Tungol
Member
In the last few episodes of Exploring the Lord of the Rings and The History of Middle-earth series, Professor Olsen has discussed Frodo's first dream several times. In Exploring, he commented that he found that the geography was "the least important thing about this dream". In fact, he made several comments to this effect.
Now, I agree with Professor Olsen that in this instance the symbolic element does take primary importance in interpreting the dream. However, I found his comments on geography to be missing something important.
Tolkien included a passage in the prologue that describes the elf-towers in the Tower Hills, despite that fact that it has no direct bearing on the plot: why? I think he did it because it would allow astute readers to investigate and identify the tower in Frodo's dream. This is something Tokien does a lot. He builds amazingly detailed backstories to the geography of Middle-earth, and often refers to it tangentially. This is part of what gives Tolkien nerds such enjoyment of the stories, because of their apparent historical and cultural depth, and the geography plays such a large role in this.
Michael Drout has a great lecture (link here) where he praises Tolkien's use of ruins (and other broken references), describing this as part of the "hanging-together" (zusammenhang) of his world.
Personally, I find it interesting to think about the actual tower in Frodo's dream, and how it may have been built by certain elves in the Tower Hills long ago. And I find that enjoyment of this can co-exist with the symbolic element that the tower plays in the dream. It doesn't have to be either or.
Actually, I would argue that in general Tolkien is rarely purely symbolic, and that he's very good at grounding his mythic ideas in actual instances in his universe. He doesn't engage in "lazy" symbolism. For example, think of how detailed the character of Tom Bombadil character is, instead of just being a generic stand-in for a nature spirit.
To sum up, I just felt that Professor Olsen kind of gave short shrift to the geography of the tower here, and our natural desire to identify what it is. This is a desire that Tolkien actively encourages and cultivates, and I don't think that we should fail to appreciate instances like this.
Now, I agree with Professor Olsen that in this instance the symbolic element does take primary importance in interpreting the dream. However, I found his comments on geography to be missing something important.
Tolkien included a passage in the prologue that describes the elf-towers in the Tower Hills, despite that fact that it has no direct bearing on the plot: why? I think he did it because it would allow astute readers to investigate and identify the tower in Frodo's dream. This is something Tokien does a lot. He builds amazingly detailed backstories to the geography of Middle-earth, and often refers to it tangentially. This is part of what gives Tolkien nerds such enjoyment of the stories, because of their apparent historical and cultural depth, and the geography plays such a large role in this.
Michael Drout has a great lecture (link here) where he praises Tolkien's use of ruins (and other broken references), describing this as part of the "hanging-together" (zusammenhang) of his world.
Personally, I find it interesting to think about the actual tower in Frodo's dream, and how it may have been built by certain elves in the Tower Hills long ago. And I find that enjoyment of this can co-exist with the symbolic element that the tower plays in the dream. It doesn't have to be either or.
Actually, I would argue that in general Tolkien is rarely purely symbolic, and that he's very good at grounding his mythic ideas in actual instances in his universe. He doesn't engage in "lazy" symbolism. For example, think of how detailed the character of Tom Bombadil character is, instead of just being a generic stand-in for a nature spirit.
To sum up, I just felt that Professor Olsen kind of gave short shrift to the geography of the tower here, and our natural desire to identify what it is. This is a desire that Tolkien actively encourages and cultivates, and I don't think that we should fail to appreciate instances like this.
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