A Single Leaf: Tolkien's Visual Art and Fantasy
2008; Mythopoeic Society; Volume: 27; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0146-9339
Autores Tópico(s)Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies
ResumoIN HIS ESSAY ON FAIRY-STORIES, Tolkien formulated ideas about fantasy and myth-making that are founded on the primacy of language and narrative art: incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale are in our world coeval (On Fairy-Stories [OFS] 41). Responding to the philologically based myth theories of Andrew Lang and Max Muller, Tolkien--also a philologist--defines mythopoesis in linguistic terms. And yet, Tolkien was an inveterate drawer, painter, and designer whose definition of fairy-story includes visual terms, not only in his essay but also in his poem Mythopoeia and, most obviously, in his allegorical fiction about a painter, Leaf by Niggle. Our exploration of Tolkien's ideas about myth-making focuses on visual aspects in his definition of fantasy. As an artist, Tolkien straddled the amateur and professional fields; much of his work was intended for personal and family use, though some of it, like his Hobbit illustrations, found their way into print during his lifetime. The integration of personal and professional interests marked all of Tolkien's endeavours: his fiction, his art, and his scholarship. For example, in exploring some ideas about the Old English poem Battle of Maldon, he expressed his views by writing an original verse drama, Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son. In his fiction, like The Lord of the Rings, he reworked passages from literature that he studied as a professional medievalist. And, to satisfy either his academic or his personal interests, he would often draw or paint. As his daughter Priscilla recounts, the Tolkien household was always well supplied with paper and pencil and a wonderful range of coloured chalks, paintboxes and coloured inks. [...] we knew as we got older that these things gave him particular pleasure, and they continued to do so right through his life (P. Tolkien 6). For Tolkien, his personal passions, his artistic creativity, and his academic studies were interwoven. With such a model in mind, then, we have entered into a discussion of art, myth-making, and the Primary World from a combined academic and artistic perspective. One of us, Jeffrey MacLeod, is a professor of Political Science, the other, Anna Smol, an English professor. Trained in the analytical and theoretical discourses of our respective fields in the social sciences and humanities, we see Tolkien's work through these lenses; at the same time, however, we respond to and participate in Tolkien's Secondary World as readers, viewers, and as creators. Taking as our premise Tolkien's belief that all human creativity is an inherently significant activity, we use MacLeod's personal account of his artistic process in the creation of two of his paintings, Luthien and Beren (Fig. 1, p.123) and Smaug (Fig. 6, p.124), as a touchstone for our collaborative meditation on Tolkien's ideas about vision, art, fantasy, and their connection to our Primary World. In Tolkien's own terms, we have attempted to paint a single leaf--a framed instance of two interwoven voices--that we hope will momentarily allow us a better glimpse of the Tree of Tales. For most critics, Tolkien's definitions of myth and fantasy have been primarily about language and story-telling, ideas embodied in his recurring image of the great Tree of Tales whose branches are closely connected with the philologists' study of the tangled skein of Language (OFS 39). But storytelling is rarely a purely verbal medium. Even in traditional oral story-telling, the tone of voice of the story-teller and the sight of his or her expressions or body language are part of the communicative act. In text-based narratives, we may hear the narrator's voice in our heads as we look at the visual presentation of the text between covers and, possibly, with illustrations. Some of our more subtle connection with narratives comes to us via music and visual images. These various media complement and reinforce each other, as contemporary films make evident in combining a text-based script, a musical score, and a moving painting to tell their stories. …
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