Episode 116 Summary

Tony Meade

Active Member
SESSION 116

Comment on the current state of Númenor lore:
  • The name of Númenor has only spoken in reference to the Beren and Lúthien story by Aragorn on Weathertop. It is also spoken about in the prologue about Hobbits, prior to the story.
  • The importance of this passage is to show the connection between Aragorn’s own people and Lúthien’s descendants and implies that this line is set aside and blessed.
  • It also connects Elrond’s lineage to his own, implying that they are both on equal footing.
  • The mention of Eärendil links his journey to the history of the kings of Númenor, too. The next time that Númenor is mentioned is just before Bilbo delivers his poem on Eärendil.
  • Gandalf has mentioned them using the term “Men of the West” and the “kings from over the Sea” and Frodo referred to them as the “people of the old kings”.
  • Frodo speaks from the point of view of the people who were in Middle-earth who saw the Numenoreans arrive and take over as kings, and the Hobbits’ reverent memories of them later.
  • The vague vision of the Numenoreans in the house of Tom Bombadil is only clear in retrospect.
  • The context of the Numenoreans we get is as a secret remnant of the Elder Days among us.
  • Aragorn will reference both his role as Strider and as the Dúnedan many times during the story.
  • Note: There is an echo of older notions of things like the kings of Britain coming from Troy via Rome. This is an example of Tolkien fictionally attributing these vague older legends to an unclear memory of something that is explained through his legendarium, such as the return of the kings from Númenor. He does this again in the “Notion Club Papers” in Sauron Defeated.
Comment on Elrond’s poetry critiques:
  • While Elrond is teasing Bilbo about the upcoming critique of his poem, it seems as though Bilbo expects it be honest and thorough having been in Rivendell for 17 years and is prepared for it.
  • Note: Tolkien’s own experience of criticism among the Inklings would suggest that he would expect such a critique and anything else would be viewed as disingenuous.
  • Elrond and company intend to be kind in their delivery, while being honest in the critique. We will see this when they respond in their brief exchange after the delivery.
  • However, the delivery jokes in exaggerating of the seriousness and gravity of their judgement.
  • Bilbo is aware that the delivery of this poem to this audience is important, especially as it is a poem about Eärendil, Elrond’s own father, and he is taking his performance seriously.
  • The Elves would now be familiar with Bilbo’s style, but it would still be of interest for the Elves in seeing their own tales and poems translated by a hobbit and into Westron and hobbit meters.
  • The only mortals that perhaps had attempted adaptations of Elvish material before would have been the Dúnedain, who would have used Elvish languages and styles.
  • Elvish poetry is fundamentally alien to mortal, and especially Westron, poetry. Any translations from Elvish are being filtered through a mortal point of view, such as Bilbo’s hobbit tastes.
  • Even when we have seen Elvish poetry heard, it was translated in the heads of the hobbits into a hobbit meter and style which they could understand, such as with Gildor’s folk.
  • Note: A real-world parallel is the experience of the loss between native poetry in the native language by a native speaker, and what happens in attempting to translate it. This would be even more extreme between Elves and Hobbits, which is an even more fundamental divide.
A literary huddle in the Hall:
  • Bilbo is unrelenting in his hobbitry toward Strider, even when Strider doesn’t reciprocate it. However, we know that Strider and Bilbo are friends based on previous references.
  • Bilbo jokingly makes the finishing of the poem as urgent business, while minimizing Strider’s business. Strider enjoys and goes along with the joke and doesn’t contradict him.
  • Strider is not deaf or hostile to Bilbo’s hobbitry, but it’s just not part of his style. Strider has a kingly forbearance, but he doesn’t hold himself aloof from the hobbits, especially Bilbo.
  • Note: This is a typical response by hobbits to the serious business of the Wise, as we have seen with Pippin and Gandalf earlier. They are irrepressible, though not thoughtless.
  • What was Elladan and Elrohir’s business? The most probable is that they had been searching for signs of the Ringwraiths and were now reporting on their findings.
  • Bilbo most likely is less interested in Strider’s contributions to the poem than for his willing ear and friendly feedback as a test run before performing it in front of the company.
  • Strider, as a mortal, would be one of the few for whom Bilbo’s kind of mortal poetry would not be strange, and as one of the Dúnedain would be a middle ground between Hobbits and Elves.
  • Strider is also a translator of Elvish poetry into Westron, as he would have Elvish training, along with Bilbo and Sam, though he is sensitive to the appropriate subject matter for the Hall of Fire.
  • Note: The “tralalalally” poem in The Hobbit is an attempt to capture the alien nature of Elvish poetry to the ears of mortal, though in fairy tale context.
  • Note: One can only speculate on the training that Aragorn received in Rivendell and its sources, as he would likely have received instruction by both Elrond and his mother, Gilraen.
(continued below)
 

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(continued)

Frodo left alone:
  • Is Sam really sleeping? Based on the experience in Woodhall, maybe not, though Sam has not been sleeping much since being in Rivendell, and the atmosphere in the hall might not help.
  • It’s possible that Sam has been listening to the Elvish singing for a while now and falling asleep during an Elvish musical performance can result in, or stem from, the enchantment of the Elves.
  • Why does Frodo feel forlorn in the hall once Bilbo leaves? Merry and Pippin are there, as well as all the Elves and others around him, so he is not physically alone and not all are strangers.
  • This may be a sense of isolation lingering from the experience of the shadow from the Ring. This feeling is coming from inside him, not from any behavior from the others.
  • There doesn’t seem to be much of a sense of Frodo begrudging Bilbo leaving with Strider, but what there is may be tied to the lingering shadow from earlier.
The enchantment of Frodo:
  • Note: There is an echo of the sirens’ song from Greek mythology, though less threatening. This is one of the clearest examples of the experience of Elvish enchantment described in the book.
  • It’s clear that the enchantment is coming from the words themselves, as Frodo doesn’t understand the Elven tongues that well, and yet still has the experience of enchantment.
  • Note: There is at first a simple appreciation of the beauty of the sound, which then moves to sub-creative experience, in which the listener begins to conjure the images in their mind, though, as Tolkien explains in “On Fairy-stories”, the Elves take this to the ultimate conclusion in that the listener begins to mistake their secondary creation for the primary world.
  • As in the first chapter in The Hobbit, Frodo, like Bilbo, is drawn into the imagery as if it were a memory though they are of things they have never experienced and from a new point of view.
  • Frodo’s experience is a fuller enchantment of the Elves, though, while Bilbo’s was just a taste from the Dwarvish point of view, but both do not require prior knowledge to experience them.
  • Note: This distinction is similar to the one between the medieval connotations of “fantasy” and “imagination”, which continues through Shakespeare. His understanding of “imagination” was of the mind’s ability to conjure up an image from previous materials and experiences. “Fantasy” is when one uses the mind to construct images that no one has ever seen. The difference here is that he is experiencing these images from another’s mind himself.
  • In the last step in the enchantment Frodo experiences the images as if they were reality.
  • The Elves are singing about the Sea and about the sights and sounds of Valinor in their song.
  • Note: Tolkien is often capable of conjuring a mythic idea in a single phrase that allows one to imagine a greater story behind it. Such it is with a phrase like “upon the margins of the world”.
  • Note: There is an echo of John Keats’ poem “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer”, in which he expresses a feeling of enchantment while imagining the world of Homer’s Iliad and losing himself within that vision. Likewise, there are specific images in that poem that seem to resonate with Tolkien’s imagery in the enchantment of the Elves in the Hall of Fire.
  • Note: Tolkien often makes sweeping generalizations about his own tastes that others take too literally, such as his general dislike of allegory, or French things, or “modern”, meaning post-1500, literature. There are always exceptions to these generalizations, of course.
  • Once he passes into full enchantment, he begins to perceive things with his senses that he can’t understand with his conscious mind, and he’s completely overwhelmed by the experience.
  • This overwhelming of his senses seems to trigger his sleep, as if his mind surrenders rather than keep trying to understand what it can’t comprehend.
  • Sam might actually already be asleep, and not faking like at Woodhall, because this happened to him earlier, having become enchanted during the time when Bilbo and Frodo spoke of the Ring.
  • Note: This kind of dreamlike experience is also referenced during “The Notion Club Papers”.
  • There is a sense in which the experience now goes into a realm with which Frodo is not attuned.
  • Note: There is a parallel inn C.S. Lewis’ “Perelandra”, the Eldila that appear before Ransom try to find a form which will be attuned to the senses and expectations of the mortals.
  • There is also a feeling that the longer one spends among the Elves, the more attuned one would become to these experiences, so it’s possible that Bilbo may be more able to comprehend this.
  • It’s a possibility that what is happening to Frodo is a kind of loss of a sense of self as he’s swept up into a greater consciousness, though the experience becomes less clear rather than more.
  • Note: Since the metaphor is of a drowning person rather than one escaping from drowning, this is unlikely to be a reference or parallel to the Buddhist ideas about achieving Nirvana.
  • Is Ulmo a part of this? This is a dreamlike experience involving both river and sea imagery, but since this is clearly coming from the Elvish song around him, Ulmo may not be involved directly.
  • Note: The boundaries between the power of the Elves, the Ainur, and Eru Ilúvatar are not always distinct from the point of view of the experience of mortals.
  • It’s Bilbo’s song that brings Frodo back out of the overwhelming experience of enchantment and into the primary and mortal world, as if it were a lifeline thrown to Frodo while drowning.
END OF SESSION
 

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