ooglegroups.com> bd65bcc0   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   In message   
      
   Christopher Kreuzer  spoke these staves:   
   >   
   > On Thursday, 4 August 2011 22:19:25 UTC+1, Stan Brown  wrote:   
   >>   
   >> On Wed, 3 Aug 2011 00:01:09 +0100, Matthew Bladen wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>> It would be interesting to find out whether one's impression of   
   >>> the Shire as portrayed in the films has any connection with   
   >>> whether one is English / British / UKian.   
   >>   
   >> And whether one's background is urban or rural is probably   
   >> relevant, too.   
   [...]   
   >   
   > Hi Stan. I've been reading through some recent threads, and I hope   
   > you don't mind me returning to this point, which I thought was   
   > interesting.   
   >   
   > What struck me was not just the difficulty modern city-dwelling   
   > film-goers would have relating to 'idealized notions of an   
   > agricultural village', but whether those reading the books when   
   > they first came out would have had similar problems of   
   > identification depending on their background? The thing is that   
   > Tolkien himself was writing an idealised version, namely his   
   > memories of his childhood on the rural outskirts of Birmingham.   
   > The phrase that is most striking is the one about his memories of   
   > the Warwickshire countryside around the time of Queen Victoria's   
   > Jubilee. Let's see if I can still find my copy of /Letters/...   
      
   This reminds me strongly of Tom Shippey's introduction to _Tolkien   
   and the Study of his Sources_ that I am currently reading (edited by   
   Jason Fisher), where Shippey notes that   
      
       All literary works bear some relation to the milieu in   
       which they are composed and received, but we often do not   
       realize how quickly elements of those milieux are   
       forgotten. One generation’s common knowledge becomes a   
       later generation’s historical footnote, [...]. But the   
       knowledge may be important, and has a fair chance of being   
       interesting. Tolkien, [...], has suffered especially   
       severely from the cultural gap between himself and many of   
       his critics, [...]. But there is reason enough to try to   
       fill it just the same, [...]. As Fisher says below, to turn   
       one’s back on source study is “to risk stripping a text of   
       its context” — and Tolkien’s many contexts, personal,   
       professional and cultural, now need a good deal of   
       explanation for most contemporary readers.   
   Tom Shippey. 'Introduction: Why Source Criticism?' in _Tolkien and   
   the Study of his Sources_, edited by Jason Fisher, p. 9   
      
      
      
   > So how many of Tolkien's readers in the 1950s and 1960s would have   
   > identified much with that period of UK history? Probably only   
   > those of a similar age or older (he was 62 when Fellowship was   
   > published) who had lived in the countryside of that era.   
      
   I think that it an important point to Shippey to emphasize that there   
   is simply no way that any modern reader can have experiences that   
   would enable them to understand Tolkien's context without   
   explication. Shippey also points out that Tolkien was old-fashioned   
   even in his own age and would have required explication even then,   
   and also that this hasn't meant anything to any of the millions of   
   delighted readers, even if the critics have had some problems . . .   
   )   
      
   Shippey also mentions the 'viewers' (presumably referring to those   
   who know the story only through the films), but here I think that   
   Jackson et Al. have brought the story into a new, more modern,   
   context, so that the Shire is precisely that idealized rural setting   
   that the modern cinema audience would have (in some ways I was   
   strongly reminded of some 1950s Danish films idealizing the rural   
   life -- except that there the doctor would probably have an   
   'automobile', while all the plowing would generally be done by horse   
   as it had been some three decades earlier).  Whether it's a virtue or   
   not, I think that Jackson et Al. do 'update' the story to a modern   
   context where their modern audience do not have to understand an   
   alien context to be able to fully decipher the new story.  This, by   
   the way, would fit very well with what medieval authors generally did   
   with stories (a point also made by Jason Fisher in his contribution   
   to his book, 'Tolkien and Source Criticism', where he describes this,   
   saying that 'in the Middle Ages, writers freely borrowed from, and as   
   freely adapted and deviated from, whatever sources struck their   
   fancy.' p. 34)   
      
   > But readers of any books meld their reading with their own   
   > background, making the resulting story in their mind their own to   
   > some extent.   
      
   Exactly.  I do think it adds something to the book to understand the   
   context in which it was written, but it is not necessarily a   
   prerequisite for appreciating the book.  On the other hand, I also   
   think that some readings can be wrong -- I can't go full in for the   
   postmodern relativity in this: there /are/ ways to basically   
   misunderstand the text, regardless of the context.   
      
   --   
   Troels Forchhammer    
   Valid e-mail is    
   Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.   
      
       In this case the cause (not the 'hero') was triumphant,   
       because by the exercise of pity, mercy, and forgiveness of   
       injury, a situation was produced in which all was redressed   
       and disaster averted.   
    - J.R.R. Tolkien, /The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien/ #192   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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