I came across a wonderful quote from J.R.R. Tolkien that I just had to share.
Evidentally, he had been questioned on what value he thought myth could play for “modern” minds.
His answer is wonderful:
'Dear Sir’ > I said — Although now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned.
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons—‘twas our right
(used or misused). That right has not decayed:
we make still by the law in which we’re made’.
Although I don’t know the details in this case, much of Tolkien’s thoughts and various writings have survived in the form of letters which he wrote to various folks.
I think his answer is wonderful on many levels. There’s a lot to that little verse…a profound and cohesive statement on man’s place and destiny, made in just a few simple lines.
To understand that quote, and particularly the concept of sub-creation, you’d need to read Tolkien’s Mythopoeia and On Fairy Stories (which I couldn’t find online; it’s in Tree & Leaf and also in The Monster and the Critics, I think).
You’ll even get to learn a cool new word for “happy ending”: Eucastrophe.
Folks, unless I am mistaken, J. R. R. Tolkien was not only an Oxford professor of linguistics, he also had a fascinating and generous hobby, a hobby of thinking… and writing. It isn’t in the least odd, that he should include in his story weaving the epic mythologies of the Nordic Sagas, but also of the Celts, Saxon and Mideastern peoples.
What a brilliant and far seeing man was J. R. R. Tolkien.
Damn, I’m hot.