alt Hacker NewsIt's good of you to beware immature judgment lest you so be judged.
I didn't have a particular letter in mind but the topic comes up at various places in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, especially in his remarks about sub-creation. I decided to ctrl-f my digital copy and I'll point you to Letter 213 for a direct remark. It's 3 paragraphs, here's the first:
> I do not like giving 'facts' about myself other than 'dry' ones (which anyway are quite as relevant to my books as any other more Juicy details). Not simply for personal reasons; but also because I object to the contemporary trend in criticism, with its excessive interest in the details of the lives of authors and artists. They only distract attention from an author's works (if the works are in fact worthy of attention), and end, as one now often sees, in becoming the main interest. But only one's guardian Angel, or indeed God Himself, could unravel the real relationship between personal facts and an author's works. Not the author himself (though he knows more than any investigator), and certainly not so-called 'psychologists'.
I'm in agreement with Tolkien here.
I wonder if you've ever read A Modest Proposal? If not: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm But if so I still wonder if you can put yourself in the frame of mind of not having read it and not knowing anything about it, and thus recreating an approximation for how you would read such a piece for the first time. What do you make of it? What do you make of Dr. Jonathan Swift? Do you have enough historical knowledge to put yourself in 1729 and interpret it as a person from that era, instead of our modern cynical and irony-poisoned one?
> It's good of you to beware immature judgment lest you so be judged.
A dear reminder best expressed by the second Caliph of the Islamic state Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه: “Bring yourself to account before you are taken to account.”
I think I’ve come across both that quote of Tolkien’s before and I’m also vaguely familiar with A Modest Proposal, to the degree that after reading the subtitle I was reminded that it’s satire. I’m not sure how this will affect my reading of it but I intend to assign myself both Letter 213 of Tolkien’s letters and the whole of A Modest Proposal with the questions you presented in relation to it as homework! Thanks.
Edit: I also just found your blog and am subscribed to your RSS feed. “Hard Labor” is a nice read. It’s hard to come across this level of introspection that doesn’t go out of its way to appeal to an audience. Well I’m reading your stuff now. And I am judging you too! (Half joke).