Talk:The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen/Archive 1

Possible sources

• West, Richard C. (2006). Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (eds.). 'Her Choice Was Made and Her Doom Appointed': Tragedy and Divine Comedy in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004 : Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder

cited

• Rateliff, John D. (2006). Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (eds.). 'And All the Days of Her Life Are Forgotten': The Lord of the Rings as Mythic Prehistory. The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004 : Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder

• West, Richard C. (2011) 'Neither the Shadow nor the Twilight: The Love Story of Aragorn and Arwen in Literature and Film'. Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy

• Tolkien's Letters: #131 and #137.

• Walsh, Chris (2009). Baker, Brian (ed.). Refracted Light: Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Brian Baker (Editor), Textual Revisions: Reading Literature and Film

See here. See pages 243 and 244 (includes quote from Letter 237). Carcharoth (talk) 11:57, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Carcharoth: The linked page is just a table of contents. Do you have pp 243-244?

Do these links work for you? 243 and 244?

Yes thanks.

@Chiswick Chap: - Baker is the editor. Walsh the author of that piece.

Thanks. Carcharoth: what d'you think - I'd say it's already demonstrably notable and there's certainly more.

Yes, looks good (still some stray Bakers). We might need to firm up "scholar" as that is a bit of a vague term. BTW, I think you are referring to page numbers for Letters when those are the numbers of the letters. Are you aware of Template:ME-ref? It might not be the right approach in 2020, but it could be useful depending on the editions you have (the actual content is at Template:ME-source).

Feel free to tweak the text, we obviously can't keep starting paragraphs with "The scholar..". I've ME'd the Letters, and de-Bakerised the text.

Never sure what to say. e.g. Vaninskaya - "Senior Lecturer in English Literature"? That could date. West is an interesting one - one of the well-known Tolkien scholars, but actually works as a librarian. According to this, Gray is Professor of Literary History and Hermeneutics at the University of Chichester (that is a new one to me). Chris Walsh was Professor and Head of English at the University of Chester, but appears not to be any more. See for example here. [EDIT] Adding to this: "Michael Cameron is a physician in general practice near Glasgow, Scotland" - probably need to be careful here as to how reputable he is an an author. The work was published in the Festschrift to Stratford Caldecott, but that might not help (btw, was not aware we had an article on Caldecott, I just added him to the Tolkien studies category). FWIW, published by Wipf and Stock (theological publisher).

Yes, I noticed his background; I expect we can say better of him. I've had enough for one day. Over to you for a bit.

• Cameron, Michael (2014). Murphy, Francesca Aran (ed.). Health and Hope. The Beauty of God's House: Essays in Honor of Stratford Caldecott

See page 126 which has a religious-angle treatment of the story, as part of a comparison with the story of Faramir and Eowyn.

Added.

• Workman, Sarah (2014). Campbell, Lori M. (ed.). Female Valour Without Renown: Memory, Mourning and Loss at the Center of Middle-earth. A Quest of Her Own: Essays on the Female Hero in Modern Fantasy

See page 87 to 89, where the tale is placed in the context of memory and mourning.

Added, parts in 2 places: not sure we've got the right "home" for this yet, though.

• Gray, William (2009). Fantasy, Myth and the Measure of Truth: Tales of Pullman, Lewis, Tolkien, MacDonald and Hoffman

Unfortunately I don't have full access to this, but the chapter that contains this fragment (from page 102) will be relevant:

Perhaps significantly, the tale of Aragorn and Arwen is relegated to Appendix A of LOTR. The positioning of this tale outside the frame of the main story may be because it is not strictly necessary to the famously 'interlacing' structure of Tolkien's tightly woven narrative (though the banner sent to Aragorn by Arwen does play its role in the great battle of the Fields of Pelennor). Allusions to the tale of Aragorn and Arwen are, however, subtly woven into the main narrative, as Richard C. West has shown. One effect - if not necessarily a cause - of the tale's relative exclusion from the primary narrative is the latter's focus on dramatic action rather than on any 'love-interest'. [...] However, despite its relegation to an appendix, the tale of Aragorn and Arwen is one of Tolkien's most moving pieces. It is a tale about enduring love, triumphing over seemingly impossible odds, and sealed with Arwen's sacrifice of her Elven immortality in order to live with her human husband for 'six score years of great glory and bliss'.

Very useful, thanks.

Will add to this as time permits. Carcharoth (talk) 11:32, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Gosh the standard of AfD comments.

The bit about Aragorn giving up his life like the Numenoreans of old were 'allowed' to (this is a separate part of the 'gift' in some analyses) reminded me of the perennial debate over whether this is 'suicide' and the comparison with Denethor and the heathen kings (also 'of old'). Am sure that was referenced in some scholarly work somewhere, but cannot remember or find it right now. Incidentally, where should the line be drawn between material that would go in Aragorn and Arwen articles. Need to avoid duplication, but anything about the 'love story' needs to go here, IMO.

Yes it's certainly discussed somewhere. Not sure any of this concerns this article, however?

Vaninskaya (page 177) talks about death scenes of Denethor and Aragorn: "Pride and despair are the markers of a pagan death; hope and humility of a Christian one". Are you saying that we should limit this to just sources that discuss both Arwen and Aragorn together, or the 'tale' as a whole? Would the example I gave fit better in the Aragorn article?

Not sure, depends how you fancy working it in, but it might well fit more easily into Aragorn.

These two are probably not that relevant, but something on the meta-text/paratext/intertextuality (I think I mangled that) is here. And I came across fleeting references here. Which reminds me that I need to take a closer look at what is in the Journal of Tolkien Research (they are up to volume 8 now). Carcharoth (talk) 18:01, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Sounds as if we're starting to scrape the barrel there; maybe JTR has totally fresh takes on the tale. I'll look through Scholar and JSTOR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:13, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

The article looks good now. I think there might be enough there. Carcharoth (talk) 10:17, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Couple more, two uncertain, one definite:

• "The Lord of the Rings": The Novel as Traditional Romance, George H. Thomson, Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 8, No. 1, The Novel in England and Europe (Winter, 1967), pp. 43-59 [this is referenced by others, but not sure what Thompson says.]
• J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Moseley [Series: Writers and their Work], 1997, Liverpool University Press [this may have something in the 'Imperium and Cosmos' chapter on Christian themes.]
• Tolkien Among the Moderns, Ralph C. Wood (ed.), 2015, University of Notre Dame Press [this is the directly relevant one, the 'Wisdom and Ultimate Justice' paragraphs ending the 'Philosophic Poet' chapter by Germaine Paulo Walsh where he draws comparisons with Plato.]

Carcharoth (talk) 12:16, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Now that last one is certainly worth including. Nice work.

Thanks. Apologies for the typo (now corrected). I see the Christian and Death sections overlap a bit. Are you going to leave the good Glaswegian physician commented out?

I've removed the doc; if you think you can productively and safely use a bit of it, feel free but I think we're complete without him really. I agree about the overlap but haven't yet clicked on how to resolve it: if you can see how then do it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:09, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Nothing obvious jumps out at me (either to add or to re-organise). Are you going to put this in mainspace? I should go back to the AfD, or did you want to wait for that to close? Carcharoth (talk) 16:13, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I'll have a go at ironing out the overlap. I suspect that waiting may be best now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:18, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Mythlore

Is Mythlore a usable journal? Christine Barkley "Point of View in Tolkien" Mythlore Volume 21 Number 2 Issue 80, 15 October 1996, Article 38 makes some use of the tale, though the focus is more on Luthien and Beren.

Another Mythlore paper is Arwen, Shadow Bride.

And JSTOR have Mythlore "The Gift of Death": Tolkien's Philosophy of Mortality, for example. It'd be nice to be able to use this. BTW its Note 16 cites Letters "181 et al" on JRRT's statement that it was the most important of the appendices and his regret that the tale couldn't have been part of the main narrative.

Not sure. Need to think about it. There are several literary society journals that do have established editorial standards, but these vary over time (as the societies are mostly run by volunteers) so it depends a lot on various factors that can be hard to discern. I'm a member of one of these (The Tolkien Society in the UK) and in the past volunteered in various roles (and contributed to some publications) so need to recognise my biases here. The Tolkien Society has the journal Mallorn, and the Mythopoeic Society in the USA (covering other authors as well) has Mythlore. Other Tolkien societies are well-known for their scholarship, such as the Italians, the Dutch, and the Polish (see Silesian Fantasy Club). Mustn't forget Sweden and Norway and Germany and other countries I have forgotten (see Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien). It varies over time, as volunteers come and go. Walking Tree Publishers arose from the Swiss Tolkien Society. The general feeling on Wikipedia has been against using sources that are not academic or major publishing presses, but sometimes the arguments get repeated later in more properly reliable sources. Carcharoth (talk) 10:15, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

OK, we have no need to use anything "risky" as the article is now well-sourced; it does sound as if Mythlore is pretty respectable (not purely Tolkien...). I think the article might need a little rearrangement, anything that catches your eye? Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:22, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Images

Er, I don't like the image (bit distracting), but that might be a personal thing. It jars having that in the plot section. I think having no image is OK. Are the Jackson films the only media to use material from this tale? I would prefer something like a note in the text that the 1968 one-volume edition was the only one to include just this tale (and none of the other appendices) - this is mentioned in Hammond and Scull (2006), and then a photo of the internal page explaining this, with a suitably-referenced caption. Carcharoth (talk) 10:30, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

OK, removed for now, could you fix that? The photo wd make more sense next to the discussion of the film, actually. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:41, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

A photo of one of the letters discussing the 'Tale' would be good as well, though would need to be fair-use I think, and might not even be allowed under that. About the letters, some care is needed to distinguish between those published in Carpenter's 1977 collection and those published later. I think most of the ones in Hammond and Scull are the latter. See here for some details. Carcharoth (talk) 11:14, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I've had a better idea - a screenshot of the 'marriage' atop the White Tower. Will have to wait until the article is in mainspace, of course. Could either be A&A together (obvious reasons), or Elrond bringing Arwen with the Banner of the White Tree - a much better image of her and the symbolism, but he's out of sight.

Paradoxa

Evolutions of the Fantasy Hero in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings is interesting but can we use Paradoxa journal?

I would say yes (the link doesn't work for me, though). Others might say no. Go not to the Elves... :-) Carcharoth (talk) 10:16, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Born of Hope

Is it worth working in a mention of Born of Hope? Maybe a 'see also'? FWIW, the film is mentioned here ("The effort to translate": Fan Film Culture and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien). Carcharoth (talk) 11:59, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

See also it is.