Being Banned: a Sonnet - Page 2

On February 21 2014 01:49 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Freudian, Jungian, and in general psychoanalytic readings of Lord of the Rings/Tolkien are absurd.

On February 21 2014 02:52 Japhybaby wrote:


No it's a legitimate way to study theme and character in work that is not "serious" literature. Whether one agrees with the "studies" and the "information" they yield is up to that person.

You "make" no sense in this "post."

how did that shakespeare vs tolkien thing even happen? its like.. shakespeare is a poet of voice and texture and an inventor of grammar. One would be better off to say Hemingway or Joyce or Blake. I'm not really into poetry at all. My ear for poetry is like a feather, in the wind. Like most, I don't really care.

Ok.

Tolkien did write verse too, eh? I think Shakespeare had a lot of variety in his writing. think of the witches in macbeth "double double toil and trouble" not so different from the similarly fear-invoking "chip the glasses/and crack the plates" but somehow less... magical?

Tolkien wrote verse, but it was certainly inferior to Shakespeare's verse. In addition to what verse there was in his plays (and there is a lot, sometimes disguised), Shakespeare also wrote 154 sonnets and five long poems. They're indisputably of greater merit and importance than any verse Tolkien wrote, which is fine and not a mark against Tolkien at all.

Anyways most of the "big names" when speaking of a good writer is someone who was distinctively original in a style. To me Tolkien's prose doesn't have much originality.

You incorrectly separate style and substance. There can be distinctions drawn, but a clear separation is quite impossible, and they are both part of writing.Tolkien's innovation of substance is not to be discredited, which contributes to the overall originality of his writing.

With that said, there is also nothing inherently good about novelty and originality. Indeed, you can challenge that Tolkien is not necessarily wholly original in a lot of his concepts - you can trace a great majority of his stories to ancient legends, myths, fairy tales, and even fantasy novels that came before him. It is the way that he takes the familiar and recombines them into something new that creates a novel work of art. It's not something that is traditionally conceived of as originality, but it is no less groundbreaking.

Myself I like prose that is simple but still challenges my focus and can show me some good use of english to explain shit. My favourite writers are Kazuo Ishiguro, Alice Munro, Ernest Hemingway and Herman Hesse.

Nothing wrong with that and to each his own, but might I venture to suggest that complex, probing prose is just as capable of showing what the written word can do? There has been, over the past few decades, an obsession with reducing everything to bare basics, and it is frankly naive and misguided, especially when parroted by those who aren't fully aware of the context for this trend. You yourself acknowledge Joyce to be one of the greats, and his prose is certainly not simple by any stretch of the imagination.

My favourite poet is Geoffrey Chaucer. It's very good but it's in couplets so I don't need to be stress un stressing through iambs and dactylls.

I'm not sure what you mean here. There is nothing mutually exclusive between coupleted verse and iambs or dactyls or any other foot. in addition, I have to point out that Chaucer wrote in Middle English, which has not insignificant differences in pronunciation compared to Modern English. You are reading, essentially, a work in translation when reading his works such as the Canterbury Tales, and no matter how faithful a translation is, it is impossible to simultaneously preserve both sound and meaning.