Scholarship of the entire Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

A place to discuss the entirety of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

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Mr.Land
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Scholarship of the entire Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Post by Mr.Land »

Nothing takes the place of the 10 books that make up Donaldson's Chronicles, but I would be interested in reading scholarly examinations of the series as well. I'm aware of W.A. Senior's Variations on the Fantasy Tradition and Christine Barkley's Stephen R Donaldson and the Modern Epic Vision. Both of these critical analyses were published before the conclusion of The Last Chronicles (1995 and 2007 respectively). The Last Dark came out in 2014.

Does anyone know of works in the last 5 years that have looked at the whole series? It's strange and a little disappointing that a fantasy series of such significance and depth doesn't have greater interest from the scholarly community.
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Re: Scholarship of the entire Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Post by Wosbald »

+JMJ+
Mr.Land wrote:[...]

... It's strange and a little disappointing that a fantasy series of such significance and depth doesn't have greater interest from the scholarly community.
Tru dat.

IMO, SRD scholarship is somewhat hindered by his reticence to take a stand upon a settled worldview. He is still in via, so to speak.

For example, even if scholars in Tolkien's day had decided to take an interest in his work, they would've -- at least -- had his Catholicity to provide them with certain interpretive parameters.

Sad to say, but I think that -- until SRD completes his earthly transit and the course of his thought is given closure in the lineaments of his most-mature rumination -- scholars won't have as firm a ground as they might prefer for doing serious work.

That being said, I do think that SRD's youthful formation in Calvinistic Christianity and his subsequent rejection of it does provide some interpretive keys which the motivated scholar can use. In this repudiatory sense, at least, I think that his work has largely taken shape as a negative project (an opposition or a contra) rather than as a more positive, affirmative one (at least, one the outlines of which are easily traced). Of course, such an appraisal is still subject to modification by his mature work. But until SRD decides to reveal more -- whether extant in new writings or postmortem in the closure of his corpus -- then this may be only substantially significant thread with which scholars might begin their weave.


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Post by High Lord Tolkien »

Hasn't SRD revealed more than enough in his Gradual Interview to answer any questions?
What's missing that you're looking for?

Sounds like the author needs to be dead so he/she can't refute the "scholarly" interpretations of his/her work.

Like people calling Tolkien's work an allegory to christianity after his death despite the author saying twice in letters that it isn't.
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Post by Savor Dam »

In addition to HLT's excellent suggestion of the Gradual Interview, I would recommend perusal of some of the topics created by Wayfriend in the SRD fora, particularly the "Epic Vision" and "Redemption Of" topics. WF has done some impressive scholarly analysis, well worth reading.
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Post by wayfriend »

I think I must agree that there has been no scholarly work covering the Chronicles since their completion.

If you look at the totality of the works out there, and this amounts to a handful at best, they either deal with the First Chronicles solely, or deal with the First Chronicles primarily, and refer to the Second Chronicles only as something that confirms their notions about the First. There's really nothing that attempts a serious analysis of the Second Chronicles, never mind the Last ones.

One could easily ascribe this to the popularity of the works at the time they were published. Well, perhaps "popularity" isn't the right word, since it suggests merely numbers. Maybe "faddishness" is a better word. By the time White Gold Weilder was published, it's grip on fantasy fandom had waned.

However, I also think that the First Chronicles are the most accessible to analysis.
It seems to me that the first Chronicles is contructed in a way that readily lends itself to analyis and deconstruction, while the Second Chronicles is a much more difficult subject matter to address. It is as if the first is an artifact built with Erector Set pieces, and by looking closely you can see how it is put together, while the second is a more advanced creation, such that close examination reveals an organic mass of strange organs and connective tissue that balks mechanical explanation. The first can be explained with an instruction guide containing diagrams and arrows, while the second requires something approaching a Grey's Anatomy just to begin.
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Post by Lazy Luke »

High Lord Tolkien wrote:
Like people calling Tolkien's work an allegory to christianity after his death despite the author saying twice in letters that it isn't.
:lol:
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Post by Skyweir »

High Lord Tolkien wrote:Hasn't SRD revealed more than enough in his Gradual Interview to answer any questions?
What's missing that you're looking for?

Sounds like the author needs to be dead so he/she can't refute the "scholarly" interpretations of his/her work.

Like people calling Tolkien's work an allegory to christianity after his death despite the author saying twice in letters that it isn't.
:lol:
Wow 8O I did not know that Tolkien himself denied the LOTRs was a Christian allegory.
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Critical Scholarship on the Chronicles

Post by mhoram99 »

I have had in my drawer for 30 years parts of a manuscript on the First Chronicles, but while in an academic career, I have never had time to edit it into presentable form. I need to rewrite major portions because I adopted questions as a format (like a guide for students). At some point I will cull out and edit the narrative parts of this manuscript and expand with reflections on the Second and Last Chronicles. There is a lot to say on the background mythology, the arc of the narrative development, the symbolism, the implied positions on disputed philosophical questions, and so on. My book on the will and motivation basically develops a position inspired by the first and second Chronicles, so that is something. But I feel bad that I have never had time to render the rest into a form that is less like juvenalia. At the moment, I think I only have one commentary essay online.
Perhaps I could extract some of the key points into a list here!
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Post by wayfriend »

John, I have gone through what you're going through. I began one particularly difficult essay and, after many years, I decided to post it as an incomplete draft, because I felt like I would never, ever find the time to finish it. Others have taken a very long time (years) but I eventually finished them.

I have always known that whatever I wrote was going to be posted in this forum, not published. Understanding what is necessary, and what is not necessary, for whatever format you are choosing helps immensely, I feel. It's all about the expected audience.

And don't do it for the gratification of the adoring fans showering you with praise. When you finally put it out there, the response WILL be underwhelming. So do it for the sake of the work itself, and for the sense of accomplishment.

Now, having said all that, let me also say that I would very much like to read what you write about the Chronicles. I look forward to seeing it some day.

Thanks for sharing this. Best of luck!
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Post by Lazy Luke »

Planet Narnia by Michael Ward is really good read.
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Most central religious themes in first & second trilogie

Post by mhoram99 »

Thanks, it would be interesting to gather a website with a medley of published papers and manuscripts on Donaldson. This might be useful too if a Hollywood movie house ever became interested, which is a priority in my view. Does anyone know someone at HBO? I can write the letter to them! Lately they are in to dark and difficult stuff. It would just be hard to add comic relief to movies of the first trilogy.

But okay, I will post two of the summaries of major themes I have drafted, and go from there. First, the religious stuff, although there is plenty more to add. Forgive the obviousness of many points.

1. First, although Donaldson explained his reasons for starting with an anti-hero very well in “Epic Fantasy and the Modern Age,” the parallels with Dostoevsky must be obvious. The question in Crime and Punishment is whether a murderer can be redeemed, and the same issue emerges in the famous Father Zossima section of The Brothers Karamazov. Donaldson’s central question is how a rapist can be redeemed. This is what I said to the English faculty at Kingswood-Oxford school in 1987 before Donaldson’s visit there (in their living author series), and it will be necessary to explain this again to wide audiences if the books are ever turned into films. Covenant also “sins” because he has been sinned against; his suffering and deep hurt at communal injustice towards him pave the way for his crime – just as Zossima predicts. Trell follows the same all-too-human trajectory.

These are unmistakably Christian themes. In Lord Foul’s Bane (LFB), Covenant awakens in a paradise and immediately takes the apple from the serpent because he refuses to believe the world is real enough to make him morally responsible for actions in it – he is an escapist in the bad sense. Although the Chronicles is not limited to Christian doctrine, the difficult wrestling with questions of non-violence throughout, and critique of fundamentalist ideology in the beginning of The Power that Preserves (PP) are show how seriously the author takes these problems for anyone who would hope to be Christian. The theme of a covenant, or promise made good, is also too clear to need stating. The idea of a paradoxical status – Covenant is in the Land but not “of” it – is also from scripture, although given a new sense here. This is a version of Kierkegaard’s “absolute paradox” (from The Postscript), whence Donaldson may have derived this term. Of course, in the second series, Covenant ends up as a kind of Christ figure as well, having to sacrifice himself to save the structure of the firmament – although this is made more complex in the third series.

Hatred is the root of all evil. And what ultimately matters are our intentions and motives, the posture we assume through our own willing. Sinning in our hearts or dreams is still sin. Nothing could be more Augustinian, except that Covenant is not saved only through faith – that there is some point in resisting despite. He also has to make efforts.

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Lena and the Land -- what Donaldson adapted from Hawthorne

Post by mhoram99 »

2. But these elementary points about “the philosophy” of the Chronicles still hardly settle the meaning(s) of Covenant’s story, which has many facets. The mythology and symbolism are eminently important and remarkably fertile. The key to my whole reading of the first series is the following: Lena is the Land (just as Pearl is the scarlet letter in Hawthorne’s A Scarlet Letter). That also may be pretty obvious from the way she says, “Behold, this is the Land!” and expresses her love for it with every fibre of her being. She is purity of heart, and she personifies all that is good and beautiful in created reality – that which Covenant must learn to love again. That she is able still to love him with her last breath in PP despite being utterly betrayed by him is the ultimate grace in this whole story, so piercing that it has haunted my life these four decades, and I still cannot think about it without coming to pieces. The “substitutions” of the Healer in PP are another grace, although in a way more human, more finite, in their limitation. It is as if she is trying to heal the devil himself – an anticipation of the end of the third series, naturally, and perhaps a hint in the direction of a universal salvation theology. Again I don’t expect Donaldson necessarily to endorse this; Tolkien and C.S. Lewis do not, but the story still suggests it.
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Post by mhoram99 »

3. The Land and its Earthpower is also in some sense archetypally female, making Lena a fit symbol for it. The Blood of the Earth (in IW) is the most awesome and original manifestation of this archetypal idea – to me, the most mythic innovation in the whole series, which also plays a key role in the third series. The Ranyhyn horses are also associated with feminine horse figures in mythology (think of Epona in Roman myth for example, and similar figures in Celtic myth). Joan, expressing what Covenant has lost, is associated with horses. But the key is Elena’s visit to the Horserite, which illustrates the power of the “night-mare” in a most gripping and memorable way. It is mistaken by her as a rite of vengeance as if conducted by Furies.

Elena herself is, of course, closer to Brunnhilde in northern European hero legends. One need only read Donaldson’s introduction to The Real Story to see how he interprets Wagner’s version of these old tales that derived originally from the Volsungsaga, which also strongly influenced Tolkien. Brunnhilde (or her equivalents) is originally a Valkyrie sired by Odin (Wotin) just as Elena is sired by the wild magic. Just as the Valkyrie eventually gets Odin’s staff and eventually breaks it, Elena wields the Staff of Law and sees it destroyed by her hatred – although this involves Covenant’s wild magic too. But like Brunnhilde, she is not all hatred; she is also loving, although her love is misdirected and star-crossed. Covenant, whom she loves, must then be the fated dragon-slayer but he is not living up that role very well. It is Mhoram and the Hearthrall at Revelstone who play Sigurd (Siegfried)’s role in crossing through the wall of fire to save not Elena but Revelstone. Covenant does cross a barrier of fire when Foamfollower carries him over Hotash Slay, but he is far from the Sigurd-figure that Elena was looking for.

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Last edited by mhoram99 on Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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The plot arc in the first (and second) Chronicles

Post by mhoram99 »

4. In ethical theory terms, Elena’s role is very different: she articulates utilitarian views (opposed by Mhoram) and even belief in the possibility of power arising through desecration. There is an often-missed link with the Narnia series here. Lewis’s “white witch” begins as Queen of a world laid waste when she utters the “deplorable word” to destroy her enemies: this is the model for desecration. In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the white witch holds the unnatural winter on the land of Narnia. Undead Elena does the same after she utters her deplorable command using the power of the Earthblood. This is the great shocker of PP, which is a development with no parallel in the Nibelungleid cycle, obviously. Here Donaldson takes a motif from Narnia and in his way, makes it 1000 times darker (more later on how dark these works are, and why).

Donaldson melds different narrative ideas together in the overall plot arc that reaches from the rape of Lena to the destruction of the Staff of Law. The brilliance of this plot arc is a major part of why the first Chronicles is so great, and this plot line is well-unified all the way through the second trilogy two. Clearly, then, the rape in some sense is the destruction of the Staff – the one leads to the other, although not without choices by other participants. This makes symbolic sense because the Staff’s embodiment of the Earthpower is personified by Lena: her violation is ultimately a violation of the Earthpower itself. We cannot miss that the Staff is destroyed by a discharge of wild magic, that symbol of the archetypally masculine – although it is an involuntary reaction in this case. In sum, the rape is magnified to cosmic proportions: the Earth itself is raped and corrupted, leading to the Sunbane. Covenant must sacrifice his life to redeem the truly cosmic evil that results from his crime. Even Dostoevsky never thought of that, and I think he would have been impressed. In Adam’s sin, the whole Earth is blighted – becoming, in Tess’s poignant words, a “blighted star.” If anyone was ever foolish enough to imagine that heinous crimes might not have bad consequences, they should read the Chronicles.

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Post by mhoram99 »

5. Donaldson’s most original development of earlier themes in the fantasy - romance genre(s) is the Earthpower itself. For many readers, it is this theme that makes these works worth reading. There is much more positive experience of earthpower manifestations in the first trilogy, with its best expression in the second trilogy found in the scene with Troy in Andelain. In “On Fairy Stories,” Tolkien describes what he was trying to portray with high elven magic as a a kind of pure artistic creativity, “enchantment” that aims only to “adorn the earth.” He comes close to this in the portrayal of Lothlorien and several episodes in the Silmarillion (to which Donaldson would not have had access when he started to compose the first series), such as the creation of the Silmarils with the light of the two cosmic trees.

Remarkably, Donaldson’s Earthpower is, I think, more successful than Tolkien at achieving Tolkien’s aim. Of course it is influenced by the idea of an all-pervading mana in eastern mythology, but in the fantasy genre, its closest predecessor is found in the Earthsea trilogy (note that the end of the Despiser in the Last Chronicles is like the end of the shadow in the Wizard of Earthsea). Magic properly understood there, as by Ogion the mage, is not an instrument to get human goals accomplished, but an expression of attunement to the values inherent in nature – the hidden life expressed by the Green Man of Celtic myth (or the Green Knight in the Sir Gawain tale, which Donaldson certainly knew). In Leguin’s vision, the words through which the world was first made, as original names of things, still retain the power to invoke or call on them. Donaldson’s “seven words” follow this pattern, as is finally made fully clear when their true meaning is explained in the third series. They express a covenant with nature, a devotion to the beauty and life of the earth. That is why the Earthpower itself (or Elohim?) gives them to Berek on the mountain slopes, when he pledges his fealty to the Land. They are a kind of wedding vow with that archetypal feminine force.

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Re: Most central religious themes in first & second tril

Post by Lazy Luke »

mhoram99 wrote:Donaldson’s central question is how a rapist can be redeemed.

JD
Always a difficult one. Dealing with the belief in a dreamplace is fraught with controvesy. Initially, Covenant's redemption is through his defeat of Lord Foul the Despiser. How else but the saviour of the Land be accepted as the Pure One!

Firstly, defeating Lord Foul comes through the understanding of High Lord Kevin's wards. In essence, the first ward is how to invoke the Fire Lions of Mt.Thunder. Lord Foul's Bane is the reflection of the first ward. Unlock the ward, dispel the rape.
The rape in some sense is the destruction of the Staff
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Earthpower as morally neutral? Not really

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6. But in ethical terms, such power can be corrupted or turned to evil purposes. “Law is not the opposite of despite.” That is why the Earthpower does not have to respond to moral commitment; it can respond to any volitional upsurge (see #7). Likewise, the Elohim are not morally good in a human sense. Sometimes Donaldson seems to have something Jungian or even Nietzschian in mind with this, but their interpretations cannot really make sense for his world: power is never justification in the Land; might never makes right; it is not enough to say to Job that “your ways are not my ways,” and the Creator does have moral principle.

However, Donaldson seems to conceive the natural potency of life as coming in two forms, actually – a structuring principle (form, order, law) and a flowing or flux principle that makes structure come alive. This is an old metaphysical idea that he develops into his “beauty is controlled passion” formula. We find it reflected at several points in the stories, such as the synthesis of Vain and Findail in White Gold Wielder. But is probably clearest in the third series, where Jeremiah’s power involves making structures that can capture the flowing force needed to make something active and alive.
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Earthpower and the deepest meaning of magic in fantasy lit

Post by mhoram99 »

7. In psychological terms, Donaldson has also interpreted expressions of Earthpower as outward manifestations of willpower or freedom coupled with committed effort. This is Mhoram in a nutshell. Although his ends and motives are good, constrained by Kantian duty to each individual (rather than only to collective welfare), his will is open and expansive, not bent on its own abnegation through an oath of minimal violence. There is a clear critique of ‘Eastern’ abnegation philosophies in this (or fear of all positive willing as self-aggrandizing wilfulness): see ch.2 of my Will as Commitment and Resolve for a development of this critique.

So understood, fantasy and fantasy magic – the “eldrich theuegy” that Covenant had been unable to comprehend (PP) – is an externalization of the inner psyche. The idea that the Land might be Covenant’s dream obviously fits this schema as well. This makes sense of why Kevin’s Lore was not mastered by the new lords. It allows the human relation to forms of earthpower to shed light on important psychological insights.

Yet, despite that, I suggest that these interpretations of fantasy magic imply that Donaldson has missed something that Tolkien grasped. The last portions of “On Fairy Stories” shows that Tolkien understood the special type of happy ending essential to a good fairy tale as an indirect hint of eschatology – the world transformed at the end of time. Donaldson has not missed this, for sure; the “eucatastrophe” at the end of White Gold Wielder is better than the one on Mount Doom at achieving what Tolkien intended. But Tolkien also said that faerie has three “faces:” mystery towards the divine, the mirror of “scorn and pity” towards humanity, and the face of “magic towards nature.” When we put this together with the eschatological aspect, it means that faerie magic is nature as it might look in the hereafter, transformed by infusion with the divine (see my essay in The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy). The “face” of nature revealed in this kind of magic is its potential to be transformed in a way that actually transcends human imagination.

Every manifestation of the Earthpower in Donaldson’s work operates this way, and yet that notion does not enter into his official explanation in his few published pieces on what he was doing. We can see this by considering how different magic is in the Mordant’s Need series, where is retains a trace of the original wonder and awe of faerie, but not too much: it is mostly a tool. Magic in Harry Potter is even more instrumental; except in the joy of magical creatures, it is no longer at all that veiled eschatological face of nature. But that face is evident in the Elohim and their Faerie Queene, although the sense of connection to divine mystery does not quite come through in Elemesnedene. If one reads Tolkien’s beautiful little story titled “Smith of Wooton Major,” the journey into fairy land there encapsulates how Tolkien understood the “third way” of nature that is neither moral good nor evil. This is the true meaning of the 'neutrality' theme: its deepest point is that nature has its own intrinsic value prior to the moral good and evil of free wills, and magic is (through a glass darkly) an anagogic revelation of this value.

I do not sense that Donaldson quite follows Tolkien to this eschatological end-point. The destruction and renewal at the end of the third series is much more like that in Norse mythology than the utterly new anticipated in biblical eschatology.
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Post by IrrationalSanity »

Lots of great thoughts. I'll need to contemplate on this...
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Post by wayfriend »

I'd comment on those things, but I'm not sure if you posted them in order to discuss them. If so, they should be in their own thread! Threads, even.

Maybe the moderators can split these posts off?

As to "the obviousness of many points", well, you can hardly have a decent scholarly discourse without beginning with the obvious.
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