XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   In message    
   Steuard Jensen  spoke these staves:   
   >   
      
      
      
   > So I've written an addendum to my main essay to directly refute   
   > the Aule theory. It feels like beating a dead horse to me,   
      
   Beating, breaking, quartering, chopping /and/ mincing . . .  :-)   
      
   > but apparently Hargrove's essay is strong enough that some folks   
   > won't be satisfied with anything less.   
      
   Yup, you do seem to be right about that.   
      
   > I thought I'd share my first draft here before linking to it more   
   > widely, just in case anyone can spot flaws in my arguments or   
   > additional evidence that I've left out. Let me know if you think   
   > it will change any minds!   
      
   Overall I think you've done a very good job. Personally I quite agree   
   that the first part ought to refute the theory completely, but I have   
   also seen people who clearly believe the Aulë theory.   
      
   Another argument that carries a lot of weight for myself is related   
   to Tom's origin, not the Dutch doll thing, but as the /genius loci/,   
   the 'spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside.'   
   This idea is, to my mind, wholly incompatible with the idea of Tom as   
   a god who existed before Time and helped build the world. Tom, by his   
   very nature /must/ belong to a limited geographical area, and this is   
   inconsistent with Aule's world-encompassing nature.   
      
   On the other hand, however, I think you are too restrictive in the   
   possible interpretations of 'first' and 'eldest' -- given what is   
   known about Tolkien's propensity for exaggerations[#], I think that   
   several other interpretations can be offered that are also perfectly   
   reasonable, but do not take the 'first' or 'eldest' quite as   
   literally. Another way to look at it is of course to note that both   
   'first' and 'oldest' is related to Time, and that both these words   
   are equally applicable to /all/ the Ainur who entered into Eä at the   
   beginning of Time.  However, in the context of Tolkien's other   
   statements that with Celeborn went the 'last living memory of the   
   Elder Days' and that Treebeard was 'the oldest living thing that   
   still walks beneath the Sun upon this Middle-earth' I simply don't   
   think that the 'eldest' and 'first' statements about Tom B. are   
   sufficiently strong to be used as evidence of anything except merely   
   'very old'.   
      
   [#] Christopher Tolkien speaks of his father being 'given to this   
   kind of "rhetorical superlative"' as quoted by Wayne Hammond and   
   Christina Scull in their /Reader's Companion/, but people such as   
   Shippey and Drout have recently been more direct about it in e.g.   
   analyses of '/Beowulf/: The Monsters and the Critics'. Wayne and   
   Christina cite Christopher Tolkien in connection with precisely the   
   question of the oldest being in Middle-earth (in commentary to the   
   Prologue, in notes to p. '15 (I: 25)')   
      
      
   --   
   Troels Forchhammer    
   Valid e-mail is    
   Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.   
      
       Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.   
    - Niels Bohr, to a young physicist   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)