In response to Usha's blog: there does seem to be an interesting watering down of the traditional Greek myth of Orpheus. The setting morphs from Greek mythology's cruel underworld to Tolkien's fairly comfortable fairy realm. There also seems to be a move from realistic representations to fantasy. Of course, by "realistic" I do not mean that once upon a time there were underworld gods roaming about. It is more so that the stories of the gods were entwined with world, political, social, and moral views at the time. (Dragons were once considered real entities because people cannot travel as we do now, and since no one knows what is beyond the mountain over yonder, anything, even dragons, is a possibility.) As we move toward Tolkien's time, technologies advance, literacy increases, and the written word is now harnessed, molded, and marketed toward a target market that promises the biggest profit margin. Genres emerge, and anything with dragons seem to be shoved under "fantasy." Unfortunately, genres fiction carry a stigma in the literary world, making them seem as if they are ranked below "real literary fiction." In this way, when the myth reaches Tolkien, it does not carry as much weight as it did in ancient Greece.
An interesting side-effect, however, is that along with the adaptations of the myth, the story itself becomes much more important. In Henryson's Orpheus and Eurydice, the myth is used as a background and the characters are flattened to serve didactic purposes. In more modern adaptations, the story and the characters are the points of interest. An example is Neil Gaiman's "The Faery Reel," first appearing in The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Viking Press). In that version, Gaiman's endnote states that
Most of the poems I’ve written are happy to sit on the page and be looked at. This one was written with the idea of a faery reel in mind, the beats of a dance that would make your feet twitch and set its measure in the back of your head, and so it was written to be read out loud. You could make up a tune for it, if you like. Proper faery tunes can fill your mind and your feet with their tune and their rhythm so there’s no room left to think of anything else and you dance and more to the beat of the song until you collapse, exhausted, and never move again. Don’t set it to one of those tunes. (437-38 )
Of course, this quote only is only relevant through an autobiographical critical approach. Plus, it even goes beyond the concentration on story and character and moves into a concentration on the provocation of emotions. Nevertheless, it supports the general shift of authorial intent--from using the myth as an allegorical tool toward using it a base of literary entertainment.
Julia
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2 comments:
Julia,
I'd like to apply your observations from that final paragraph to the Tolkien phenomenon as experienced by our generation. Incidentally, Tolkien wouldn't have approved of his myth being taken "allegorically," however he ostended an even bigger purpose for myth: the forging of a culture's identity in a sense of common origin. (In this sense, America really lacks a cultural myth.)
But to return to your point, you're right: myth has become entertaining; Peter Jackson certainly proved that with Tolkien's work. The thing that is less noted is that myth--even Tolkien's--is also morally instructive. It's not necessarily parabolic, but it still carries the weight of wisdom from ages past. I think this is what preserves the goodness of the entertainment we take from myth. It's like a well-balanced meal for the heart and mind that tastes like your favorite dessert.
Julia, I like how you distilled the relationship between move from realistic representations to fantasy and the rise of the importance of the story itself. To add to that, I noticed that in both the Orfeo and Orpheus poems, the fantasy world or otherworld is not the main setting of the work, but a place the (fictional) real world has a relationship with. So the political, moral or social statement was still very obviously about the real world, and the otherworld played a role as one component of the story, the same way a character would. On the other hand, in modern fantasy like The Lord of the Rings, or even something like Harry Potter where the story takes place mostly in the otherworld, the political and social issues are addressed in the inner workings of that fantasy world, rather than the real world. Whether that is a cause or result of the rising importance of the story itself (or neither), I think it's interesting that, over time, mythological and fantasy literature has sort of removed itself further from the real world. I know that Tolkien at least really disliked allegory, but it seems to me that a total fantasy world is a safer place to explore social and political issues than a story that takes place in a more familiar setting.
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