm, First World War. 475 00:24:59,364 --> 00:25:03,235 Now, much focus about the First World War is on people like Rob Gibson 476 00:25:03,235 --> 00:25:06,638 and Jeffrey Smith in the TCP, which is understandable. 477 00:25:07,839 --> 00:25:11,176 But we have to remember, Tolkien was also an officer and officer to his men, 478 00:25:11,943 --> 00:25:14,613 the pain of which is so wonderfully captured by the poet. 479 00:25:14,613 --> 00:25:18,650 A macintosh in his poem In Memoriam, which I will skip over. 480 00:25:18,650 --> 00:25:19,851 But please do go and read it. 481 00:25:19,851 --> 00:25:22,954 It's a it's a it's a description of what it is like 482 00:25:22,954 --> 00:25:25,957 as an officer in the First World War to lose 483 00:25:26,091 --> 00:25:30,128 private your men and to cradle them while they're dying is incredibly moving. 484 00:25:30,128 --> 00:25:30,428 Poem. 485 00:25:31,396 --> 00:25:34,199 In an interview with Tolkien by Martin Gilbert, the famous 486 00:25:34,199 --> 00:25:37,903 historian Gilbert wrote Toscanini's signals were always vulnerable. 487 00:25:38,036 --> 00:25:39,004 One of them, Private 488 00:25:39,004 --> 00:25:42,507 Sydney Sumner, had disappeared during intense shellfire on July the 9th. 489 00:25:43,041 --> 00:25:46,011 For two months no trace of him could be found. 490 00:25:46,011 --> 00:25:48,980 Dear sir, his wife wrote to Tolkien in hope and despair. 491 00:25:48,980 --> 00:25:51,683 I would not care if only I knew how he went. 492 00:25:51,683 --> 00:25:55,587 And she added, I know they cannot all be saved to come home. 493 00:25:56,288 --> 00:25:59,291 Sumner had left a one year old daughter at home, by the way, 494 00:25:59,491 --> 00:26:02,928 you can imagine how the impact of that in many other letters 495 00:26:02,928 --> 00:26:04,996 would have had on a young man like Tolkien. 496 00:26:04,996 --> 00:26:06,698 Friends from college and school were killed. 497 00:26:06,698 --> 00:26:09,701 But we should also note that when he was on the Somme, 498 00:26:09,768 --> 00:26:12,470 he was surrounded by horrific conditions. 499 00:26:12,470 --> 00:26:14,105 You just didn't. 500 00:26:14,105 --> 00:26:17,108 He only had to not only had to live with the threat of death, 501 00:26:17,342 --> 00:26:19,244 but also July, August. 502 00:26:19,244 --> 00:26:22,247 There is a lot of unburied dead out there 503 00:26:22,314 --> 00:26:25,250 and he is seeing that day in, day out. 504 00:26:25,250 --> 00:26:27,185 And it wasn't just combatants who die in the war. 505 00:26:27,185 --> 00:26:30,455 Father Basil Maturin, who told him that in 1914 506 00:26:30,455 --> 00:26:36,161 and they shared a great love of ghost stories, dies on the Lusitania in 1915. 507 00:26:36,528 --> 00:26:38,697 And if you want on the podcast, it will come out. 508 00:26:38,697 --> 00:26:41,833 I've given it talk on Tolkien's war poetry a few weeks back, 509 00:26:42,834 --> 00:26:45,270 but everyone stops at 1918. 510 00:26:45,270 --> 00:26:46,972 It doesn't end there. 511 00:26:46,972 --> 00:26:50,208 As the guns fell silent, the butcher's bill really starts to come up. 512 00:26:50,208 --> 00:26:54,412 But even worse is what we get is the Spanish flu epidemic. 513 00:26:54,713 --> 00:26:59,618 40 to 50 million people killed worldwide, 200,000 in England, Wales alone, 514 00:27:00,085 --> 00:27:04,422 and most importantly, 45% of the casualties of the Spanish flu 515 00:27:04,789 --> 00:27:08,760 were from people aged 15 to 35, the very generation 516 00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:11,896 that had just been decimated in the First World War. 517 00:27:12,697 --> 00:27:16,201 In October 1918, in Liverpool alone, the death rate 518 00:27:16,434 --> 00:27:19,904 had risen to 41.9 in every 2000, 519 00:27:20,372 --> 00:27:24,075 and it doubled by the next week, over 80 in every thousand. 520 00:27:24,342 --> 00:27:28,079 And to put that in context, because that's how we can measure these things. 521 00:27:28,513 --> 00:27:31,916 The height of Covid in England, it was 1.85 per thousand. 522 00:27:32,951 --> 00:27:34,786 The times in 1921, Labor 523 00:27:34,786 --> 00:27:37,789 Day, all the great death. 524 00:27:38,590 --> 00:27:41,793 So in the space of a few years, token and millions of Britons had to come to 525 00:27:41,793 --> 00:27:46,097 terms with losing friends and loved ones and often in the prime of their life. 526 00:27:46,464 --> 00:27:50,168 And it was this sense of shock and mourning which just dominated everything. 527 00:27:50,168 --> 00:27:53,304 Lucy Noakes put in the reading observed 528 00:27:53,638 --> 00:27:57,509 the physical and cultural spaces of towns, cities and villages were shaped 529 00:27:57,509 --> 00:28:01,012 by the erection of war memorials, and the national and imperial calendar 530 00:28:01,413 --> 00:28:04,382 encompassed Armistice Day as a means of honoring the dead. 531 00:28:05,216 --> 00:28:09,187 And token cannot of missed the fact that there are numerous war memorials. 532 00:28:09,187 --> 00:28:12,590 I think there's over 150 in England alone, where the depiction 533 00:28:12,590 --> 00:28:15,593 is not just of the standard soldier, it's of the Pieta, 534 00:28:15,927 --> 00:28:20,265 that station of the cross of Mary cradling the dead Christ. 535 00:28:20,498 --> 00:28:23,568 But then underneath are all the men who were killed in the town 536 00:28:23,568 --> 00:28:26,571 and villages, and it wasn't just in towns and villages. 537 00:28:26,671 --> 00:28:29,741 Memorialization of the first war is brought into the home. 538 00:28:30,775 --> 00:28:33,912 Everyone had a photograph of a lost son or relative. 539 00:28:34,079 --> 00:28:37,082 They would often put these in frames, enshrine them. 540 00:28:37,115 --> 00:28:40,185 They would be a memorialization, a sort of, 541 00:28:42,787 --> 00:28:46,291 a memorialization sort of event where perhaps at their birthday 542 00:28:46,291 --> 00:28:47,092 or the day of their death, 543 00:28:47,092 --> 00:28:50,095 they would bring these down and the family would talk about it. 544 00:28:50,328 --> 00:28:53,732 Pilgrimages to back site became incredibly popular. 545 00:28:54,733 --> 00:28:57,736 And this cannot of escape token. 546 00:28:58,203 --> 00:29:00,271 50% of the Leeds 547 00:29:00,271 --> 00:29:04,676 Leeds pals who went over the top and the first day the battle of the 548 00:29:04,676 --> 00:29:08,713 Somme were dead or are a casualty within a space of a few minutes. 549 00:29:08,913 --> 00:29:11,082 And of course he works in Leeds. 550 00:29:11,082 --> 00:29:13,251 He's surrounded by those families. 551 00:29:13,251 --> 00:29:16,254 Even worse, for many families there was no grave. 552 00:29:16,254 --> 00:29:18,690 And, to quote Noakes, the absence of a body to be cared 553 00:29:18,690 --> 00:29:19,891 for instead, the accompanying 554 00:29:19,891 --> 00:29:23,428 lack of funeral rites could be disruptive of the very process of grieving. 555 00:29:23,762 --> 00:29:26,297 There was always the hope they may have escaped death. 556 00:29:27,265 --> 00:29:29,100 Now, Tolkien noted that in the teens 557 00:29:29,100 --> 00:29:33,071 and 20s his and his faith suffers a bit. 558 00:29:33,571 --> 00:29:36,574 But he wasn't alone there and into that vacuum. 559 00:29:36,574 --> 00:29:37,842 Spiritualism 560 00:29:37,842 --> 00:29:41,312 the very thing the Bible condemns the ability to commune with the dead. 561 00:29:41,646 --> 00:29:44,616 It come into the vogue in the 19th century. 562 00:29:44,616 --> 00:29:47,619 But it really takes off during the war and after the war, there was no 563 00:29:47,619 --> 00:29:52,023 spiritualist church in Oxford to the 50s, but there were plenty in Leeds, 564 00:29:52,791 --> 00:29:55,560 and this was led by luminaries like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 565 00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:57,662 You may know in the things like spirit 566 00:29:57,662 --> 00:30:01,466 photographs, photos and spirit writing and sciences abounded. 567 00:30:01,466 --> 00:30:04,869 There was even a book dictated by a dead soldier from beyond the grave 568 00:30:05,303 --> 00:30:07,939 to his father and spiritualism said notes 569 00:30:07,939 --> 00:30:11,009 provided a framework for the ongoing presence of the dead. 570 00:30:11,342 --> 00:30:13,378 Death was not the end, it suggested. 571 00:30:14,646 --> 00:30:16,848 And then there was the fear of the next war. 572 00:30:16,848 --> 00:30:20,552 The 1930s has been described as the age of anxiety. 573 00:30:20,852 --> 00:30:23,121 In 31, Japan invades Manchuria. 574 00:30:23,121 --> 00:30:25,256 People start going, told what? 575 00:30:25,256 --> 00:30:27,192 What was happening there, the atrocities. 576 00:30:27,192 --> 00:30:30,094 32 Baldwin says the bomber will get through. 577 00:30:30,094 --> 00:30:33,097 36 we get the films like Things to Come, which shows 578 00:30:33,097 --> 00:30:36,134 the effect of mass bombings on cities. 579 00:30:36,968 --> 00:30:39,671 And then we get the German Condor 580 00:30:39,671 --> 00:30:42,740 bombing of Guernica and 37, and it's easy 581 00:30:42,740 --> 00:30:45,810 to look back on the Second World War and go, oh, we know exactly what happened. 582 00:30:46,110 --> 00:30:49,247 London wasn't bombed and flattened completely. 583 00:30:49,447 --> 00:30:53,184 They didn't drop poison gas on us at the time or anything like that. 584 00:30:53,985 --> 00:30:56,955 But the people living through it didn't know that. 585 00:30:56,955 --> 00:30:59,858 So in a letter 1941 to Michael Token wrote, 586 00:30:59,858 --> 00:31:02,360 I fancy things will blow up early this year than last, 587 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,396 and that we will have a pretty hectic time in every corner of the island. 588 00:31:05,864 --> 00:31:09,300 Plain reasoning seems to show that Hitler must attack this country direct 589 00:31:09,567 --> 00:31:11,236 and very heavily soon. 590 00:31:11,236 --> 00:31:14,205 And in other letters he really wonders if he, Edith 591 00:31:14,205 --> 00:31:17,408 and Priscilla, not to mention his sons, will survive the war. 592 00:31:17,675 --> 00:31:19,944 So when you put all that together, 593 00:31:19,944 --> 00:31:22,347 it's really hard to imagine that the Lord of rings could be about 594 00:31:22,347 --> 00:31:24,515 anything else, isn't it? Apart from death. 595 00:31:26,084 --> 00:31:28,586 So let's quickly now turn to the Lord of the rings. 596 00:31:28,586 --> 00:31:30,321 What exactly does it say about death? 597 00:31:30,321 --> 00:31:32,056 And how do we go about answering this? 598 00:31:32,056 --> 00:31:35,226 And the first step, which I can't show you now, is a quantitative analysis 599 00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,897 where you take, for example, terms associated with death 600 00:31:39,230 --> 00:31:42,233 and see how are they distributed throughout the book. 601 00:31:42,767 --> 00:31:45,770 Now, death comes in many guises, of course, in the Lord of the rings, 602 00:31:46,070 --> 00:31:48,072 even if it's not specifically mentioned. 603 00:31:48,072 --> 00:31:52,110 We have the deathly tone in Moria, the slaughter of the orcs by the row here 604 00:31:52,110 --> 00:31:53,945 in the funeral pyre of Faramir, 605 00:31:53,945 --> 00:31:57,582 the underpinning of the whole book is a sense of loss and transience. 606 00:31:57,849 --> 00:32:00,985 There's the commemoration of death death practices, notably 607 00:32:00,985 --> 00:32:05,290 in Rohan, where the dead are celebrated and remembered, but in Gondor, 608 00:32:05,290 --> 00:32:08,293 where they have these great moments and are largely forgotten. 609 00:32:08,660 --> 00:32:12,330 But if we were to keep it simple and look for the terms death, dead, 610 00:32:13,064 --> 00:32:17,101 including undead, dying, mortal, immortal throughout the books, 611 00:32:18,036 --> 00:32:21,239 I've done a distribution, so I'm going to have to verbally describe this, but, 612 00:32:22,907 --> 00:32:24,809 basically what it shows is 613 00:32:24,809 --> 00:32:29,580 there are some clear peaks of those terms, particularly in book four, as Frodo, 614 00:32:29,580 --> 00:32:34,319 Sam and Gollum make their way into Mordor and the book becomes steadily darker. 615 00:32:34,319 --> 00:32:37,322 But also book five as The War of the ring really hots up. 616 00:32:37,789 --> 00:32:41,225 And there's also a centering of terms around those around the key 617 00:32:41,225 --> 00:32:44,228 things that Amy and Rand 618 00:32:44,495 --> 00:32:48,333 referred to as the three haunted places, the Barrow Downs and the whites, 619 00:32:48,967 --> 00:32:53,171 the Dead Marshes in the path of the dead, which are all form of Cat Abbass. 620 00:32:53,905 --> 00:32:56,674 She notes these scenes play on a number of primal fears, 621 00:32:56,674 --> 00:32:59,744 including the fear of being buried alive, the fear of trespassing 622 00:32:59,744 --> 00:33:02,747 on the places, the dead, and most of all, the lingering apprehension 623 00:33:03,081 --> 00:33:06,317 that some part of our consciousness will remain in the tomb. 624 00:33:07,819 --> 00:33:08,486 Of course, the book 625 00:33:08,486 --> 00:33:11,489 opens or nearly opens with a very critical piece. 626 00:33:11,789 --> 00:33:14,359 When Frodo says, it's a pity 627 00:33:14,359 --> 00:33:16,594 Bilbo did not kill Gollum when he had the chance. 628 00:33:16,594 --> 00:33:19,597 And Gandalf replies, many that live deserve death, 629 00:33:19,664 --> 00:33:21,165 and some die who deserve life. 630 00:33:21,165 --> 00:33:22,834 Can you give it to them then? 631 00:33:22,834 --> 00:33:25,803 Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. 632 00:33:25,803 --> 00:33:29,340 And these words are repeated later when Frodo recalls a conversation 633 00:33:29,340 --> 00:33:31,876 at a critical point. The narrative. 634 00:33:31,876 --> 00:33:36,214 So importantly, this cements early on the death is neutral, unfair, 635 00:33:36,214 --> 00:33:40,284 uncontrollable, and that there are also, perhaps good and bad deaths. 636 00:33:41,552 --> 00:33:43,955 Good deaths might be, as we think about the book fired 637 00:33:43,955 --> 00:33:48,693 and Gandalf in Moria, Boromir and Aragorn again. 638 00:33:48,693 --> 00:33:49,961 Spoiler. 639 00:33:49,961 --> 00:33:53,865 And bad deaths, Gollum, then author Saruman, worm tongue, etc. 640 00:33:55,566 --> 00:33:56,234 but returning to 641 00:33:56,234 --> 00:33:59,237 Tolkien's comment, the death was the key spring of the book. 642 00:34:00,371 --> 00:34:03,541 This brief analysis or this description that does show that they're 643 00:34:03,841 --> 00:34:09,280 almost continually mentions of or repeated mentions of words around the, semantic 644 00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:12,750 field of death throughout the book, culminating or peaking in five. 645 00:34:13,785 --> 00:34:16,320 Perhaps more interesting is to go back to that quote from, 646 00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:19,891 fairy stories about the Great Escape and the attempt to evade death. 647 00:34:20,625 --> 00:34:25,663 So in the Lord of the rings, I'd suggest this happens in three ways. 648 00:34:26,297 --> 00:34:29,867 First of all, there's those you catastrophic episodes where characters 649 00:34:29,867 --> 00:34:32,103 are snatched from the jaws of death, 650 00:34:32,103 --> 00:34:35,073 like Frodo and Sam at the end with He Who's Coming. 651 00:34:35,706 --> 00:34:38,643 Then there's the escape to Valinor at the end of the book, 652 00:34:38,643 --> 00:34:40,311 where life and death merge. 653 00:34:40,311 --> 00:34:43,314 Now, this is a bit of a gray area, if you'll excuse the pun, 654 00:34:43,314 --> 00:34:46,517 as like so many things, Tolkien was hard pressed to pin this down. 655 00:34:47,151 --> 00:34:49,687 Was it a place where immortality was granted to 656 00:34:49,687 --> 00:34:52,557 mortals as the Numenoreans think? 657 00:34:52,557 --> 00:34:57,962 Incorrectly, or as Tolkien asked himself, was it an allegory of death, 658 00:34:57,962 --> 00:35:01,632 or a mode of healing and restoration leading to a return? 659 00:35:02,533 --> 00:35:05,369 And then thirdly, there's the ability to escape death. 660 00:35:07,839 --> 00:35:10,842 Through sorry, through immortality. 661 00:35:11,442 --> 00:35:14,912 In his famous letter to Milton Warden Waldman of 1951, 662 00:35:14,912 --> 00:35:18,483 Tolkien stated there were three great themes running throughout is mythology 663 00:35:19,050 --> 00:35:22,086 the fall, Mortal ity, and finally the machine. 664 00:35:22,653 --> 00:35:25,656 And by the fall he means this repeated, 665 00:35:25,723 --> 00:35:28,459 kind of episodes where individuals, or indeed 666 00:35:28,459 --> 00:35:32,163 entire races lead to their own disaster because they make bad decisions. 667 00:35:32,463 --> 00:35:36,000 Morgoth, Melkor Féin or the Numenoreans Balram er. 668 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,003 And of course the fall of the Lord of the rings himself. 669 00:35:40,304 --> 00:35:41,139 Mortality. 670 00:35:41,139 --> 00:35:44,208 Well, that's central, of course, to this discussion, as 671 00:35:44,208 --> 00:35:47,211 is the machine as we as we will see. 672 00:35:47,211 --> 00:35:50,515 It's curious to note that when you look at the word distribution of mortal, 673 00:35:50,748 --> 00:35:54,919 immortal mortality and mortality, he hardly uses them at all. 674 00:35:54,919 --> 00:35:55,720 In Lord of the rings, 675 00:35:55,720 --> 00:36:00,124 only a handful of titans and a dozen, I think, if that across all of the books. 676 00:36:00,992 --> 00:36:03,694 So this is where you need to go a bit deeper than just counting words 677 00:36:03,694 --> 00:36:04,862 and seeing where they appear. 678 00:36:06,197 --> 00:36:07,298 And to understand this, 679 00:36:07,298 --> 00:36:10,501 just need to give a bit of background on Tolkien's mythology, 680 00:36:11,202 --> 00:36:14,939 spiritual and natural, which apologies to all of those who know who this. 681 00:36:15,907 --> 00:36:19,510 So in terms of natural in his mythology, the various races, 682 00:36:19,810 --> 00:36:22,947 as you probably know, are said to have different lifespans 683 00:36:23,281 --> 00:36:27,351 on the whole longer than us, but also to a varying degree, finite. 684 00:36:28,019 --> 00:36:31,389 He discusses this in several places, but most notably, if you get a copy 685 00:36:31,389 --> 00:36:34,392 of The Nature of Middle Earth, which came out that it was last year, 686 00:36:34,525 --> 00:36:37,528 and he has essay An Essay on Death in their 687 00:36:38,129 --> 00:36:39,163 but for the purpose of talk. 688 00:36:39,163 --> 00:36:42,166 I can't go through them all, but let's just think of the key ones men, 689 00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,469 humans and elves, which Tolkien described 690 00:36:45,469 --> 00:36:48,673 in 1956, is two experiments in mortality. 691 00:36:49,006 --> 00:36:50,908 And to put it simply, men are mortal. 692 00:36:50,908 --> 00:36:56,013 They grow old and die unless their life is prolonged by some supernatural means. 693 00:36:56,414 --> 00:36:57,915 The machine. 694 00:36:57,915 --> 00:37:00,484 But elves are what is often called immortal. 695 00:37:00,484 --> 00:37:03,487 Elves grow to adulthood but then do not get older 696 00:37:03,721 --> 00:37:07,658 and they will live on, but only until the end of the earth. 697 00:37:08,326 --> 00:37:12,663 So strictly speaking, they are immortal to a degree, but they're not eternal. 698 00:37:13,631 --> 00:37:15,333 And on the spiritual level, Tolkien. 699 00:37:15,333 --> 00:37:17,134 He gets quite deep into these details. 700 00:37:17,134 --> 00:37:18,636 In these races, there's a separation 701 00:37:18,636 --> 00:37:22,306 between what he called the fair soul and the lower body. 702 00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:25,743 For elves, the froa the body resists decay 703 00:37:25,743 --> 00:37:28,946 and cereal longevity, but for men, that is not the case. 704 00:37:28,946 --> 00:37:32,250 They grow old and the body dies even with the numenoreans 705 00:37:32,250 --> 00:37:35,253 where they have grown a much longer lifespan, they still die. 706 00:37:36,187 --> 00:37:40,091 So in chapter 17 of The Nature of Middle-Earth, this essay on death, 707 00:37:40,925 --> 00:37:44,161 there's a section, Death of Incarnate Bodies, and he notes 708 00:37:44,161 --> 00:37:47,231 that with elves, the failure departs when the body is injured. 709 00:37:47,231 --> 00:37:48,866 Beyond recovery. 710 00:37:48,866 --> 00:37:50,701 But then it kind of lurks around. 711 00:37:50,701 --> 00:37:52,803 This sort of thing floats about. 712 00:37:52,803 --> 00:37:57,708 Now. Eru saw this and allowed a failure to then be re-allocated to another rower. 713 00:37:57,708 --> 00:37:59,610 In other words, reincarnation. 714 00:38:00,945 --> 00:38:03,948 And he discusses the more sinister scenario, which I quite liked. 715 00:38:03,948 --> 00:38:04,915 And I would like to read a bit 716 00:38:04,915 --> 00:38:08,686 more about whereby Morgoth and Sauron could drive the fire out 717 00:38:08,686 --> 00:38:12,056 with the thrower out the body, and keep the body as a beast. 718 00:38:12,623 --> 00:38:16,460 Or they could trap the spirit in the body and nourish it fully 719 00:38:16,460 --> 00:38:20,665 so that it became a beast due to the horror and torment of the soul. 720 00:38:21,399 --> 00:38:24,201 But on the whole, this seems to be what you might call a top trump 721 00:38:24,201 --> 00:38:25,636 for being an elf, doesn't it? 722 00:38:25,636 --> 00:38:28,005 You might say, as well as serial longevity, 723 00:38:28,005 --> 00:38:31,042 even if someone kills you, you get to be reincarnated. 724 00:38:31,042 --> 00:38:34,045 So what's not to like with that? 725 00:38:35,212 --> 00:38:36,213 If an elf partners 726 00:38:36,213 --> 00:38:40,584 with the human, they can of course forgo this long life and embrace mortality. 727 00:38:40,584 --> 00:38:44,555 And there are three areas where this happens in Tolkien's mythology 728 00:38:44,555 --> 00:38:50,161 Luthien and Beren, Arwen and Aragorn, and Errol and Tulle and Lord of the rings. 729 00:38:50,161 --> 00:38:53,464 It's the Beren Luthien tale, which is which is recounted, 730 00:38:53,464 --> 00:38:56,467 summarized by Aragorn when he says she, Luthien 731 00:38:56,701 --> 00:39:00,438 chose mortality and to die from the world so that she might follow him. 732 00:39:01,038 --> 00:39:05,042 And this, of course, foreshadows Aragorn's relationship with Arwen. 733 00:39:05,776 --> 00:39:08,779 Arwen herself says mine is the choice of Luthien, 734 00:39:08,846 --> 00:39:12,283 and as she so have I, chosen both the sweet and the bitter. 735 00:39:13,351 --> 00:39:15,319 Now, this whole concept of 736 00:39:15,319 --> 00:39:18,255 fairies, elves, whatever you want to call them, immortal 737 00:39:18,255 --> 00:39:22,293 beings giving up that and claiming mortality 738 00:39:22,293 --> 00:39:26,530 is not new to Tolkien, but he explores it probably more than anything. 739 00:39:26,530 --> 00:39:30,501 But if you go to the scythe, Thompson's motive index of folk literature, 740 00:39:31,369 --> 00:39:33,504 and you see an entire section 741 00:39:33,504 --> 00:39:38,042 just devoted to immortality and mortality, and there's even one specific one 742 00:39:38,042 --> 00:39:40,411 which you would then go and follow the tales and read them. 743 00:39:40,411 --> 00:39:44,215 Fairy gives up her fairy nature her, and becomes 744 00:39:44,215 --> 00:39:47,218 mortal to be able to return to her mortal husband. 745 00:39:49,086 --> 00:39:50,788 But to paraphrase Cole Porter's 746 00:39:50,788 --> 00:39:53,791 song from High Society, who wouldn't want to be an elf? 747 00:39:53,824 --> 00:39:56,594 Well, I do, because 748 00:39:56,594 --> 00:40:00,264 he explores this probably the most fully in Arthur Beth Road. 749 00:40:00,598 --> 00:40:04,769 Underneath this is a key text which takes the form of a discourse 750 00:40:04,769 --> 00:40:07,772 between Finn Robb the Elf and Andrea the Wise woman 751 00:40:08,372 --> 00:40:10,908 in this human of in King. 752 00:40:10,908 --> 00:40:13,511 In this, King Finn Road argues that serious longevity for 753 00:40:13,511 --> 00:40:16,514 the elves is a curse because they know they're ultimately doomed. 754 00:40:16,914 --> 00:40:18,649 When are the ends? 755 00:40:18,649 --> 00:40:22,920 But men may meet doom earlier, but have the promise of eternal life with every. 756 00:40:23,888 --> 00:40:28,659 The tale also brings in an idea that perhaps humans were originally immortal. 757 00:40:29,460 --> 00:40:32,196 But through some machination by Morgoth, 758 00:40:32,196 --> 00:40:35,633 they fell like Adam and Eve's Adam and Eve. 759 00:40:35,633 --> 00:40:36,734 Sorry. 760 00:40:36,734 --> 00:40:39,804 And Ruth states, we knew that we had been born never to die. 761 00:40:39,804 --> 00:40:40,905 And by that, my lord, we, 762 00:40:40,905 --> 00:40:45,009 when we meant born to life everlasting, without any shadow in any notes. 763 00:40:45,342 --> 00:40:48,345 Is she talking about a fall or about everlasting life? 764 00:40:48,679 --> 00:40:49,747 But Finn Rod hones in 765 00:40:49,747 --> 00:40:53,551 and disputes this, and Tolkien again blows hot and cold about this. 766 00:40:54,518 --> 00:40:55,152 But I think he 767 00:40:55,152 --> 00:40:58,255 settles on the fact that that men did not actually fall. 768 00:40:58,255 --> 00:41:00,224 They were always mortal. 769 00:41:00,224 --> 00:41:03,694 But even so, in, the key message of the text again 770 00:41:04,195 --> 00:41:07,198 is that men are to be envied over elves. 771 00:41:08,432 --> 00:41:12,803 The gift of L'Ouverture, Tolkien wrote, which is time where as even the powers 772 00:41:13,037 --> 00:41:17,308 shall envy, so even men or humans might be in a better position than the gods. 773 00:41:18,809 --> 00:41:20,711 Now, of course, this all finds 774 00:41:20,711 --> 00:41:23,714 sounds fine and dandy. 775 00:41:23,881 --> 00:41:27,084 But as Endrick argues, living this reality is something else. 776 00:41:27,952 --> 00:41:31,088 Then humans could not but be envious of elves 777 00:41:31,088 --> 00:41:34,825 immortality as they saw it, whilst they were doomed to die. 778 00:41:35,459 --> 00:41:38,262 As de Beauvoir's mother showed, 779 00:41:38,262 --> 00:41:42,032 it is built in to all humans to try to cling to death. 780 00:41:42,032 --> 00:41:43,901 Even if we believe in an afterlife, 781 00:41:44,935 --> 00:41:46,170 and all can observe that it's 782 00:41:46,170 --> 00:41:50,374 the uncertainty around the latter that could lead or lead to the issue. 783 00:41:50,674 --> 00:41:53,944 To quote men knowing little about what comes after death. 784 00:41:54,211 --> 00:41:57,648 So many different things, some of which are fantasies of their own devising 785 00:41:57,915 --> 00:41:59,717 and are darkened by the shadow. 786 00:41:59,717 --> 00:42:02,353 So while most whilst mortality for many middle 787 00:42:02,353 --> 00:42:05,356 earth is referred to as the gift of l'ouverture, 788 00:42:05,356 --> 00:42:08,893 you can imagine while a lot of them just didn't always see it that way, 789 00:42:09,126 --> 00:42:12,663 especially when they were surrounded by those damned deathless elves. 790 00:42:13,797 --> 00:42:16,433 And Tolkien chose to explore this, of course, with the great tale 791 00:42:16,433 --> 00:42:20,538 of the Numenoreans in his mythology, they're rewarded with longer lifespans 792 00:42:20,538 --> 00:42:24,675 than other men, a topic he explores really well, I think in the married his wife. 793 00:42:25,743 --> 00:42:28,345 But Numenoreans still die, and, as we know, 794 00:42:28,345 --> 00:42:30,481 jealous of the elves immortality indeed. 795 00:42:30,481 --> 00:42:33,450 Almost haunted by the fact that from their island they could see 796 00:42:34,118 --> 00:42:35,686 the Undying Lands. 797 00:42:35,686 --> 00:42:37,388 They first take on Satanist. 798 00:42:37,388 --> 00:42:41,025 And he uses that word practices worshiping Melkor. 799 00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:46,230 And they particularly uses the term necromancy, which is, of course, 800 00:42:46,230 --> 00:42:49,233 interesting because it's the term that is then 801 00:42:49,500 --> 00:42:52,503 applied to Sauron in The Hobbit. 802 00:42:53,137 --> 00:42:55,239 They try all that, but they don't get very far. 803 00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:58,375 So they go for the nuclear option, as you know, in creating a mordor 804 00:42:58,375 --> 00:43:01,412 and sail West and contravene the ban of the Valar. 805 00:43:02,112 --> 00:43:05,583 Detecting their plans, man wakens Elvish ambassadors to plead with them 806 00:43:05,583 --> 00:43:08,586 not to break the ban. 807 00:43:08,786 --> 00:43:10,321 The elder, you say, are, punish. 808 00:43:10,321 --> 00:43:11,922 This is this is the elves speaking to them. 809 00:43:11,922 --> 00:43:15,059 And even those who rebelled do not die, yet that is to them 810 00:43:15,059 --> 00:43:18,062 neither reward nor punishment, but the fulfillment of their being. 811 00:43:18,195 --> 00:43:20,164 They cannot escape and are bound to this world, 812 00:43:20,164 --> 00:43:23,701 never to leave it so long as it lasts, for its life is theirs. 813 00:43:24,468 --> 00:43:26,370 And you are punished for the rebellion of men. 814 00:43:26,370 --> 00:43:29,206 You say, which you had small power, and so it is that you die. 815 00:43:29,206 --> 00:43:32,209 But that was not at first appointed for a punishment. 816 00:43:32,576 --> 00:43:36,580 You escape and leave the world, and are not bound to it in hope or weariness. 817 00:43:37,181 --> 00:43:39,149 Which of us therefore should empty the others? 818 00:43:40,918 --> 00:43:42,219 Well, the Numenoreans have no 819 00:43:42,219 --> 00:43:45,322 truck with this elvish nonsense, and off they sail. 820 00:43:46,023 --> 00:43:47,558 And credit where credit is due. 821 00:43:47,558 --> 00:43:50,527 Sauron has played them like a piano. 822 00:43:50,527 --> 00:43:53,430 So they head off to the island, dying lands to seek all mortality. 823 00:43:53,430 --> 00:43:56,700 And what's even more tragic, of course, is that they wouldn't get it. 824 00:43:56,700 --> 00:44:00,938 Even when they land young, dying lands don't bestow immortality. 825 00:44:00,938 --> 00:44:03,974 It's just the name of the place where undying people live. 826 00:44:05,075 --> 00:44:07,478 But even Arwen herself seem to have sympathy with 827 00:44:07,478 --> 00:44:09,513 what might have been driven, and even more insidious 828 00:44:09,513 --> 00:44:11,749 when facing up to Aragorn's impending death. 829 00:44:11,749 --> 00:44:14,752 She says, but I say to you, King of the Numenoreans. 830 00:44:15,285 --> 00:44:16,220 Not till now have 831 00:44:16,220 --> 00:44:20,391 I understood the tale of your people when they fall as wicked fools. 832 00:44:20,391 --> 00:44:23,027 I scorn them, but I pity them at last. 833 00:44:23,027 --> 00:44:26,664 For if this is indeed is the elder, say, the gift of the one to men, 834 00:44:27,164 --> 00:44:28,832 it is better to resolve 835 00:44:30,167 --> 00:44:33,170 so the title of the Numenoreans forms that background 836 00:44:33,237 --> 00:44:36,240 to the Lord of the rings. 837 00:44:37,374 --> 00:44:39,009 I say Tolkien talked of three things. 838 00:44:39,009 --> 00:44:41,178 I'm just going to very briefly talk about the machine, 839 00:44:41,178 --> 00:44:44,181 and I hopefully I can play you something as well. 840 00:44:45,349 --> 00:44:48,252 So you will see on your handout, if you go back to that, the quote, 841 00:44:48,252 --> 00:44:51,288 if you really come down to any large story that interests people, 842 00:44:52,456 --> 00:44:56,994 it's tension for the considerable time I make them started, practically always. 843 00:44:57,327 --> 00:44:58,595 They are human stories. 844 00:44:58,595 --> 00:45:00,397 They're always about one thing. 845 00:45:00,397 --> 00:45:02,866 And then he talks about death. 846 00:45:02,866 --> 00:45:05,869 So I'm just getting to the right slide on this. 847 00:45:06,236 --> 00:45:10,074 Now, what happened in the shooting was they then sent some off 848 00:45:10,074 --> 00:45:14,111 cuts off to a typist who typed up some notes, transcribed them, 849 00:45:14,378 --> 00:45:16,947 and then all that footage was chopped in the bin. 850 00:45:16,947 --> 00:45:20,117 So the quote that is sitting on item 851 00:45:20,117 --> 00:45:24,722 six is what then immediately follows what he said there about, 852 00:45:27,124 --> 00:45:30,127 death, the inevitability of death. 853 00:45:31,528 --> 00:45:32,896 Now, what made the ring work? 854 00:45:32,896 --> 00:45:36,900 Its corrupting power very largely by its attempt to escape that by a back door, 855 00:45:36,900 --> 00:45:39,603 and really the whole constant interweaving opposition of men and elves. 856 00:45:39,603 --> 00:45:43,674 You see, is really a very long story, a very long story based most particularly 857 00:45:43,674 --> 00:45:47,444 on the differences in eternal life and unlimited serial death. 858 00:45:48,278 --> 00:45:51,482 And you then get the I don't know if you'd agree with that, 859 00:45:51,782 --> 00:45:55,219 but so the editing really has play tricks with us. 860 00:45:56,220 --> 00:45:59,256 So if we now listen to what he says at the end, 861 00:45:59,256 --> 00:46:02,259 I hope we can hear this again. 862 00:46:02,426 --> 00:46:04,094 Let's just see what he actually does 863 00:46:04,094 --> 00:46:07,097 say. Oh. 864 00:46:07,131 --> 00:46:10,134 We may agree with the words or not, 865 00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:12,236 but those are the, 866 00:46:12,236 --> 00:46:13,871 the keys spring of the of the rings. 867 00:46:16,673 --> 00:46:19,676 Now, just do we agree with the leads or not? 868 00:46:20,644 --> 00:46:22,646 But those are the, 869 00:46:22,646 --> 00:46:25,582 the keys bring in the Lord of the rings. 870 00:46:25,582 --> 00:46:27,651 Everyone thinks he says those are the keys. 871 00:46:27,651 --> 00:46:29,987 Spring of the Lord of the rings. 872 00:46:29,987 --> 00:46:31,021 I don't think he does. 873 00:46:31,021 --> 00:46:34,391 I think he says those are the key spring of the laws of the ring. 874 00:46:35,492 --> 00:46:38,395 When you put that quote now before it, it makes sense. 875 00:46:38,395 --> 00:46:39,663 Go away and listen to yourself. 876 00:46:39,663 --> 00:46:41,799 You can make your mind up. 877 00:46:41,799 --> 00:46:43,100 But I think that's what it's about. 878 00:46:43,100 --> 00:46:47,604 So the rings not only offer power in the one ring of his ultimate power 879 00:46:47,604 --> 00:46:48,572 and dominion, 880 00:46:48,572 --> 00:46:52,209 their example of the machine, what he's talking about there that escapes death. 881 00:46:52,209 --> 00:46:53,677 And I think that actually strengthens 882 00:46:53,677 --> 00:46:56,013 the book by not just saying the books used about death. 883 00:46:56,013 --> 00:46:59,316 If we just talk about the machine, the ring being about death, 884 00:46:59,316 --> 00:47:02,586 and it opens up the book to so many more interpretations. 885 00:47:03,220 --> 00:47:07,624 So the ring, of course, offers immortality through technology. 886 00:47:09,026 --> 00:47:10,327 And that letter to Lord. 887 00:47:10,327 --> 00:47:13,831 And he says the chief power of all the rings was the prevention 888 00:47:13,831 --> 00:47:16,834 or slowing of decay, the preservation of what is desired or love. 889 00:47:17,768 --> 00:47:20,871 Now, I don't have time to say this, but obviously the classic example of these 890 00:47:21,238 --> 00:47:25,409 are the Nazgul, the Nazgul having immortality to a degree, 891 00:47:25,576 --> 00:47:28,612 as long as that one ring exists and Sauron exists, 892 00:47:28,979 --> 00:47:32,449 but it's an awful immortality, it's bad immortality. 893 00:47:32,449 --> 00:47:36,453 And though we don't have much backstory to them, what happens to them? 894 00:47:36,453 --> 00:47:39,556 We have a couple of bits about the witch King and Kamal. 895 00:47:40,824 --> 00:47:43,260 It does feel to me they I can imagine 896 00:47:43,260 --> 00:47:47,264 at some point in their existence, Bram Stoker's 897 00:47:47,264 --> 00:47:50,634 Dracula quote, off to die, to be really dead, that must be glorious. 898 00:47:51,001 --> 00:47:54,338 Would have haunted them because of course, they just can't escape it. 899 00:47:55,539 --> 00:47:57,908 Cheating death as we're talking about it. 900 00:47:57,908 --> 00:47:59,042 The other great classic 901 00:47:59,042 --> 00:48:02,813 Cheat of Death, as he was accused of at the time by the critics, 902 00:48:03,780 --> 00:48:06,483 was Gandalf's escape from death 903 00:48:06,483 --> 00:48:09,553 in Moria, and he struggles about this, 904 00:48:09,553 --> 00:48:12,556 and he even admitted he didn't quite get it right. 905 00:48:13,023 --> 00:48:17,160 And particularly then, why does Saruman disappear in a puff of smoke? 906 00:48:17,461 --> 00:48:21,265 But Gandalf gets to come back, I think the way he argues it and I, 907 00:48:21,665 --> 00:48:25,769 I can go with this, I suppose, is that the key thing for Gandalf is 908 00:48:26,637 --> 00:48:30,574 his choice of choosing death against the Balrog, 909 00:48:31,008 --> 00:48:34,278 because not only is he putting himself in the face of death, 910 00:48:34,444 --> 00:48:38,682 knowing that he will probably die, and it is a reference that the Istari can die. 911 00:48:39,149 --> 00:48:40,350 And but more importantly, 912 00:48:40,350 --> 00:48:44,221 he also knows that when he dies, the quest is pretty much doomed. 913 00:48:44,721 --> 00:48:47,357 It will not succeed without him. 914 00:48:47,357 --> 00:48:49,693 It's probably wrong, but we can. 915 00:48:49,693 --> 00:48:51,628 You'd have to think through the consequences. 916 00:48:52,863 --> 00:48:55,832 Tolkien says he was handing over to the authority, 917 00:48:55,999 --> 00:49:00,404 that obtained the rules and giving up personal hope of success. 918 00:49:00,837 --> 00:49:04,608 As we know, the powers decide to send him back naked, 919 00:49:05,042 --> 00:49:08,011 as he says, not quite as the Rings of Power thought. 920 00:49:09,112 --> 00:49:12,115 So where are we to conclude Tolkien statement that death. 921 00:49:12,115 --> 00:49:13,050 It's inevitability. 922 00:49:13,050 --> 00:49:16,019 It's unfairness, the natural desire to evade it 923 00:49:16,019 --> 00:49:20,190 is, I would say, probably the source driving force, character, motivation, 924 00:49:20,190 --> 00:49:23,760 major theme, whatever you want to of the Lord of the rings in his mythology. 925 00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,496 But there is so much more to the book. 926 00:49:26,496 --> 00:49:31,668 And I return back to when I was 15 and I read it and I just didn't get it. 927 00:49:31,668 --> 00:49:33,070 And I don't like that. 928 00:49:33,070 --> 00:49:36,073 So I wanted to try and work out why didn't I get it? 929 00:49:36,106 --> 00:49:39,977 Well, first of all, Tolkien said it's only in reading the work myself 930 00:49:39,977 --> 00:49:42,579 that I became aware of the dominance of the theme of death. 931 00:49:43,914 --> 00:49:44,881 So that's quite nice. 932 00:49:44,881 --> 00:49:47,951 He didn't intend to put it in, but when he reads it afterwards, he goes, oh, 933 00:49:48,251 --> 00:49:50,954 so that's what it was all about. 934 00:49:50,954 --> 00:49:55,959 Second, the 1968 interview, when he says that I have to think what has 935 00:49:55,993 --> 00:49:59,162 what is around at that point, The Hobbit and The Lord of the rings. 936 00:49:59,730 --> 00:50:03,033 It's still nine years before The Silmarillion makes an appearance. 937 00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:06,403 13 years before his letters make an appearance. 938 00:50:06,403 --> 00:50:09,873 So he's talking with all three ages of middle earth in his head. 939 00:50:10,207 --> 00:50:12,542 Understandably, he talks about it. 940 00:50:12,542 --> 00:50:15,245 But when we hear that quote, I heard that quote at some point 941 00:50:15,245 --> 00:50:18,515 in the 70s or whatever it is, it perhaps didn't make sense. 942 00:50:18,515 --> 00:50:22,886 And we know he desperately tried to get The Silmarillion published 943 00:50:23,086 --> 00:50:26,089 with the Lord of the rings, and running through his letters, he says, 944 00:50:26,123 --> 00:50:28,325 I just don't think you'll get the Lord of the rings. 945 00:50:28,325 --> 00:50:32,496 If you haven't read The Silmarillion, he's wrong, because we all did. 946 00:50:32,929 --> 00:50:36,166 But that was always about it, because he foreshadows 947 00:50:36,166 --> 00:50:37,467 what the Lord of the rings is about. 948 00:50:37,467 --> 00:50:39,469 Lord of the rings is is the culmination of that. 949 00:50:40,437 --> 00:50:41,671 And my final point, because I 950 00:50:41,671 --> 00:50:44,641 realize I am short of time. 951 00:50:45,776 --> 00:50:47,911 Just a personal comment. 952 00:50:47,911 --> 00:50:52,649 If the famous quote literature is for all time, what does that mean? 953 00:50:52,649 --> 00:50:54,217 It means it never dates. 954 00:50:54,217 --> 00:50:56,553 So. And I think that's probably true with Lord of the rings. 955 00:50:56,553 --> 00:51:00,023 It will be read for decades, probably centuries to come. 956 00:51:00,657 --> 00:51:04,494 But there's another aspect to that famous adage about literature is all time. 957 00:51:05,128 --> 00:51:08,799 And I say that's about our time on earth. 958 00:51:09,199 --> 00:51:12,569 And by that I mean, if you reread the text at different points in your life, 959 00:51:12,569 --> 00:51:14,538 you get different things from it. 960 00:51:14,538 --> 00:51:19,009 So, as I say, when I was a teenager and I first read it, I got the adventure story. 961 00:51:19,009 --> 00:51:20,844 That's what I wanted. 962 00:51:20,844 --> 00:51:24,281 But I'm at a time in my life, and some of you may well be where 963 00:51:24,281 --> 00:51:25,749 I've lost close relatives. 964 00:51:25,749 --> 00:51:27,350 I've lost friends. 965 00:51:27,350 --> 00:51:28,485 I'm getting older. 966 00:51:28,485 --> 00:51:31,421 Mortality is knocking at the back of my head. 967 00:51:31,421 --> 00:51:36,093 So when I read the Lord of the rings, I start to get some of those ideas 968 00:51:36,093 --> 00:51:36,793 now from it. 969 00:51:36,793 --> 00:51:42,232 And maybe that's the power of this book, that it not only will last a long, 970 00:51:42,232 --> 00:51:46,136 long time, but it's a book you can pick up at various points in your life 971 00:51:47,070 --> 00:51:49,606 and maybe take a lot more from it. 972 00:51:49,606 --> 00:51:51,875 So I ask myself, what if I could escape death? 973 00:51:51,875 --> 00:51:54,878 What if I found a way to offer that to my friends and family? 974 00:51:55,112 --> 00:51:57,414 Would I take that opportunity? 975 00:51:57,414 --> 00:52:00,283 Would I take it now? 976 00:52:00,283 --> 00:52:02,519 Would you? 977 00:52:02,519 --> 00:52:05,188 Well, maybe me to read the Lord of the rings again. 978 00:52:05,188 --> 00:52:05,589 Thank you.