Actually, that was a great tangent and I'd love to hear more about it! Because that's a very very good point that this book was being written in the 1950s. It's not part of WW1 lit, though when I was reading Great War and Modern Memory there were a number of things in it where I felt like it really was part of that whole body of literature...it just took Tolkien a few decades to get it on paper. It was a really fascinating way of looking at it because it was so removed from that time, but connected to it at the same time.
So when you read the story do you see it, as I know some people do (and this is a way that makes a lot of sense to me), as Sam essentially being in love with Frodo romantically but unaware of it? Would you say Tolkien had more understanding of this than Sam, or would he, too, probably not be able to say Sam literally wanted to have sex with him? Do you think Tolkien was specifically using that language to say this *wasn't* just a friendship, but being more vague about just what it was, or was he hinting it was sexual?
I guess what I mean is...Tolkien lived through that earlier time, but was now living in the 50s. A lot of LOTR he seemed to be an intentional throwback to earlier eras. So if he was using language that he knew would be taken sexually in his own time, I wonder if he might have done it as a rejection of the current interpretation.
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So when you read the story do you see it, as I know some people do (and this is a way that makes a lot of sense to me), as Sam essentially being in love with Frodo romantically but unaware of it? Would you say Tolkien had more understanding of this than Sam, or would he, too, probably not be able to say Sam literally wanted to have sex with him? Do you think Tolkien was specifically using that language to say this *wasn't* just a friendship, but being more vague about just what it was, or was he hinting it was sexual?
I guess what I mean is...Tolkien lived through that earlier time, but was now living in the 50s. A lot of LOTR he seemed to be an intentional throwback to earlier eras. So if he was using language that he knew would be taken sexually in his own time, I wonder if he might have done it as a rejection of the current interpretation.