Tolkien and Campbell

Are you looking for a quotation that you can't quite place? Trying to track down a hard-to-find publication? Here, folks can help you find the answers, or discuss ways for you to discover them for yourself.

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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Interesting, Cindy. While I like watching the LOTR movies, I'm still waiting for the real movie to be made. There were too many totally unnecessary plot shifts and character changes, especially in The Two Towers. I walked out of that one with a nasty case of the grumbles. lol!
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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

2.) Did Joe ever comment on Tolkien; and if not what do you think his impressions would be? ( David might have thoughts on this as well. )
This was discussed, either earlier in this jumbled thread or in another. There are a few Tolkien threads scattered throughout the boards, but this is the primary one.

The answer, James, is no. There's no evidence that Campbell ever mentioned Tolkien's work. I'm not surprised that he didn't deal with LOTR, which is, at the end of the day and no matter how mythically inspired, a work of fiction. I would have expected, however, that he might have come across Tolkien's scholarly material, specifically his work on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf.
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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Read through this thread, there's lots of good stuff!
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by JamesN. »

Hey Clemsy.

I was right in the middle of adding a ( second helping ) of a rather large amount of video documentry clips when you posted so I hope that what I just offered will be relevant and useful to the discussion.

Thanks for your insights; I will go back and check through what you suggested.

8)
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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

James, those vids are a treasure! I'll try to carve some time to give them all a solid viewing. :-)

...Oh, and btw. I despise the Rankin and Bass versions. :-p lol!

Loved the Bakshi film and always regretted he never finished it. Indeed, I'd bet Jackson liked it to as there are a few scenes in Fellowship which are right out of the Bakshi version.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Neoplato »

Clemsy wrote:James, those vids are a treasure! I'll try to carve some time to give them all a solid viewing. :-)

...Oh, and btw. I despise the Rankin and Bass versions. :-p lol!
:shock:

Heretic! :!:

I do like the Bakshi version, but IMHO he made the Hobbits appear too childlike, stupid and incompetant. Especially when all Samwise does is run around in circles screaming "Mr. Frodo! Mr. Frodo!!"

I thought his rendition or Aragorn was spot on.
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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

James, you, and everyone else, may enjoy this post of David's from way back (2002!)...
David_Kudler wrote:
Having received a number of Tolkien-related requests over the past couple of months, I took the liberty of contacting a Tolkien scholar, Veralyn Flieger, and posing the question to her. Here, with her permission, is her response:
As far as I know, Tolkien never spoke of or wrote about any acquaintance with Joseph Campbell‚s work, though it' is certainly the kind of thing he would have been drawn to. I have yet to come across any serious writing on myth and folklore that Tolkien HADN'T read. At a guess, I think he would have known both The Masks of God and the Hero With a Thousand Faces. He would, however, have been equally familiar with Raglan's work on the hero figure, and with Rank's. Moreover, Tolkien was definitly familiar with Jung's work. [...]

It's always possible that on the "kinship of

great minds" principle, their ideas resonate with one another because both thought along the same lines, and understood the world in much the same way. Much of the literature that Tolkien studied and taught--

Beowulf, Norse mythology, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--was made of the epic components and followed the mythic tradition that provides the paradigm for the hero path. It's always been there.

I have taught courses in Tolkien and comparative mythology for thirty years, and have known and admired the work Joseph Campbell for about the same length of time. I have always found Campbell's work both compatible with and illuminating of Tolkien's fiction, and I use it frequently in my classes.

I had the privilege of meeting and talking with Joseph Campbell and his wife at a conference in Northern Virginia, a scant few years before his death. It was an unforgettable experience, one I'll always treasure. He was a remarkable man.
<font>[ This Message was edited by: David_Kudler on 2002-03-20 21:33 ]</font>
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Post by Clemsy »

I do like the Bakshi version, but IMHO he made the Hobbits appear too childlike, stupid and incompetant. Especially when all Samwise does is run around in circles screaming "Mr. Frodo! Mr. Frodo!!"
lol! True, Neo, but then Sam, early in the story, is very childlike and, while not stupid, certainly simple. He reminds me of Gomer Pyle, for those old enough to get the reference. Haha!
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Post by Neoplato »

Clemsy wrote:
I do like the Bakshi version, but IMHO he made the Hobbits appear too childlike, stupid and incompetant. Especially when all Samwise does is run around in circles screaming "Mr. Frodo! Mr. Frodo!!"
lol! True, Neo, but then Sam, early in the story, is very childlike and, while not stupid, certainly simple. He reminds me of Gomer Pyle, for those old enough to get the reference. Haha!
Sam really evolves IMHO. In the beginning he really is a Gomer Pyle figure. But his battle with Shelob is where he becomes a "little hobbit from the shire" into a "Hero of the age". I especially like this sequence from the R&B version of "Return of the King"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am-piARxy4U

And remember Samwise is the only charater to completely give up the ring of his own free will.

.
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Post by Clemsy »

Absolutely. That's why I argue, early in this thread (OMG 10 years ago!) that Sam is, perhaps arguably, the story's central character. Indeed, Sam's battle with Shelob is analogous to Aragorn's journey on the Paths of the Dead. Both characters come out of this experience totally changed. If you chart Sam's transformation, it's right after Shelob that he is on par with Frodo, then proceeds to rise above him.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Cindy B. »

This is my take, too, Clemsy, regarding Sam.

And an interesting tidbit about Tolkien. I don't recall where I read this, but an interviewer once asked him which character he most identified with, and his answer was Faramir. 8)
Last edited by Cindy B. on Sat Jan 05, 2013 10:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

And that's the character I think Jackson botched completely!
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Cindy B. »

Yep, Faramir definitely deserved more and accurate development and air time...
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Cindy B. »

Never underestimate the power of the unconscious. :wink:

"On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' I did not and do not know why." --The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No. 163, to W.H. Auden, dated 1955

From http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/h/hobbits.html


:)
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by JamesN. »

Hey everyone.

After spending most of yesterday reading 12 pages of this thread and watching many videos I'm coming up for air here to mention this link here.

Cindy this " encyclopedic " site is unbelievable. For those of you who are more than " casual observers :wink: " of " Tolkien's " work and are not aware of it here are just a ( few ) of it's features: 8) ( I found the " Timeline " particularly useful. )

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/s/silmarillion.html

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/m/middleearth.html

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/placland.html

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/maps.html

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/links.asp

( An addendum if I may ): Constellating large amounts of inter-related subject matter and themes to a grand scope can become no less a smaller quest within the larger challenge for someone such as myself. The ability to absorb and organize the information in a comprehensive and usable manner for future reference is no less a formidable task. In this explosion of the " information age " brought on by the internet. A subject such as " Tolkien " because of just this wide depth presents a unique challenge not unlike other great and ( mythical ) literary authors and their works such as contained in the " western cannon "; from (the ancient on up to the modern ); Eastern not withstanding. As for myself; dependence on links to quality sites such as this and video clips have become almost indespensible to me in researching and understanding the new material. So I offer my apologies if my efforts may not quite be up to standard as to what may be common knowledge to others of very deep interest on this thread.

Cheers
What do I know? - Michael de Montaigne

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