Not so nonsensical
- Thread starter NotACat
- Start date
Tungol
Member
I don't know if Tom's words could literally be Valarin, but it seems that academics like Verlyn Flieger have discussed how Tom's songs could be related to the Music of the Valar:
"Within the compass of the fiction, Tom's language has nothing apparently in common with the arcane, high-status language of the Elves, nor with Gandalf's command of language; it suggests, therefore, that power resides in the person, not in the form of language used nor its historical status. However, although Tom is not apparently contextualised in relation to, nor empowered or legitimated by, anything external to himself, a possible reason for the effect of his language, but one that requires knowledge of the background to The Lord of the Rings, is that, pace Verlyn Flieger, his songs are fragments of the Originary Song of creation sung by the Valar. Flieger develops Tolkien's own statement in his early poem "Mythopoeia" that all temporal creativity is "refracted light […] splintered from a single White" and that "we still make by the law by which we're made" (87). Tolkien argued that all acts of artistic endeavour in the temporal realm are necessarily acts of "sub-creation" devolved from, and crucially, permitted by the Creator God. This notion is fundamental to his own creative work and informs the cosmology he created in his legendarium; so the Music of the Valar, by which the cosmos including Middle-earth was made, might be understood as providing the ultimate power by which Tom's songs take effect. However, these songs do not in themselves bring anything into existence; rather, as Tom uses them they are songs which exert power and control over many aspects of what has already been created and the strangeness and simplicity of their form—language and rhythm—seem to be part of their effectiveness."
Source: http://www.connotations.uni-tuebingen.de/forest-hill0251.htm
"Within the compass of the fiction, Tom's language has nothing apparently in common with the arcane, high-status language of the Elves, nor with Gandalf's command of language; it suggests, therefore, that power resides in the person, not in the form of language used nor its historical status. However, although Tom is not apparently contextualised in relation to, nor empowered or legitimated by, anything external to himself, a possible reason for the effect of his language, but one that requires knowledge of the background to The Lord of the Rings, is that, pace Verlyn Flieger, his songs are fragments of the Originary Song of creation sung by the Valar. Flieger develops Tolkien's own statement in his early poem "Mythopoeia" that all temporal creativity is "refracted light […] splintered from a single White" and that "we still make by the law by which we're made" (87). Tolkien argued that all acts of artistic endeavour in the temporal realm are necessarily acts of "sub-creation" devolved from, and crucially, permitted by the Creator God. This notion is fundamental to his own creative work and informs the cosmology he created in his legendarium; so the Music of the Valar, by which the cosmos including Middle-earth was made, might be understood as providing the ultimate power by which Tom's songs take effect. However, these songs do not in themselves bring anything into existence; rather, as Tom uses them they are songs which exert power and control over many aspects of what has already been created and the strangeness and simplicity of their form—language and rhythm—seem to be part of their effectiveness."
Source: http://www.connotations.uni-tuebingen.de/forest-hill0251.htm