Tolkien's "Recovery"

As discussed below at length, (See Synopsis of Barfieldian Epistemology) we engage the world around us through culturally constructed symbols.  By this I mean that when we see a tree (or anything else), our mind has been taught from its infancy about how to see that tree.  Our mind has been taught how to create the image of the tree from the raw sensory data that the eyes bring in.  So the tree, by the end of our infancy, has a familiar shape and color and feel to it.  These constructed images also have attached to them familiar associations that fit our notion of "tree-ishness"  It has green leaves so that it can use sunlight to create food sugars through photosynthesis.  Its stiff branches hold the canopy high above to catch sunlight. It is a dry spot in the rain and a shady spot in the heat of the summer.  It requires no mental activity to recreate its form and feeling in our minds; it is ours already, part of our mental make up.  It is a tree, and we know it as such.

Tolkien remarks in "On Fairy-Stories" that one of the primary benefits to reading fantasy is "Recovery."  He says, "We should see green again and be startled anew...We should meet with the Centaur and the Dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses, and wolves.  This recovery fantasy helps us to make."  In the next paragraph he continues, "Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining--regaining of a clear view.  I do not say 'seeing things as they are'...though I might venture to say 'seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them' --as things apart from ourselves.  We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity-- of possessiveness."

It is very hard to see past, or through, the schemata of our minds.  Occasionally, however, we will look at a dog that we have seen a thousand times and see it is a strange beast, though we know it to be the same creature we have seen before.  Or at times we hear a word that has been formed by our tongue countless times, and it suddenly sounds foreign, and we can imagine what "English" might sound like to the Chinese.  It is in these brief moments that we are seeing something old and familiar afresh, without the culturally created schemata that we used before; and the familiar object, for a moment, is something new.  It is this type of breaking down of triteness and familiarity that Tolkien sees as a great benefit of good fantasy.  Upon entering a secondary world of elvish beauty and orcish horror we can return to our familiar world and see a tree, and knowing it is the same tree, see it fresh and new, its green leaves are a startling revelation, and its branches an Aeolian Harp.  (For an interesting discussion of this idea in connection with Thoreau's writing see-  Abrams, Robert E. “Image, Object, and Perception in Thoreau’s Landscapes: The Development of Anti-Geography.”  Nineteenth Century Literature. 46.2 (1991): 245-262.)

Let's look at some of Tolkien's own writing then and see how he employed this idea.  One of Aragorn's memorable talents was his ability to heal.  When Frodo was stabbed by the Morgul blade of the Nazgul upon Weathertop, Aragorn makes a poultice of leaves which he calls Athelas.  Tolkien writes in the chapter "Flight to the Ford", "He crushed a leaf in his fingers and it gave out a sweet and pungent flavor.  'It is fortunate that I could find it for it is a healing plant that the men of the West brought to middle earth'...He threw the leaves into boiling water and...the fragrance of the steam was refreshing, and those that were unhurt felt their minds calmed and cleared.  This description of the simple Athelas leaf sounds remarkably like Tolkien's own belief in the refreshing and recovery that fantasy can bring.

In the third book, in the chapter "Houses of the Healing" Aragorn again uses the Athelas, an herb that the herbmaster thought was of little value, to heal Faramir of the "Black Breath."  "Then taking two leaves he laid them on his hands and breathed on them, and then he crushed them, and straight way a living freshness filled the room, as if the air itself awoke and tingles, sparkling with joy...The fragrance that came to each was like a memory of dewy mornings of unshadowed sun in some land of which the fair world in spring is itself a fleeting memory."  The scent of the Athelas renewed and brought to mind a sense of the world as a brand new thing.  A world that was being discovered and imagined freshly and for the first time.

Tolkien's use of the Athelas plant is, I believe, his symbolizing of the refreshing potential of fantasy itself.  The ability of fantasy to allow us to see the world anew.  It is a magic that overcomes the one who enters into Tolkien's world.  He/she does not come back the same person.  Tolkien is the master of lore, and in his hands, Athelas (fantasy) can have great healing effects upon those who will breath its fragrance.