Poul Anderson, The Corridors Of Time, CHAPTER ELEVEN.
In Viborg, 1535 A.D., Jesper Fledelius makes some fine distinctions. Being, as he sees it, a good Christian man, he rejects the Lutheran heresy, Satan and the false gods in the chronicles of Saxo Grammaticus but believes that peasants may appeal to the spirits of earth and water without grave sin.
Lockridge reflects that the Neolithics have "...wholeness of spirit..." and are:
"...one with earth and sky and sea in a way that those who set the gods apart from themselves, or who denied any gods, could never be." (p. 96)
What is it to deny gods? No longer believing that they literally exist, we must nevertheless acknowledge that imagination, myth, art and literature are essential to humanity. We would not be who or what we are without the Homeric and Eddaic gods, also without Hamlet and other major figures in literature. Does anyone deny this and think that human beings could have libraries and bookshops full of history and science but nothing else? Religion and fiction are a continuum. Readers who prefer realistic fiction have to acknowledge that libraries also contain speculative fiction, fantasy, myths, fairy tales and theology. See Wreathed Horn.
There will probably be more about this passage in The Corridors Of Time.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Jasper Fledelius' view of the customs of the Danish peasants he knew reminded me of a similar situation seen in A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST, where first the Catholic and then some of Protestant clergy who were more tolerant did not object to English peasants showing similar reverence to similar beings. AS long as they were not worshiped as gods. Which Oberon himself accepted, agreeing he was not a god.
Truth to say I'm more skeptical than Lockridge of Neolithic humans being all that "one" with earth, sea, sky. I can't help but think he was idealizing a life that was often hard, grim, limited, impoverished.
You wrote too broadly by saying "No longer believing that they [gods] literally exist..." I believe God literally exist, as do hundreds of millions of people. And there are many millions of people who believe in the gods of Hinduism, the last major surviving pagan religion. The rest of your paragraph discussing literature and libraries I agree with.
Truth to say, I don't much care for "mainstream literature," if that is what you meant by "realistic fiction." Novels of middle class angst doesn't appeal to me. Well, I did like the satires of the late Tom Wolfe!
Sean
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