So why have Tolkien's fantasy novels been singled out by the Tolkien critics?
Shippey characterizes Tolkien's critics as "despisers of fantasy" (p. xvii). But Shippey does not demonstrate that those "despisers of fantasy" also despise the novels that he singles out as fantasy by the other war-traumatized authors.
This observation brings me back now to my own speculation here that Tolkien had experienced unconscious contents in his psyche and that he set about writing about those unconscious contents to the best of his ability in his fantasy novels The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954 and 1955).
But I then also need to posit here that Shippey's "despisers of fantasy" are somehow sensing and strongly resisting in their psyches Tolkien's exploration of unconscious contents in his psyche.
Over against Shippey's constructed category of other war-traumatized authors of certain other fantasy novels, I would now suggest here that those authors had not experienced unconscious contents in their psyches that they were writing about in their fantasy novels - which is why they did not arouse the ire of Shippey's "despisers of fantasy."
Now, the Index" in Shippey's perceptive book (pp.337-347) contains an entry on Catholicism (p. 338) and another on Christianity (p. 338) and under the entry on evil (p. 33() a sub-entry on Christian concept of evil.
Now, in Shippey's Chapter III: "The Lord of the Rings (2): Concepts of Evil" in his perceptive book (pp. 112-160), he says, "I have argued that the work's 'controlling vision of things' is in fact a double vision, between the opinions I label 'Boethian' and 'Manichaean; and that both opinions are presented at one time or another with equal force, whether it is in the Dead Marshes (Manichaean, but maybe an illusion) or the Field of Cormallen (Boethian, but rapidly evanescent)" (p. 157).
If, as Shippey claims, this is indeed the controlling vision in Tolkien's three-volume fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, it is indeed a complex controlling vision of things.
If, as Shippey suggests, Tolkien's own personal understanding of his lifelong Catholicism enabled him to hold and to articulate such a complex controlling vision of things in The Lord of the Rings, then Tolkien's own personal understanding his lifelong Catholicism was extraordinary, to say the least.
In conclusion, in the present 4,900-word OEN encore article to my recent 7,800-word OEN article, I have revisited two lengthy passages from my 7,800-word OEN article and reflected further about certain specific statements I had made. My further reflections in the present 4,900-word OEN encore article are important enough to share with you, and I hope that they enrich your understanding of J. R. R. Tolkien's life and work. In my estimate, the most significant new insight I offer in this OEN encore article is actually twofold:
On the one hand, Tolkien's publication of his 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit was comparable for him and his life to Jung's publication of his 1912 book was for him and his life as his various public efforts to digest and explain his experience of unconscious contents in his psyche during his dangerous self-experiment with active imagination.
On the other hand, Tolkien's publication of his three-volume fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings in 1954 and 1955 was comparable for him in his life to Jung's extensive revision of his 1912 book in his re-titled 1952 book Symbols of Transformation, mentioned above, was for him and his various public efforts to digest and explain his experience of unconscious contents in his psyche during his dangerous self-experiment with active imagination.
For information about Tolkien's life, see Humphrey Carpenter's J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977).
Humphrey Carpenter, with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, edited Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981).
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