{"id":88141,"date":"2014-03-31T11:21:35","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T16:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=88141"},"modified":"2014-03-31T11:21:35","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T16:21:35","slug":"the-theme-of-love-in-the-lord-of-the-rings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/03\/31\/88141-the-theme-of-love-in-the-lord-of-the-rings\/","title":{"rendered":"The theme of love in The Lord of the Rings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Arwen In our latest TORn library piece, Ringer Tedoras muses on the theme of love within Lord of the Rings, and how it’s more intricately– and subtly — woven into the text than we generally realise.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Love in The Lord of the Rings<\/h3>\n

By Tedoras<\/p>\n

The pages of The Lord of the Rings contain a wealth of timeless themes. In the context of the greater struggle between Good and Evil, stories of virtue, loyalty, courage, and certainly love abound. The theme of love, in particular, is so intricately woven into Tolkien\u2019s masterpiece that there is yet light to be shed on it.<\/p>\n

Much of what admirers of The Lord of the Rings know about the role of love in the story comes from the film adaptations, in which those more evident elements (being the relationships between Aragorn and Arwen, Frodo and Sam, and the members of the Fellowship in general) are highlighted. <\/p>\n

But Peter Jackson is not entirely to blame for pruning the Professor\u2019s work; for even as readers we have the tendency to overlook the subtleties of this pervasive theme, remembering by the end only the selfsame \u201csurface\u201d elements that Mr. Jackson has highlighted, one or two particularly solemn quotations from one of the Wise, and half a snippet from the narrator\u2019s many musings. <\/p>\n

Yet, it is in the lesser-known, often-overlooked passages that we find the literary gold (or mithril, if you will) that is the representation of love in The Lord of the Rings. <\/p>\n

In digging beneath these more well-known examples, we will discover just how fixed in the text the theme of love is. But, since the verisimilitudinous definition of love to which those \u201csurface\u201d elements lead us will be proved insufficient, we will also come to define love as Tolkien did (or at least reach a more lucid definition, if not his exact). We will note that the nidus of the theme of love lies not in those aforementioned exemplars (which many consider the quintessence of the theme), and that they are but the blossoming result of intricately woven roots that run many hundreds of pages deep. <\/p>\n

\"The
The Mirror of Galadriel by Alan Lee.<\/figcaption><\/figure> In laying the evidence, let us first journey to Lorien with the Fellowship, where some light can be shed on Tolkien\u2019s definition of love. As we know, one of the gifts of the Lady of the Wood are the famous cloaks now synonymous with the Company of the Ring. Upon receipt of his, Pippin, filled with awe at the sight, wonders if it is a \u201cmagic cloak\u201d (361). The response is quite poignant: <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I do not know what you mean by that,\u2019 answered the leader of the Elves. \u2018They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make\u2019\u201d (361).<\/p>\n

The most applicable part of this quotation, when it comes to defining love as Tolkien did, is how the Elves \u201cput the thought of all that [they] love into all that [they] make.\u201d Here we must mark Pippin\u2019s equation of love (and a work of love) with magic\u2014magic being an enchanting and plendiferous embodiment of the purest natural emotion, such as is not oft beheld in the world. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And magic is not at all a supernatural phenomenon to this Elf; it is, rather, in his whole conception, a spatio-temporally-natural thing, being inspired by\u2014and not distinct from\u2014the world around him. Thus, we can add to Tolkien\u2019s definition of love his own ideas on magic. This association between love and magic is also reinforced by Galadriel. At the Mirror, she tells Sam:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018And you?\u2019 she said, turning to Sam. \u2018For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy\u2019\u201d (350). <\/p>\n

Just as the aforementioned Elf, Galadriel cannot understand the hobbits\u2019 loose use of the word \u201cmagic.\u201d To her, it can only be linked to love, and works derived from love. She rejects wholly the notion that the term \u201cmagic\u201d can be preferentially applied, that it is not as clearly a part of the noumenal realm to others as it is to her. <\/p>\n

The distinction between the Enemy and those that oppose him is starkly framed in The Lord of the Rings; but, that it is a struggle between Love and Hate, beyond just Good and Evil, is manifested on a different textual level.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a bit as we journey south now, to Ithilien. The young master Faramir is walking in the woods with his newfound halfling captives, his wisdom (clearly beyond his years) on full display:<\/p>\n

\u201cWar must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Numenor, and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom\u201d (656). <\/p>\n

\"Faramir
Faramir by The Hildebrandt Brothers.<\/figcaption><\/figure> Here, Faramir shows a quality of such virtue and rarefied wisdom as we would normally prescribe to Gandalf. He proclaims, first, that he loves not a thing of war for how well it harms or kills, and he grudges fame as earned through such violent and wanton acts. Faramir goes to war never to rejoice in the glory of battle, to find joy in hateful acts (as, no doubt, the Enemy does), but to fight out of love: an abiding love for the beauty and august history of his native land. <\/p>\n

Whereas from hate the Enemy seeks to destroy, out of love Faramir seeks only to preserve. And yet another stark example comes to mind here. One of Aragorn\u2019s very first tasks as King is to judge the fate of Beregond (who, if you remember, fended off to of his own in the service of the Citadel to prevent them from burning Faramir alive). Aragorn knows that, of old, the penalty for Beregond\u2019s actions was death. However, what the King tells Beregond departs from this tradition:<\/p>\n

\u201cAll penalty is remitted for your valour in battle, and still more because all that you did was for the love of the Lord Faramir. Nonetheless you must leave the Guard of the Citadel, and you must go forth from the City of Minas Tirith…So it must be, for you are appointed to the White Company, the Guard of Faramir…in the service of him for whom you risked all, to save him from death\u201d (947-48).<\/p>\n

How Aragorn\u2019s decree relates to love is clear. But clearer still is another aspect of Tolkien\u2019s multi-faceted definition of love, which is seen best through Beregond\u2019s reaction as he, \u201cperceiving the mercy and justice of the King, was glad, and kneeling kissed his hand, and departed in joy and content\u201d (948). The Professor expounds (what he believes to be) the inherent righteousness of acts derived from or motivated by love. Certainly, Tolkien holds this notion very highly, for not only is Beregond not admonished for having killed a fellow countryman, he is rewarded by King Elessar.<\/p>\n

All in all, it appears that Tolkien\u2019s definition of love is truly complex. And while we can only postulate an exact definition (and such a definition can only remain conjectural), I believe the following is a safe guess: love entails a catharsis inspired or derived from beauty, existing either in nature itself or in human nature (where the principal catalysts are loyalty, trust, and mercy, amongst other interpersonal emotions). <\/p>\n

Rather complicated, right? Well, I believe that if we wanted to simplify the aforementioned definition, the Professor would want us to remember this: even in Middle-earth (which is filled with Elves and dragons and wizards), love remains the true \u201cmagic.\u201d <\/p>\n

All references to the text from:
\nThe Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, single-volume edition, Houghton Mifflin
\n(HarperCollins), 2001 (1994 edition of the text)<\/p>\n

Tedoras is a bibliophile, linguist, and regular attendee at TORn’s live weekly webcast. He splits his time between scouring the web for Tolkien books to add to his collection and the study of Chinese politics and public policy.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our latest TORn library piece, Ringer Tedoras muses on the theme of love within Lord of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":74686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[36,331,153,35,38,149,37,152],"tags":[1788],"class_list":["post-88141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fotr-book","category-greenbooks","category-tolkien-life","category-lotr-books","category-rotk-book","category-lotr","category-ttt-book","category-tolkien","tag-library"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Arwen-and-Elessar.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-mVD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88141"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88168,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88141\/revisions\/88168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}