1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,120 Speaker 1: In that way, we can kind of see what Tolkien 2 00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:07,040 is doing as this great project to create a body 3 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:11,919 of stories for the English that has room for. 4 00:00:11,919 --> 00:00:12,800 Speaker 2: Someone like him. 5 00:00:13,119 --> 00:00:17,679 Speaker 1: So Tolkien begins this project, and what I want to 6 00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:20,800 argue and lay out to you is that Tolkien's project 7 00:00:20,839 --> 00:00:26,679 is a perfect test case, a proofcase, a demonstration, a 8 00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:32,359 practical demonstration of how we as modern people can use 9 00:00:32,920 --> 00:00:35,759 the themes that we've been talking about in Universal History 10 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:39,920 to tell stories and kind of reclaim a mythical, cosmic 11 00:00:40,439 --> 00:00:42,159 vision of Christian storytelling. 12 00:00:53,920 --> 00:01:08,959 Speaker 2: This is Jonathan Bejel Welcome to the Symbolic World. Hello. 13 00:01:09,239 --> 00:01:11,599 Speaker 1: My name is Richard Roland with Symbolic World Press. And 14 00:01:11,640 --> 00:01:14,239 you may be wondering a couple of things, like, for instance, 15 00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:18,079 where is Jonathan Pagot Well, the answer to that question 16 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:20,560 is that he's on the road and can't come to 17 00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:23,840 the camera right now. You may also be wondering exactly 18 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:27,200 where I am. I don't have my normal background here 19 00:01:27,239 --> 00:01:29,120 that you're probably used to seeing if you watch the 20 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:32,599 Universal History videos that Jonathan and I do together. Some 21 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:38,200 people refer to it as my Greek diner background, but 22 00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:41,599 actually no, I'm in the new recording studio and it's 23 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:43,560 not finished yet. As you can see, I still have 24 00:01:44,799 --> 00:01:47,560 well you know, it's got walls and that's about it. 25 00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:51,319 But I'm really excited about what this studio is going 26 00:01:51,359 --> 00:01:54,640 to allow me to do for Symbolic World. We're going 27 00:01:54,719 --> 00:01:58,400 to be taping and betting walls and painting them and 28 00:01:58,439 --> 00:02:00,319 installing studio lighting and there's to be. 29 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:02,200 Speaker 2: Awesome bookshelf back there. 30 00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:05,120 Speaker 1: And that's the only way that you'll know I'm actually 31 00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:07,120 an intellectual is if you can see the bookshelf behind 32 00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:10,919 me when I talk. So in all seriousness, i am 33 00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:14,639 here today Solow, not all nervous about it. Thank you 34 00:02:14,719 --> 00:02:17,520 for asking, But I'm here today solo to talk about 35 00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:19,759 a subject that's near and dear to my heart. And 36 00:02:19,759 --> 00:02:22,800 then also a new course. It'll actually be our next 37 00:02:22,879 --> 00:02:27,120 course for Symbolic World Courses, and I'm going to be 38 00:02:27,159 --> 00:02:29,360 teaching it and it's going to be awesome. So, without 39 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:33,120 beating around the bush, the course is called Tolkien and 40 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:40,879 Universal History, and the tagline is a little it's a 41 00:02:40,919 --> 00:02:43,919 little cheeky actually in ways that most people won't catch 42 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:46,759 catch because the tagline is the Symbolic World goes to 43 00:02:46,759 --> 00:02:49,439 Middle Earth. But of course, if you know anything about 44 00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:53,719 Anglo Saxon culture, Old Norse culture. If you know anything 45 00:02:53,719 --> 00:02:57,240 about Jonathan's whole ideas of the symbolic world, right, you'll know, 46 00:02:57,319 --> 00:02:59,439 of course that Middle Earth is our Earth, the earth 47 00:02:59,439 --> 00:03:02,159 on which we live, this realm between heaven. 48 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:03,159 Speaker 2: And the world below. 49 00:03:04,319 --> 00:03:07,439 Speaker 1: And you'll know that that is, of course the symbolic world, 50 00:03:07,479 --> 00:03:10,919 the kind of cosmological project that Jonathan has been undertaking 51 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:13,199 on this channel for the last several years. So the 52 00:03:13,199 --> 00:03:15,319 symbolic World goes to Middle Earth. Think of it as 53 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:19,159 a return to yourself, a return to your roots. And 54 00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:22,080 in some ways I want to kind of pick up 55 00:03:22,159 --> 00:03:25,000 the well. I can't pick up the mantle that doctor 56 00:03:25,039 --> 00:03:28,039 Martin Shaw left because I'm not going to be able 57 00:03:28,039 --> 00:03:29,280 to do it the way that he did it. But 58 00:03:29,319 --> 00:03:30,479 I'm going to do it the way that I can 59 00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:33,319 do it, and hopefully some of you will be on 60 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,199 board for that. So let me talk about this course 61 00:03:36,719 --> 00:03:40,280 and introduce this idea, this ven diagram overlap of Tolkien 62 00:03:40,879 --> 00:03:47,120 and his legendarium and universal history. I think that we 63 00:03:47,199 --> 00:03:53,400 all know that Tolkien accomplished something in his lifetime and 64 00:03:53,439 --> 00:03:59,680 in his storytelling endeavors that basically is unique. Nobody really 65 00:03:59,719 --> 00:04:02,879 sent Tolkien's time has been able to do the things 66 00:04:02,919 --> 00:04:06,000 that he did, and I'm not saying there aren't some 67 00:04:06,319 --> 00:04:10,520 good ones out there. As a little kind of a 68 00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:14,919 sneak preview, sometime later this year, I intend to do 69 00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:19,480 a course on modern fantasy with Father Deacon Nicholas Kotar. 70 00:04:19,519 --> 00:04:22,120 In fact, this course is sort of the the dipping 71 00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:23,879 the toe in the water to see what the interest 72 00:04:23,959 --> 00:04:26,319 level is for this kind of thing on the symbolic world. 73 00:04:26,399 --> 00:04:29,439 But and when we do that, we're going to look 74 00:04:29,439 --> 00:04:33,240 at fantasy after Tolkien and what's the good stuff, what's 75 00:04:33,279 --> 00:04:35,439 the bad stuff? But I think one of the questions 76 00:04:35,439 --> 00:04:38,360 that you'd have to ask is why have we really 77 00:04:38,439 --> 00:04:42,240 struggled to put out anything with the same enduring quality 78 00:04:42,319 --> 00:04:45,319 as The Lord of the Rings. Let me explain what 79 00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:49,560 I mean by that. There's obviously there's other fantasy. I'm 80 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:53,160 a huge fan, for instance, of Jonathan Strange and Mister 81 00:04:53,199 --> 00:04:56,720 Noral by Susannah Clark. That's a really delightful book that 82 00:04:57,079 --> 00:04:58,879 you should all read if you haven't read, and so 83 00:04:58,959 --> 00:05:03,480 definitely one that will becover in our course on modern fantasy. Obviously, 84 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:05,759 I'm a huge fan of the Narnia books and I'm 85 00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:08,439 a huge fan of some other things that have come 86 00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:14,079 out in the fantasy genre since Tolkien's time. There's also, obviously, 87 00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:17,040 you could say books like Harry Potter, series like Harry Potter, 88 00:05:17,079 --> 00:05:21,399 which I don't hate, so don't come at me, potter heads, 89 00:05:21,439 --> 00:05:22,399 what do you call yourselves? 90 00:05:22,399 --> 00:05:22,759 Speaker 2: Anyway? 91 00:05:22,959 --> 00:05:25,560 Speaker 1: I don't hate Harry Potter, but it's not my favorite thing. 92 00:05:26,319 --> 00:05:32,120 And obviously there are some fantasy series like The Wheel 93 00:05:32,120 --> 00:05:35,279 of Time so on have been successful just in terms 94 00:05:35,279 --> 00:05:39,040 of like selling books and making money for their authors. 95 00:05:39,160 --> 00:05:40,680 Speaker 2: Right, obviously, you know JK. 96 00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:46,600 Speaker 1: Rowling is fabulously wealthy. But the success of a book 97 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:50,399 is really measured by how long will it endure? What 98 00:05:50,519 --> 00:05:53,399 is its enduring quality? Will people continue to read it 99 00:05:53,480 --> 00:05:56,560 in one hundred years, in two hundred years, in five 100 00:05:56,639 --> 00:05:59,879 hundred years. Well, I can't really predict what people will 101 00:05:59,879 --> 00:06:02,360 be reading in five hundred years, or if people even 102 00:06:02,399 --> 00:06:04,279 still know how to read in five hundred years for 103 00:06:04,319 --> 00:06:09,000 that matter, but I feel pretty confidence saying that Tolkien's 104 00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:11,639 Lord of the Rings will be read one hundred years 105 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:16,360 after its publication, and probably two hundred years after its publication. Narnia, 106 00:06:16,360 --> 00:06:18,680 I think will continue to be read for you know, 107 00:06:18,879 --> 00:06:21,199 one hundred years after its publication. Will it make it 108 00:06:21,319 --> 00:06:24,639 the two three hundred year mark. I'm not sure. And 109 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:26,959 a lot of other things published in the last century, 110 00:06:27,079 --> 00:06:29,279 things that you could say published since The Hobbit came out. 111 00:06:29,399 --> 00:06:31,360 Speaker 2: Let's say that's the kind of the beginning. 112 00:06:31,720 --> 00:06:33,879 Speaker 1: It's not the first work of Christian fantasy literature, but 113 00:06:33,920 --> 00:06:36,959 it's a helpful kind of mark for the first time 114 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:39,879 somebody realized this was going to be really commercially successful. 115 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:42,160 Not that The Hobbit sold a lot of copies by 116 00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:45,199 modern standards, but it was basically a best seller by 117 00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:50,240 the standards of its time. All this to say, when 118 00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:53,560 I say that people have struggled to imitate Tolkien, what 119 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:57,079 I mean is that when people write, when people write books, 120 00:06:57,120 --> 00:06:59,639 tell stories, and they try to do it in the 121 00:06:59,639 --> 00:07:02,639 same that Tolkien did it, everybody sort of feels like, oh, 122 00:07:02,639 --> 00:07:04,800 there's some kind of a formula that Tolkien laid out. 123 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:06,439 It's got to have the elves, it's got to have 124 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:08,639 the dwarves, it's got to have the halflings, it's got 125 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:11,439 to have the you know, things like that, things. 126 00:07:11,199 --> 00:07:11,839 Speaker 2: Of that nature. 127 00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:16,839 Speaker 1: But what ends up happening is that his imitators, and 128 00:07:16,879 --> 00:07:19,600 I'm very sorry to say. Sometimes it feels like, especially 129 00:07:19,639 --> 00:07:23,800 his more overtly Christian imitators, fall apart. And here is 130 00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:29,000 a serious challenge to things that I've said and things 131 00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:30,399 that other people have said. 132 00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:32,000 Speaker 2: I mean, for instance, on the Amman. 133 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:33,759 Speaker 1: Sul podcast, which I was the co host of for 134 00:07:33,800 --> 00:07:37,639 several years, which is that the key to understanding Tolkien's 135 00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:40,279 Middle Earth is his deep Catholicism. Now I still believe 136 00:07:40,319 --> 00:07:42,920 that's true, but if that were the only thing going on, 137 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:46,560 obviously the idea would be that that, well, you could 138 00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:48,839 have a lot more of the sort of thing going on. 139 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:54,399 So I think that one of the missing keys here 140 00:07:54,720 --> 00:07:58,720 is the connection between Tolkien and what he's doing and 141 00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:02,120 universal his So I want to read a little excerpt 142 00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:05,560 to you from something Tolkien fans are already aware of. 143 00:08:06,199 --> 00:08:10,600 It's called the Letter to Milton Waldman, or, if you're 144 00:08:10,639 --> 00:08:14,959 a nerd, letter one thirty one. So Tolkien's letters were collected, 145 00:08:14,959 --> 00:08:17,439 they were numbered, So letter one hundred and thirty one 146 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:20,560 is the famous Milton Waldman Letter, which something in its 147 00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:23,959 original something like ten thousand words. I mean, it's basically 148 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:26,839 a short novel and it's kind of a pitch or 149 00:08:26,879 --> 00:08:30,040 a sketch for the mythology, the thing that Tolkien is doing, 150 00:08:30,079 --> 00:08:32,399 the thing that we now refer to as his legendarium. 151 00:08:32,919 --> 00:08:34,720 By the way, the other day I had a conversation 152 00:08:34,840 --> 00:08:38,039 with John hears Over on his channel which is now 153 00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:41,000 called Heavy Things Lightly. I kind of like, though, why 154 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:43,600 are we talking about Rabbit's title, But in any case, 155 00:08:43,639 --> 00:08:47,080 that's what he's renamed the show too. And if you 156 00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:49,519 were there at the Symbolic World summit, oh my goodness, 157 00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:52,440 almost a year ago. Now, if you were there at 158 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:55,080 the Symbolic World summit, you'll know that he roasted basically 159 00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:58,240 everybody who's presenting there at the summit, including you know, 160 00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:01,000 Jonathan Pagoe and Father's d de Youong and so on. 161 00:09:01,399 --> 00:09:03,200 And then he had a roast for me and he 162 00:09:03,360 --> 00:09:06,240 forgot it. But apparently his roast, which I've been trying 163 00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:08,799 to get him out of him ever since, was something 164 00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:12,080 about people who use words like legendarium and just assume. 165 00:09:11,799 --> 00:09:13,720 Speaker 2: That everybody knows what you're talking about. 166 00:09:13,919 --> 00:09:16,559 Speaker 1: So the term legendarium is a term that we use 167 00:09:17,279 --> 00:09:19,919 kind of in Tolkien circles, people who are fans, people 168 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:23,679 who are scholars of Tolkien's writings to refer to Tolkien's 169 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:29,919 works around Arta, around Middle Earth as a whole, So 170 00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:32,279 he kind of gives a sketch for the Legendarium in 171 00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:36,120 this letter, and this is what he says. I had 172 00:09:36,159 --> 00:09:38,919 a mind to make a body of more or less 173 00:09:38,960 --> 00:09:42,080 connected legend ranging from the large and cosmogonic to the 174 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:46,120 level of romantic fairy story. The larger founded on the 175 00:09:46,159 --> 00:09:49,919 lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendor 176 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:54,039 from the vast backcloths, which I could dedicate simply to England, 177 00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:57,799 to my country. I would draw some of the great 178 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:00,440 tales in fullness and leave many only play. In this 179 00:10:00,519 --> 00:10:04,519 scheme and sketched the cycles should be linked to a 180 00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:08,639 majestic hole, and yet leave scope for other minds and 181 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:14,600 hands wielding paint and music and drama. So this is 182 00:10:14,799 --> 00:10:19,039 Tolkien's kind of original conception when he starts working on 183 00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:21,600 a legendarian, or at least this is how he is 184 00:10:21,639 --> 00:10:25,159 remembering it when he's writing this letter in nineteen fifty one. 185 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:28,360 Tolkien's recollections, if you study him closely, you'll see are 186 00:10:28,399 --> 00:10:31,720 not always one hundred percent accurate, as most of our 187 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,279 ours aren't, Or at least you know he may get 188 00:10:35,279 --> 00:10:37,519 the spirit of something, but you know, doesn't quite nail 189 00:10:37,519 --> 00:10:39,399 all the facts because it's been several years and he's 190 00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:41,559 going off of memory. 191 00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:41,879 Speaker 2: Now. 192 00:10:41,919 --> 00:10:46,519 Speaker 1: He goes right after this to say, my crest has 193 00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:50,399 long since fallen. In other words, he feels like he 194 00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:53,200 was probably biting off more than he could chew in 195 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:56,320 those days, and now he's he's really just hoping to 196 00:10:56,360 --> 00:10:57,720 get the Silmarilian published. 197 00:10:57,720 --> 00:10:59,000 Speaker 2: That's the context for this letter. 198 00:10:59,759 --> 00:11:06,159 Speaker 1: So this idea, though right, does not focus on where 199 00:11:06,279 --> 00:11:08,519 Tolkien feels like he succeeded or failed, but rather on 200 00:11:08,559 --> 00:11:11,320 what the what the initial play was, what the initial 201 00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:16,840 goal was, to build a body of connected legend. You've 202 00:11:16,879 --> 00:11:20,960 got cosmic stories and then also what he calls romantic 203 00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:24,120 fairy stories. So a romance story is like an adventure story, 204 00:11:24,399 --> 00:11:29,159 and a fairy story has well technically for our purposes today, 205 00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:33,600 it has fairies in it, or elves as Tolkien later 206 00:11:33,639 --> 00:11:38,639 calls them. The larger founded on the lesser in contact 207 00:11:38,639 --> 00:11:41,960 with the earth, and the lesser drawing splendor from the 208 00:11:42,039 --> 00:11:45,000 vast back class. And by the way, usually we think 209 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:46,639 it would be the other way around. You would start 210 00:11:46,679 --> 00:11:51,480 with the larger stories, like the big cosmic stuff. Usually 211 00:11:51,519 --> 00:11:57,039 the first time anybody sits down to imitate Tolkien, the 212 00:11:57,080 --> 00:11:59,480 first thing they do is try to rewrite their own 213 00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:02,320 version of of you know, Tolkien's creation story the I 214 00:12:02,399 --> 00:12:05,600 know Lindele And actually what Tolkien is saying is that 215 00:12:05,639 --> 00:12:08,320 the larger stuff, the larger cosmic stuff, is actually founded 216 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:11,080 on the lesser in contact with the earth. But then 217 00:12:11,080 --> 00:12:15,240 that the lesser draws splendor from the vast backcloths. Exactly 218 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:18,440 what he meant by this, the lesser in contact with 219 00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:21,039 the earth is something that we will be exploring in 220 00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:24,279 this new course. He says, I would draw some from 221 00:12:24,279 --> 00:12:26,840 the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed 222 00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:29,039 in the scheme and sketched. And of course the whole 223 00:12:29,039 --> 00:12:31,799 thing is supposed to be dedicated quite simply, as he says, 224 00:12:31,879 --> 00:12:38,759 to my country, to England. Now why would he say 225 00:12:39,399 --> 00:12:44,399 this in this particular way. People who are aware or 226 00:12:44,399 --> 00:12:46,799 have read, you know, the rest of this letter will 227 00:12:46,799 --> 00:12:49,679 know that one of the things that Tolkien does in 228 00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:51,720 this letter and in some of the other places that 229 00:12:51,759 --> 00:12:56,600 he writes, is that he is critical of the Arthurian legends. 230 00:12:57,440 --> 00:13:00,399 What's very commonly called the matter of Britain, which we've 231 00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:03,399 spoken about here on the symbolic world, and in fact, 232 00:13:03,399 --> 00:13:05,159 over on the Grey Tales podcast, which is a new 233 00:13:05,159 --> 00:13:07,879 podcast I'm doing here on YouTube with father Andrew Stephen Damk. 234 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:10,159 We're actually right in the middle of a series on 235 00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:14,279 the Grail. If you're a longtime Universal History listener, you'll 236 00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:16,879 be familiar with most of the content, although there is 237 00:13:16,919 --> 00:13:17,559 some new stuff. 238 00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:22,200 Speaker 2: So why is Tolkien critical? 239 00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:24,480 Speaker 1: In fact, Tolkien says something that's like a little shocking 240 00:13:24,480 --> 00:13:28,200 and scandalous, and certainly like you know, later readers of Tolkien, 241 00:13:28,279 --> 00:13:30,120 especially readers who are of a kind of like a 242 00:13:30,759 --> 00:13:35,720 neopagan or you know, an atheist, or you know, just 243 00:13:35,759 --> 00:13:37,840 want to make the story into a secular story. People 244 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:40,559 of that kind of bent will take things that Tolkien 245 00:13:40,679 --> 00:13:46,799 said about the Arthurian legends and how they are sort 246 00:13:46,799 --> 00:13:50,639 of fatally Christian right, and they'll say, oh, look, see 247 00:13:50,679 --> 00:13:53,559 Tolkien didn't want religion, he didn't want Christianity. He wasn't 248 00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:55,840 really I've seen people go so far as I say, 249 00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:59,159 and this is absolutely not true, and it is easily 250 00:13:59,159 --> 00:14:03,000 false afiable, But I've seen people go so far as 251 00:14:03,039 --> 00:14:05,960 to say that Tolkien wasn't really a Christian, he was 252 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:08,360 just kind of culturally Catholic, but he was actually really 253 00:14:08,480 --> 00:14:11,600 kind of like a secret pagan or a cryptopagan. Well, 254 00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:14,559 as I said, this is easily falsifiable. Nothing could be 255 00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:17,399 further from the truth. And in fact, I think that 256 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:21,039 it needs to be remembered that to have been a 257 00:14:21,159 --> 00:14:25,399 Roman Catholic in England when Tolkien lived, especially when he 258 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:30,480 was young, was not a culturally easy or simple thing. 259 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:32,360 And here, I think is where we can kind of 260 00:14:32,440 --> 00:14:35,159 understand what he means when he talks about, you know, 261 00:14:35,279 --> 00:14:38,120 his sort of problems with the Arthurian legends, although he 262 00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:42,120 will actually try to rewrite them and incorporate them into 263 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:44,679 Middle Earth. That's also something we'll talk about in the course. 264 00:14:45,799 --> 00:14:54,840 But the Arthurian legends, and especially the legend concerning Joseph 265 00:14:54,919 --> 00:14:58,159 of Arimathea, which is a late addition to the matter 266 00:14:58,159 --> 00:15:00,159 of Britain, but is a very important part of of 267 00:15:00,519 --> 00:15:05,120 later retellings. This legend that Joseph of Arimathea came to 268 00:15:06,759 --> 00:15:08,320 that he came to the island of Britain with the 269 00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:12,440 infant Christ right and you know, left the roundtable there, 270 00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:16,159 among other things, maybe brought the Holy Grail there later on. 271 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:22,200 And anyway, this set of legends was a very important 272 00:15:22,200 --> 00:15:27,919 part of the English Reformation because essentially what Elizabeth's court 273 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:33,039 theologians did is they used it as basically proof when 274 00:15:33,039 --> 00:15:35,480 they were talking to the ambassadors from Rome. They used it, 275 00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:39,320 cited it as an example to say that actually, there 276 00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:42,159 have been Christians in Britain longer than there's been Christians 277 00:15:42,159 --> 00:15:44,720 in Rome. And therefore, you know that the Roman the 278 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:48,720 British Church or the English Church was something that was 279 00:15:50,159 --> 00:15:52,879 that was kind of separate from you know, and had 280 00:15:52,879 --> 00:15:56,240 its own claims to apostolic succession that didn't have anything. 281 00:15:55,879 --> 00:15:58,000 Speaker 2: To do with Rome or the authority of the Pope. 282 00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:04,720 Speaker 1: So the Arthurian material in Britain when Tolkien was growing up, 283 00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:06,440 and of course noticed by the way that Tolkien says 284 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:09,559 England not Britain. I don't want to get into this 285 00:16:09,639 --> 00:16:14,639 right now. It's a whole thing, but it's funny because 286 00:16:14,639 --> 00:16:18,639 Tolkien certainly wasn't anti Celtic. He really feels this deep 287 00:16:18,679 --> 00:16:21,399 affinity with Welsh culture and language, and in fact, one 288 00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:24,120 of his invented languages, which are going to spend quite 289 00:16:24,159 --> 00:16:25,960 a bit of time talking about in the course, one 290 00:16:26,039 --> 00:16:30,200 of his invented languages is based heavily upon the phonology 291 00:16:30,399 --> 00:16:34,279 of medieval Welsh, but in any case, he says England, 292 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:44,360 not Britain. In Tolkien's life lifetime, the Arthurian material had 293 00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:47,279 become very very closely associated with the Church of England 294 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:51,279 and Tolkien as a Roman Catholic. And it should be 295 00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:54,039 said he was the son of a woman who had 296 00:16:54,039 --> 00:16:58,840 converted to Roman Catholicism and then been essentially abandoned by 297 00:16:59,519 --> 00:17:02,759 her family after doing so. And so when his father died, 298 00:17:02,799 --> 00:17:06,400 she you know, died very quickly after. And Tolkien, through 299 00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:09,119 the rest of his life always considered his mother to 300 00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:11,880 have been a martyr for the faith. This is how 301 00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:14,880 he thought about her. And so there seems to have 302 00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:18,720 been kind of maybe some difficulty there, some distance that 303 00:17:18,759 --> 00:17:22,519 Tolkien felt between himself and the Arthurian stories that I 304 00:17:22,559 --> 00:17:26,160 think has something to do with also the distance that 305 00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:30,680 he felt from the distance that he felt from, you know, 306 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:34,559 the Church of England, and the ways that English legends 307 00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:37,119 had been kind of used to sort of bolster the 308 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:39,799 claims of the Church of England in the early modern 309 00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,000 period against the Roman Catholic Church. Is this is something 310 00:17:43,039 --> 00:17:45,440 I haven't really actually talked about a lot, but Tolkien 311 00:17:45,559 --> 00:17:48,519 does write about it in his letters, and we'll get 312 00:17:48,519 --> 00:17:49,920 into a little bit of this in the course, but 313 00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:51,720 you can also kind of read between the lines and 314 00:17:51,759 --> 00:17:54,720 some of his interactions with Lewis. There's always this gulf 315 00:17:54,799 --> 00:18:00,200 between them because that Lewis couldn't cross, and that King 316 00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:01,880 always felt and this is what he said, he always 317 00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:06,359 felt like there was something that was really keeping Lewis 318 00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:11,680 from entering wholeheartedly into the Middle Ages and wholeheartedly into 319 00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:14,680 the kind of storytelling that Tolkien liked. Now, I want 320 00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:16,960 to just hasten to say that Lewis was an extremely 321 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,920 generous friend, but this does seem to have been kind 322 00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:23,839 of a gulf that existed between them. So in that 323 00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:27,640 way we can kind of see what Tolkien is doing 324 00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:33,440 as this great project to create a body of stories 325 00:18:35,799 --> 00:18:42,640 for the English that has room for someone like him. 326 00:18:42,799 --> 00:18:43,400 Speaker 2: I mean, the. 327 00:18:45,039 --> 00:18:48,880 Speaker 1: Situation when Tolkien was at Oxford was that the Catholics 328 00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:51,160 had to sit down at the bottom of the you know, 329 00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:54,160 if you're in the dining hall, like they would put 330 00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:56,640 the Catholics and the Jews at the far table at 331 00:18:56,680 --> 00:19:00,480 the end of the hall, right, and so Tolkien, you know, 332 00:19:00,599 --> 00:19:04,720 definitely experienced discrimination, and he definitely experienced you know, quite 333 00:19:04,759 --> 00:19:09,759 a bit of difficulty during his life, just owing to 334 00:19:10,119 --> 00:19:12,640 owing to the kind of the latent prejudice against Roman 335 00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:14,680 Catholics that was still going on in England at the time. 336 00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:23,559 So Tolkien begins this project, and what I want to 337 00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:27,039 kind of argue and lay out to you is that 338 00:19:27,079 --> 00:19:32,000 Tolkien's project is a perfect test case, a proof case, 339 00:19:32,599 --> 00:19:38,880 a demonstration, a practical demonstration of how we as modern 340 00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:42,880 people can use the themes that we've been talking about 341 00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:46,680 in universal history to tell stories and kind of reclaim 342 00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:52,400 a mythical, cosmic vision of Christian storytelling. There have been 343 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:55,279 a lot of really great Christian There was a lot 344 00:19:55,279 --> 00:19:57,960 of great Christian literature written in the nineteenth in the 345 00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:04,119 twentieth century, a lot of great Catholic literature literature, a 346 00:20:04,160 --> 00:20:07,279 lot of great Orthodox literature, a lot of great Protestant literature. 347 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:10,480 But most of it was what we would now consider 348 00:20:10,559 --> 00:20:13,160 to be literary fiction, which is kind of a snobby 349 00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:17,319 term and I don't really care for it personally, But basically, 350 00:20:17,319 --> 00:20:20,079 these are realistic stories about realistic people and kind of 351 00:20:20,079 --> 00:20:24,960 realistic situations, or you know, at least ostensibly realistic situations. 352 00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:30,160 But what Tolkien did is he took the fairy tale. 353 00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:32,039 He took the fairy tale and the sort of the 354 00:20:32,079 --> 00:20:36,200 genre of Christian fairy tale and what we would maybe 355 00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:41,680 now call Christian fantasy. Although you know, it really begins 356 00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:43,480 with a guy named George MacDonald who we have a 357 00:20:43,480 --> 00:20:45,640 book Symbolic World Press as a book about him and 358 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:48,559 other Christian fantasy authors coming out later this year. It's 359 00:20:48,599 --> 00:20:52,720 called Finding the Golden Key Recovery Essays Towards Recovering the 360 00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:56,799 Sacramental Imagination. Nice long, cashy title, and it's going to 361 00:20:56,839 --> 00:21:00,400 be really beautiful. We've got the art done for it 362 00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:03,319 by Hugh Rose and the essays are all in and 363 00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,440 we're just in the final stage of editing and layout, 364 00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:08,440 so I hope to have a good announcement on that 365 00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:11,880 book soon. But in any case, George McDonald kind of 366 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,200 begins that genre of storytelling, you know, as a as 367 00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:18,759 a Christian mode you could say, of storytelling. He's the 368 00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:21,920 grandfather sometimes people call them the grandfather of the Inklings. 369 00:21:25,839 --> 00:21:27,519 Speaker 2: McDonald's works probably don't. 370 00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:31,640 Speaker 1: Quite rise to the level of fair fantasy the way 371 00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:33,400 that we think about it today, where it's like this 372 00:21:33,559 --> 00:21:36,160 totally you know, it's like it's an other world with 373 00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:39,440 distinct races and cultures, and you know, the level of 374 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:42,119 world building that Tolkien does, which basically becomes the gold 375 00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:46,839 standard for fantasy from that point forward. Is really does 376 00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:50,279 begin with Tolkien. And what I want to kind of 377 00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:56,240 argue is that he does this as an attempt to 378 00:21:56,279 --> 00:22:01,039 create a work of universal history. This concept, this concept 379 00:22:01,079 --> 00:22:03,559 that I just read to you from the Waldman letter, 380 00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,559 is sometimes called Tolkien ever called it this, by the way, 381 00:22:06,599 --> 00:22:10,000 but some of his biographers and Tolkien' scholars have called 382 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:14,799 it his idea of a mythology for England. I don't 383 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:20,440 totally like that nomenclature for a couple of reasons, which 384 00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:21,680 we'll talk about in the course. 385 00:22:22,240 --> 00:22:24,759 Speaker 2: But what I want to basically. 386 00:22:24,319 --> 00:22:26,200 Speaker 1: Just suggest is that the idea of it being a 387 00:22:26,319 --> 00:22:30,200 universal history for England is maybe a better idea and 388 00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:35,400 takes into account the scope and the kinds of stories 389 00:22:35,839 --> 00:22:39,200 that Tolkien was trying to tell better than the idea 390 00:22:39,279 --> 00:22:43,000 of it being a mythology. So I'll explain more about that, 391 00:22:43,039 --> 00:22:45,079 I'll try to justify that in the course, but that's 392 00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:47,440 the basic idea. I think that Tolkien shows us the 393 00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:50,880 way that we can use universal history to recover a 394 00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:57,839 Christian mythic storytelling. So one of the main things that 395 00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:01,599 Tolkien is doing is, of course, is that he's trying to. 396 00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:03,680 Speaker 2: Well, one of the. 397 00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,039 Speaker 1: Things he's doing is he's trying to rehabilitate the elves, 398 00:23:06,079 --> 00:23:09,200 He's trying to rehabilitate the fairies. He's trying to rehabilitate 399 00:23:09,279 --> 00:23:13,400 these kind of ambiguous figures that are there in the 400 00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:17,920 back of the English consciousness and the British consciousness, who 401 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:24,039 are sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes helpful, always dangerous right, 402 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:28,440 and certainly occupy this ambiguous place in legend. And Tolkien 403 00:23:28,519 --> 00:23:32,759 knows this, and Tolkien tries to rehabilitate them while also 404 00:23:32,839 --> 00:23:36,359 retaining their sense of danger. And in some respects he's 405 00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:43,720 been too successful, because, as everybody knows, elves are extremely dangerous, 406 00:23:43,759 --> 00:23:46,599 and Tolkien's elves are so beautiful and great and wonderful 407 00:23:46,759 --> 00:23:49,519 that people often forget that elves are extremely dangerous, and 408 00:23:49,599 --> 00:23:54,279 so in subsequent stories imitating them, you know, the elves 409 00:23:54,279 --> 00:23:59,480 are you know, much more positive figures very often. But 410 00:23:59,559 --> 00:24:03,240 it's it's one of the things that I love about Tolkien, 411 00:24:03,279 --> 00:24:04,920 and you get this in Lewis as well, is the 412 00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:08,680 idea that something could be beautiful and dangerous, right, but 413 00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:12,640 We talked about this, I think a little bit in 414 00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,240 the Beowolf course, But there is at the beginning of 415 00:24:16,279 --> 00:24:18,960 the Beowolf poem, or towards the beginning of the Beowolf poem, 416 00:24:19,079 --> 00:24:22,599 there's a list of the evil creatures, the monsters descended 417 00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:23,920 from the line of Kane. 418 00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:26,720 Speaker 2: Some of them are orcs and elves. 419 00:24:27,599 --> 00:24:29,680 Speaker 1: And so what Tolkien does is he tries to actually 420 00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,680 draw a distinction between those two things and says, hey, 421 00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,440 all these guys got lumped together, and you're not wrong 422 00:24:35,519 --> 00:24:38,000 to think they're related in some way, But there is 423 00:24:38,039 --> 00:24:41,359 a sort of good a good fairy or a good elf, 424 00:24:41,519 --> 00:24:45,079 or at least one that has goals and desires that 425 00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:48,799 are not totally or should not be totally abhorrent to 426 00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,039 human beings. So this is one of the things that 427 00:24:51,079 --> 00:24:54,559 he does, and the way that he basically does it 428 00:24:54,640 --> 00:25:00,680 is to take these elements from the pagan mythologies and 429 00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:02,880 the sort of the pre Christian mythologies, and then also 430 00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:07,400 the kind of like the surviving folk you could say, 431 00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:13,839 like for surviving folk religion or surviving folk beliefs about fairies, dwarfs, elves, ogres, 432 00:25:13,839 --> 00:25:16,359 et cetera, and tries to take those things and kind 433 00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:20,720 of synthesize them into a philological framework. Now I'll come 434 00:25:20,759 --> 00:25:22,759 back to the idea of the framework in a moment, 435 00:25:24,079 --> 00:25:26,799 but I think that this is a particularly sort of 436 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,720 universal history move right. One of the things that universal 437 00:25:29,799 --> 00:25:33,240 history is always trying to do is to say, how 438 00:25:33,279 --> 00:25:36,839 can I take my pre Christian past, How can I 439 00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:41,920 take my pagan ancestors, How can I take the things 440 00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:46,000 that came before me which are not totally compatible with 441 00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:50,240 the Holy scriptures and weave them into the Christian story 442 00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,200 in a way that's still faithful. And people who don't 443 00:25:54,319 --> 00:25:56,799 like this sort of thing will accuse it of being 444 00:25:57,039 --> 00:26:01,240 you know, syncretism for instance, that's not totally But also 445 00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:02,759 the thing that I want to sort of say to 446 00:26:02,799 --> 00:26:07,880 you is that that's a natural Christian impulse actually is 447 00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,839 to take the good things, take the good things at 448 00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,440 same basil in his addressed to young men on the 449 00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,559 proper use of Greek poetry, right, this idea of being 450 00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:20,240 the bee right looking for the honey, taking the good 451 00:26:20,279 --> 00:26:25,480 things that are there in the stories of our ancestors 452 00:26:25,559 --> 00:26:29,400 and bringing them into bringing them into the Christian world. 453 00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:35,359 So Tolkien does that, and he tries to weave them 454 00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:39,720 into a framework that is still compatible with his sense 455 00:26:39,799 --> 00:26:43,039 of what Christianity is, and he. 456 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:47,039 Speaker 2: Will try to accomplish this. 457 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:48,920 Speaker 1: Oh, and I should also mention that one of the 458 00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:51,680 other things that Tolkien does that is really vital actually 459 00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:56,039 for modern Christians is that he doesn't just rehabilitate the elves, 460 00:26:56,559 --> 00:26:58,480 he rehabilitates the gods. 461 00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:00,319 Speaker 2: Right. Tolkien's valor. 462 00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:05,680 Speaker 1: Are a way probably one of the easiest ways for 463 00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:08,000 modern Christians. I mean, if you like these sort of 464 00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:12,640 stories for modern Christians to understand the whole idea of 465 00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,799 principalities and powers and how it could be that God 466 00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:21,079 would use something like an angel or a saint to 467 00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:24,599 rule over the world. So Tolkien takes the elves, he 468 00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:27,640 takes the gods, he takes these these sort of old 469 00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:32,039 world ideas that really are part of Christianity but have 470 00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:34,079 been kind of forgotten by the modern world, and he 471 00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:36,640 uses his stories to kind of weave them back. 472 00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:37,640 Speaker 2: Into the framework. 473 00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:44,839 Speaker 1: And he accomplishes this through several kinds of let's call 474 00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,880 them medieval media or genres. Right, And so the first 475 00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,680 is the genre of the of the chronicle. So there 476 00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,680 are some famous chronicles in the Middle Ages. Chronicles are 477 00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,519 one of the main genres that literary people are interested 478 00:27:59,559 --> 00:28:03,519 in during the Middle Ages. Of Some famous examples that 479 00:28:03,559 --> 00:28:06,519 you probably heard of are things like the Anglo Saxon 480 00:28:06,599 --> 00:28:09,920 Chronicle or the Russian Primary Chronicle, both of which I 481 00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,359 have talked about in various places, including on this channel. 482 00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:16,680 And Tolkien actually takes this and he makes a series 483 00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,680 of chronicles, some of them actually written in Anglo Saxon, 484 00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,599 not just in Anglo Saxon, but in the Immersian dialect 485 00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,119 of Anglo Saxon. It actually writes these chronicles in Anglo 486 00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:32,839 Saxon for his invented history. I won't say his invented world, 487 00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,640 because one of the really surprising things is that Tolkien 488 00:28:37,039 --> 00:28:40,119 obviously intends this is what he says right up front, 489 00:28:40,559 --> 00:28:46,200 obviously intends that his entire story is set in our world, 490 00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,359 and that it is a sort of pre Christian history 491 00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:54,440 of Northern Europe. And the startling thing and I still 492 00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:58,400 remember how upsetting and discombobulating it was when I learned 493 00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,400 this and realized this for the first time. The startling 494 00:29:01,519 --> 00:29:05,839 thing is that Tolkien never abandoned that idea, and in fact, 495 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,200 there are references, very small, hidden, veiled references when Tolkien 496 00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,079 says that The Lord of the Rings is a fundamentally 497 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:14,839 Catholic work. 498 00:29:14,839 --> 00:29:15,880 Speaker 2: He means, down at. 499 00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,519 Speaker 1: The foundations, right, You've got to dig to get there. 500 00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,200 But there are references even to the incarnation in the 501 00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:26,480 Lord of the Rings, and there's at least one, maybe more. 502 00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,039 You can look for it. Tell me if you find it. Otherwise, 503 00:29:29,079 --> 00:29:30,359 come to the course and I'll tell. 504 00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:31,759 Speaker 2: You all right. 505 00:29:32,079 --> 00:29:35,079 Speaker 1: So he does this through his annals or chronicles. He 506 00:29:35,119 --> 00:29:38,240 does this through the writing of epic poetry. Tolkien, of course, 507 00:29:38,319 --> 00:29:42,519 knew that real men tell long form narrative poems, that 508 00:29:42,519 --> 00:29:46,200 that's the best kind of storytelling, and anything that anything 509 00:29:46,279 --> 00:29:50,599 less than that is a compromise. And Tolkien spent most 510 00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:54,559 of his early years of the Legendarium trying to write 511 00:29:54,599 --> 00:30:01,640 these long form epic poems. Alas never finished any of them. 512 00:30:02,839 --> 00:30:06,640 We're probably better off that he didn't, because if he had, 513 00:30:06,759 --> 00:30:08,839 he probably wouldn't have written The Lord of the Rings, 514 00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:10,960 and then most of us just would not have heard 515 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,799 of him. Long Form narrative poetry doesn't sell super well, 516 00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,279 it's not you know, it's just not. You know, maybe 517 00:30:19,319 --> 00:30:22,160 it's making a comeback. You know, we're getting like two 518 00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,519 Odyssey movies now, and so maybe it's making a comeback. 519 00:30:25,599 --> 00:30:28,599 Speaker 2: Maybe we will get to we'll get to see. 520 00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:33,079 Speaker 1: And celebrate the revival of long form epic poetry, long 521 00:30:33,119 --> 00:30:34,000 form narrative poetry. 522 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,400 Speaker 2: And if we do, I am here for it. All 523 00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,319 of my training has prepared me for this moment. 524 00:30:39,279 --> 00:30:42,039 Speaker 1: So in any case, epic poems. In fact, there is 525 00:30:42,119 --> 00:30:45,640 some indication that the Silmarillion. So if, by the way, 526 00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,720 if you're like a normal person and you don't know 527 00:30:48,799 --> 00:30:50,839 a lot about Tolkien and you've just joined us, and 528 00:30:50,839 --> 00:30:54,440 you're like, what the heck is this guy talking about? Welcome, Welcome, 529 00:30:56,279 --> 00:30:59,279 see my published works, I guess to seriously come to 530 00:30:59,319 --> 00:31:01,519 the course. This course will be approachable, by the way, like, 531 00:31:01,559 --> 00:31:04,200 if you're not a super Tolkien nerd, this course will 532 00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:06,359 be approachable for you. I'm going to lay everything out 533 00:31:06,799 --> 00:31:09,480 and actually it'll be in some ways easier if you're 534 00:31:09,519 --> 00:31:11,319 not a super Tolkiy nerd, because then you won't have 535 00:31:11,319 --> 00:31:16,519 as many preconceptions that will need to work through. So okay, 536 00:31:16,559 --> 00:31:20,559 So there is some indication though that the sil Marillion. 537 00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:23,960 So the sil Million tells the story of basically the 538 00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,000 history of Tolkien's world about you know, seven thousand Ishu 539 00:31:27,039 --> 00:31:28,920 years before the events of the Lord of the Rings. 540 00:31:29,319 --> 00:31:31,960 It is, as some people have said, certainly as I 541 00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:36,119 have often said, is basically the Lord of the Rings 542 00:31:36,119 --> 00:31:39,720 equivalent of the Old Testament. And it's basically it's a 543 00:31:39,799 --> 00:31:42,000 series of long chapters, and each chapter is kind of 544 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,480 a self contained story that's been part of a larger whole. 545 00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:49,319 But there is some indication that those chapters that are 546 00:31:49,359 --> 00:31:52,200 in the modern sill Marillion, the published Silm Mirillion, which 547 00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,759 by the way, is published after Tolkien's death, there's some 548 00:31:55,799 --> 00:31:58,799 indication that those chapters were actually intended just to be 549 00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,960 the prose summary, and that each chapter would cover a 550 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,079 different long form narrative, like a long form epic poem. Well, 551 00:32:06,079 --> 00:32:09,200 Tolkien never finished all of those. He didn't even finish 552 00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:11,759 half of them. But the ones that we do have 553 00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:16,640 that are in various states of incompletion are quite fascinating, 554 00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:18,599 and we will be looking at them. And the thing 555 00:32:18,599 --> 00:32:22,759 that I want to look at is what makes a chronicle, 556 00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,359 what makes an epic poem? And then how does Tolkien 557 00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,599 try to use that as actually a way of doing 558 00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,400 what now we call world building. We have this idea 559 00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:34,559 that when Tolkien was sitting down or let's say, like 560 00:32:34,599 --> 00:32:36,440 when most of us sit down to like do world 561 00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:39,599 building or like you know, I mean, I'm guessing you know, 562 00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:42,680 of the thousands of people watching this video, at least 563 00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,920 eighty percent of you have like the secret unfinished fantasy 564 00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:48,200 novel or the or the D and D world or 565 00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,119 something like that. And most of the time when people 566 00:32:51,039 --> 00:32:53,640 sit down to do world building, they start out with 567 00:32:53,799 --> 00:32:56,759 basically just sort of saying, Okay, I'm going to basically 568 00:32:56,799 --> 00:32:59,559 write a series of Wikipedia articles on my world, or 569 00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:01,519 just like write out the history of the world from 570 00:33:01,559 --> 00:33:03,200 the beginning. Or I'm going to design this race and 571 00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,200 then I'm going to design that race, or I'm going 572 00:33:05,279 --> 00:33:07,319 to design you know, the thing that's really in vogue 573 00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,680 right now are like, you know, magic systems that basically 574 00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:14,000 work like science and have you know, like scientific you know, 575 00:33:14,119 --> 00:33:21,680 levels of accuracy and precision to them. So anyway, that's 576 00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:24,359 not how Tolkien worked at all. The way that Tolkien 577 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,799 worked was by sort of mimetic storytelling. He would read 578 00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,400 stories that he liked, medieval stories that he liked, ancient 579 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,799 stories that he liked, things like the Tale of Kalervo, 580 00:33:33,559 --> 00:33:39,400 the Brittonic Lays, the obviously the the the sagas of 581 00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,799 the Icelanders, Beowulf, things like that. He would read stories 582 00:33:42,799 --> 00:33:44,880 that he liked, and then what he would do, the 583 00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:46,400 way that he would work and the way that he 584 00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:48,680 would sort of build his world is he would sit 585 00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,759 down and he would try to write a story like 586 00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,400 that story, but in his own world, and along the 587 00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:59,000 way he would sometimes tweak or fix or completely reverse 588 00:33:59,079 --> 00:34:01,400 or flip things about the story that maybe he didn't 589 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,160 like or he thought he could tell them better. One 590 00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:06,000 of the things you need to be a successful author 591 00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:11,280 is a fair amount of hubris. So the other thing 592 00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,559 that Tolkien does that's really key to understanding, and I 593 00:34:14,599 --> 00:34:17,400 would say it's probably the lynchpint understanding. The connection between 594 00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,760 his legendarium and the whole concept of universal history is 595 00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:25,800 his retelling of culture founding epics or culture founding narratives. 596 00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:28,480 And these have to do with culture founding heroes, people 597 00:34:28,519 --> 00:34:31,239 like shield shaving. If you were in our Beowulf class, 598 00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,800 people like you know, you can go to ancient mythology 599 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:40,320 and find figures like Orpheus, figures like Apollo, figures like Horace, 600 00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:44,000 who are you know, sort of culture heroes, people who 601 00:34:44,079 --> 00:34:47,079 sort of bring the the bring the wisdom of the gods, 602 00:34:47,159 --> 00:34:49,480 or bring the knowledge of agriculture, or bring you know, 603 00:34:49,559 --> 00:34:52,440 bring these things to humanity so that humanity can survive 604 00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,280 and thrive and grow into a culture. Sometimes these are, 605 00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:57,480 you know, the first kings of your dynasty, the people 606 00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:01,840 who found your laws, the people who taught you, you know, agriculture, 607 00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:03,920 the people who gave you writing, the people who gave 608 00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,480 you you know, like the king Numa, one of the 609 00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,199 one of the sort of the good Roman kings before 610 00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:11,840 the Romans got rid of other kings. Right, the thing 611 00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:14,800 that he gives the Roman people, according to the legend, 612 00:35:15,039 --> 00:35:21,440 is piety, coinage, and laws. That's why, by the way, 613 00:35:21,559 --> 00:35:24,400 things that have to do with coins are called referred 614 00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,400 to as that. The whole field is referred to as numismatics. 615 00:35:29,119 --> 00:35:35,599 So these attempts, I will say, you know, we're only 616 00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:36,800 partially successful. 617 00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:37,079 Speaker 2: So the. 618 00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:43,280 Speaker 1: Lay of Lathian, which is Tolkien's longest unfinished epic poem, 619 00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:45,920 the Silmarillion, you know, things like this were never published 620 00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:50,760 in Tolkien's lifetime, but what they did do is build 621 00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:56,320 a foundation on which The Lord of the Rings was 622 00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,440 later written. And I think that it's fair to say 623 00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,800 the Lord of the Rings will will prove to be 624 00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,159 proved to have been the most successful work of the 625 00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:10,360 twentieth century. So when people read The Lord of the 626 00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,960 Rings and nowadays, I mean you can look things up 627 00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,239 on Wikipedia, or you just have that one friend that 628 00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:18,559 you text whenever you have a Tolkien question, right, you know, 629 00:36:19,199 --> 00:36:22,280 if you have those kinds of relationships and relationships in 630 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,440 your life, or just like you know, you watch the 631 00:36:25,519 --> 00:36:27,400 movies with your dad growing up and you kind of 632 00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:29,400 explain things to you you just take it for granted 633 00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:32,639 that there's a lot of background information that you know. 634 00:36:33,639 --> 00:36:37,559 But actually most of Tolkien's, most of The Lord of 635 00:36:37,559 --> 00:36:40,320 the Rings, like the background references are built on things 636 00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:43,119 that are not really explained, or you have to go 637 00:36:43,199 --> 00:36:45,840 look at an appendix in the back of the book 638 00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,679 to get the whole story. But the story works. I mean, honestly, 639 00:36:50,159 --> 00:36:53,239 the Lord of the Rings would be you know if 640 00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:55,840 I don't honestly, I don't know how it got published. 641 00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:58,800 I mean, if somebody brought that manuscript to me, I mean, 642 00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:00,400 of course I would probably dig it. 643 00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:02,679 Speaker 2: But but I I you know, if I was. 644 00:37:02,679 --> 00:37:04,559 Speaker 1: An editor at a publisher and I was looking at 645 00:37:04,599 --> 00:37:07,079 the manuscript, like nobody is gonna follow any of this. 646 00:37:07,199 --> 00:37:08,880 Speaker 2: Nobody has any idea what's going on. 647 00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,679 Speaker 1: They are all these names. You know, how are people 648 00:37:11,679 --> 00:37:14,960 gonna keep up with this? You know, how are people 649 00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,199 gonna remember the difference between Sauron and Saarruman, for instance, 650 00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:21,239 and all this different stuff? And yet the Lord of 651 00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:23,639 the Rings is successful. And the reason that it is 652 00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:28,119 successful is that it feels as though it belongs to us, 653 00:37:28,199 --> 00:37:30,840 and it feels as though it's a real place. It 654 00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,440 feels it has all these different things down to the naming. 655 00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:35,480 We're going to spend a whole week of this course 656 00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,920 looking at Tolkien's linguistics and not just said as linguistics, 657 00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,800 because Tolkien wasn't just a you know, sometimes was called 658 00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,079 a con lingers, like somebody who makes up languages for 659 00:37:44,119 --> 00:37:47,280 fun or for profit. There are you know, con lings 660 00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,039 constructed languages made for a lot of major film and 661 00:37:51,119 --> 00:37:52,079 movie franchises. 662 00:37:52,119 --> 00:37:53,599 Speaker 2: Now, it's kind of like the it thing. 663 00:37:53,679 --> 00:37:56,719 Speaker 1: It's it's very basically people don't even notice it anymore 664 00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:59,840 because you take it for granted. But nobody's languages work 665 00:38:00,119 --> 00:38:00,920 well as Tolkien's. 666 00:38:01,039 --> 00:38:01,159 Speaker 2: Right. 667 00:38:02,199 --> 00:38:03,960 Speaker 1: I have a friend who likes to say, maybe he's 668 00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:06,800 watching this. He likes to say that Tolkien's New York's 669 00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:11,760 sound like New York. What he means by that is, 670 00:38:12,079 --> 00:38:15,360 if you say I'm going to New York, you don't 671 00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,679 hear I'm going to the new place that's named after 672 00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:20,320 the old place that used to be called York. 673 00:38:20,599 --> 00:38:22,599 Speaker 2: You just hear, oh, he's going to New York. Right. 674 00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,599 Speaker 1: It has the name now means something. It holds something together. 675 00:38:27,039 --> 00:38:29,079 And in fact, even if people are new to the 676 00:38:29,119 --> 00:38:33,920 English language, they'll know where that is. All of Tolkien's 677 00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:38,559 place names hold together in this beautiful, convincing way, and 678 00:38:39,199 --> 00:38:41,519 as do his personal names, and that's a big part 679 00:38:41,639 --> 00:38:43,679 of why The Lord of the Rings I think works. 680 00:38:44,599 --> 00:38:46,800 So these are some of the things that we are 681 00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,239 going to talk about, and that's where the course is 682 00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:51,440 gonna well, it's almost where the course is going to end, 683 00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:53,599 because what we're going to do is look at how 684 00:38:53,639 --> 00:38:57,199 Tolkien uses the novel. And I mean, you can argue 685 00:38:57,719 --> 00:38:59,480 about whether or not you think The Lord of the 686 00:38:59,559 --> 00:39:02,639 Rings is really a novel. It's probably, you know, it 687 00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:04,320 just depends on how specific you want to be with 688 00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,920 that definition. There's certain people get really persnickety about exactly 689 00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:12,000 what a novel is. Let's say he uses the modern 690 00:39:12,199 --> 00:39:14,920 storytelling genre of the novel. This is as opposed to 691 00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,800 a chronicle or an epic poem, or even like a 692 00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,360 sort of a fairy tale style of writing. But he 693 00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:25,800 uses a sort of more modern novel approach to the 694 00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:29,159 Lord of the Rings and it is ultimately massively successful. 695 00:39:29,679 --> 00:39:33,480 And I think this is a really important it's a 696 00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:35,519 really important lesson for us. If we want to do 697 00:39:35,559 --> 00:39:39,360 this kind of Christian mythic storytelling, is we need to 698 00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,400 figure out how we're going to use modern genres to 699 00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:46,320 tell ancient stories. I think that Jonathan's I can talk 700 00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:49,760 about Jonathan because he's not here. I think that Jonathan's 701 00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:53,960 God's Dog series is actually an amazing example of another 702 00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:56,559 great way to do this. And in fact, I would 703 00:39:56,599 --> 00:40:00,000 say that something like God's Dog has more in common 704 00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,960 with Tolkien's approach than something like The Wheel of Time. 705 00:40:05,159 --> 00:40:06,840 And if you don't know what I mean by that, 706 00:40:07,039 --> 00:40:08,519 come to the course, because this is one of the 707 00:40:08,559 --> 00:40:10,159 things we'll be talking about. So that is where the 708 00:40:10,199 --> 00:40:12,960 course is going to end. We're going to look at 709 00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:16,920 how Tolkien used his universal history approach to then write 710 00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,199 the great novel of the twentieth century. We're also going 711 00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:26,159 to look at how some other modern Christian writers. One 712 00:40:26,159 --> 00:40:27,519 of the series that we're going to look at will 713 00:40:27,519 --> 00:40:30,639 be God's Dog by Jonathan Pago. In fact, I'm going 714 00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,159 to just do my own analysis of it, which is 715 00:40:33,159 --> 00:40:36,000 going to be really, really fun, But we're going to 716 00:40:36,079 --> 00:40:38,239 look at We're going to look at how that approach 717 00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,480 is actually similar to Tolkien's approach. And the thing that 718 00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:44,079 I'm going to kind of pause it is that if 719 00:40:44,079 --> 00:40:47,119 we're going to build these stories and tell these stories 720 00:40:47,159 --> 00:40:50,760 and try to do what Tolkien did, which maybe you 721 00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:52,760 don't care about. Maybe you're just along for the ride, 722 00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:59,320 and that's fine too. But I once heard Malcolm Guite say, 723 00:41:00,039 --> 00:41:02,760 poet inkling scholar. I once heard Malcolm Guite say that 724 00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:06,199 the only honest response to a work of art is 725 00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,480 another work of art. And he was quoting somebody else 726 00:41:09,519 --> 00:41:11,800 who I can't remember, so I'm just going to attribute 727 00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,679 the quote to him. I think that it's really important 728 00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:19,320 that we start telling stories and we start making media novels, 729 00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,800 comic books, graphic novels, films, etc. 730 00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:23,400 Speaker 2: Right. 731 00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:29,119 Speaker 1: Audio dramas, Boy, was there ever a better time for 732 00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:32,360 like some awesome audio dramas? Right, And they don't even 733 00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,719 take that much overhead to make so somebody get on that. 734 00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:37,920 That's why I work with Jonathan, That's why I'm working 735 00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,559 with Symbolic World Press, because I really believe that telling 736 00:41:40,599 --> 00:41:42,559 these stories right now is the thing that we need 737 00:41:42,599 --> 00:41:46,400 to be doing. And I think that Tolkien shows us 738 00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,000 the approach, and I think that God's Dog is a 739 00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,719 good example of how you can do that same thing 740 00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:54,239 without it making it look like you're aping Tolkien. 741 00:41:54,639 --> 00:41:56,920 Speaker 2: And we're going to have two other modern examples. 742 00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,119 Speaker 1: I will not say who they are right now, but 743 00:42:00,199 --> 00:42:02,039 arrangements are being made, so we're gonna have two other 744 00:42:02,079 --> 00:42:06,039 modern examples from modern Christian fantasy authors who I think 745 00:42:06,079 --> 00:42:08,800 are taking Tolkien's approach without just sort of aping him. 746 00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:12,000 And sometimes they're not deliberately trying to imitate Tolkien, they're 747 00:42:12,079 --> 00:42:16,239 just also kind of old world people with a philological mindset. 748 00:42:17,159 --> 00:42:20,559 So that's the pitch, that's the idea. And it's difficult 749 00:42:20,559 --> 00:42:22,280 to say why this is so important to me. Obviously, 750 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,119 anybody who knows me, knows about me, knows that Tolkien 751 00:42:25,159 --> 00:42:26,920 is something that's really near and dear to my heart. 752 00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:32,079 It's funny because this is an idea that's been simmering 753 00:42:32,159 --> 00:42:34,280 in the back of my mind for a couple of 754 00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:37,400 years now, and we never really covered it on the 755 00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:39,760 Ammon School podcast because the am and Szool podcast was 756 00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:41,920 about other things and we were doing the Silmarillion read 757 00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:42,639 through and so on. 758 00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:44,159 Speaker 2: So this will be new material. 759 00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:46,960 Speaker 1: And I guess that's the last thing to kind of 760 00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:49,679 address is if you've just listened to me talk about 761 00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,000 Tolkien for hundreds of hours on the Ammon School podcast 762 00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:56,480 and you can't possibly imagine doing it anymore. I get it, 763 00:42:56,679 --> 00:42:58,320 you know, go with God, don't worry about it. But 764 00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:00,239 this will be new material. This will be some stuff 765 00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,360 that we never got into. In some ways, it'll be 766 00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:05,280 going deeper and in other ways. My goal is going 767 00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:10,119 to be to actually kind of approach Tolkien's writings from 768 00:43:10,159 --> 00:43:13,719 a completely different angle of attack, and actually from a 769 00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:17,039 in a way that I think will help us even 770 00:43:17,119 --> 00:43:20,280 refine in our discussions. It will help us refine our 771 00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,559 understanding of what universal history itself is by looking at 772 00:43:23,599 --> 00:43:27,960 this very potent recent example, which also somehow is the 773 00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:30,960 work of a single person, which is which is the 774 00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,880 only non universal history thing about what Tolkien does, by 775 00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,800 the way, and that's why that's why it's not universal history, right. 776 00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,599 Tolkien himself knew that other people would have to sort 777 00:43:42,639 --> 00:43:43,119 of get. 778 00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:44,039 Speaker 2: Involved in the telling. 779 00:43:44,679 --> 00:43:49,400 Speaker 1: And if although you know arguably Conserfer Tolkien, you know 780 00:43:49,599 --> 00:43:52,199 is is definitely involved in the telling and the presentation 781 00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:54,480 of the materials. But he knew that other people would 782 00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:55,880 have to get involved in the telling. The thing about 783 00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:59,440 universal history is that it doesn't have any single author 784 00:43:59,599 --> 00:44:02,559 right the voice. It is the expression of a people 785 00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,599 who have come to know God and look for their 786 00:44:05,639 --> 00:44:09,320 place in the story of his people and his redemptive 787 00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:14,280 work on our behalf. So all that to say, the 788 00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:18,320 course will be starting next month, So our first class 789 00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,239 will be on the twenty fourth of February, and then 790 00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,440 we'll be going for five weeks after that. And I 791 00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:27,880 should say at the end, this is a horrible, horrible idea, 792 00:44:28,159 --> 00:44:30,320 because there's no way I have the time for this. 793 00:44:31,159 --> 00:44:33,079 But I want to do something kind of special at 794 00:44:33,079 --> 00:44:36,679 the end, which is I want to give you all 795 00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,679 a writing assignment. Now I can't promise I'm going to read. 796 00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:41,280 It depends on how many people we have said up 797 00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:42,840 for the course. I can't promise I'm going to read 798 00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:47,880 and you will get a grade because it's not a Well, 799 00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,199 let me put it this way. I'm going to read 800 00:44:49,199 --> 00:44:50,920 everybody's stuff. I'm not going to grade it, but I 801 00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,480 will try to give some feedback. But it's going to 802 00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:54,760 be a short writing ascent. We'll have to keep it 803 00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,519 short so I can read them all. But I'm going 804 00:44:57,559 --> 00:45:00,920 to give you all a sort of memetic writing assignment 805 00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:03,840 in the probably about the middle of the course, and 806 00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:05,320 then you have a couple of weeks to complete it. 807 00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,559 And I'm doing this for two reasons. One is that 808 00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,280 some people have really said they would like Symbolic World 809 00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,679 Courses to be a little more interactive. I totally get that. 810 00:45:16,599 --> 00:45:21,079 We're kind of much like my recording studio. This is 811 00:45:21,079 --> 00:45:24,400 an ongoing project right We're kind of learning and growing, 812 00:45:24,599 --> 00:45:27,400 and hopefully someday we'll have the time and the budget 813 00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:29,199 to go back and even redo some of our stuff, 814 00:45:29,679 --> 00:45:33,039 like the Dante courses with some assignments built into it, 815 00:45:33,079 --> 00:45:34,760 so if you wanted to use it for your homeschool 816 00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:36,960 or you wanted to use it for your own education, 817 00:45:37,599 --> 00:45:40,119 there you could do something like that. So I'm thinking 818 00:45:40,119 --> 00:45:45,079 on those things. I have actually insane, crazy ideas that 819 00:45:45,119 --> 00:45:47,559 I'm not even allowed to talk about in public. About this, 820 00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:52,119 but the Symbolic World Course is something that I really 821 00:45:52,159 --> 00:45:54,159 really love and it is really important to me. So 822 00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,000 bear with us. We're going to keep making it better. 823 00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:02,519 But the other reason, again is this idea that well, okay, 824 00:46:02,599 --> 00:46:05,920 let me tell you something is a little personal. We 825 00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:09,519 were at where the Symbolic World Summit last year, right, 826 00:46:10,199 --> 00:46:13,199 and there's a little trailer out back where the presenters 827 00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,079 could kind of get some coffee and like, you know, 828 00:46:16,159 --> 00:46:18,440 take a nap between things. It was just a whirlwind 829 00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:21,519 couple of days. So I'm sitting back there on like 830 00:46:21,559 --> 00:46:24,360 the second or third day of the conference with doctor 831 00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:27,480 Martin Shaw, who of course has been on this channel 832 00:46:27,559 --> 00:46:31,440 quite a bit and just finished in an incredible course 833 00:46:31,519 --> 00:46:36,039 for us on Christian wonder Tales over on Symbolic World Courses. 834 00:46:37,039 --> 00:46:41,880 And he turned to me and he said, I won't 835 00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:44,519 try to do his Devin accent, but he turned to 836 00:46:44,519 --> 00:46:47,760 me and he said, you know, Richard, you're a good preacher, 837 00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:53,280 but you're not a storyteller yet. And of course you 838 00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:55,639 know it's like, oh, dagger in my chest. Well, now 839 00:46:55,679 --> 00:46:59,480 that I know actually what Martin means by being a storyteller, 840 00:46:59,559 --> 00:47:03,800 I'm not really offended by that. And certainly, his presence 841 00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,239 in the Symbolic World community has really encouraged a lot 842 00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:09,440 of us, myself included, to tell more stories. I've been 843 00:47:10,039 --> 00:47:12,519 since that course finished, you know, I've been. I've taken 844 00:47:12,559 --> 00:47:14,360 some of the stories in that course, and I've tried 845 00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:16,039 to tell them with my kids. And you need to 846 00:47:16,119 --> 00:47:18,840 drum on the table a little bit. So we're working 847 00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,119 on all of this, and so I think that if 848 00:47:21,119 --> 00:47:23,239 we're going to do a course like this, there's got 849 00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:26,519 to be some kind of a storytelling assignment. So it'll 850 00:47:26,559 --> 00:47:28,880 be short, it'll have to be something short, but maybe 851 00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:32,039 it'll be a launching platform for the rest of you 852 00:47:32,639 --> 00:47:36,199 to kind of go into your life and go into 853 00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:39,880 your community and start telling stories. It's got to be 854 00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:44,119 remembered that people like Tolkien. Tolkien told all of his 855 00:47:44,199 --> 00:47:47,039 stories for his kids, for his family, for his wife, 856 00:47:47,079 --> 00:47:52,280 for his best friends, and it was only because something 857 00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:54,559 beautiful came out of that that there was something that 858 00:47:54,639 --> 00:47:57,920 was good enough to be published. So that's my hope 859 00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,039 is that you'll go into your communities and do that, 860 00:48:00,519 --> 00:48:02,639 and I really hope that I. 861 00:48:02,599 --> 00:48:05,199 Speaker 2: Will see you there. 862 00:48:05,639 --> 00:48:07,679 Speaker 1: You can sign up for the courses, just go to 863 00:48:07,679 --> 00:48:11,719 the Symbolic world dot Com slash courses and we'll also 864 00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:14,719 put a link in the double dooo down below until 865 00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:17,440 I see you next and I hope to see you 866 00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:19,440 in the course. Until I see you next time, God 867 00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:23,159 be with you and Happy Groundhog Day.