A Timeless Story?

As we were having class discussions yesterday the topic of love came up quite a bit because of the story of Beren and Lúthien.  I think it’s interesting to see how ideas have changed over time, so I want to ask:  Do you all think this story is timeless?

I’m not sure what to say, since there are a lot of different aspects.  Let me explain:

Some of the ideas in the story are undeniably universal, such as sacrifice, love, and courage.  There are heroes and villains, and the tale is objectively a well-structured myth.

Some of the ideas seem to be showing their age.  Is love at first sight still relevant?  Or is the romance too sappy for modern readers?  Are the characters too one-dimensional?  What about Beren feeling obligated to obey Thingol’s outrageous request for a silmaril when he could have just married Lúthien and never come back (having many chances to)?  Shouldn’t it be Lúthien’s choice, not Thingol’s?

And in spite of this, some of the ideas seem like they were ahead of their time.  Lúthien is certainly more magically powerful than Beren, and she goes on the quest with him.  While he is the one to actually cut the silmaril from the crown, she is the only one powerful enough to bring them to that point and does most of the heavy lifting.  She is the one who brings Beren back from the dead and chooses to live for a time with Beren and then die, rather than remaining immortal.

Add to that the over the top magic.  In some ways it seems almost unlike Tolkien, whose use of magic is usually very subtle.  Here there are werewolves, vampires, talking animals, beings changing form, magical disguises, battles of wizardry, magical songs, fortresses destroyed by magic, and even Tolkien’s version of a mythic journey to the afterlife.  While there are some similar elements in other stories by Tolkien the magic is much more prominent here.

The result is something that’s pretty hard to digest, and in some ways alien to the Tolkien we know from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (though we can se some of the same ideas in those works if we look for them).  What do you think?  Is it a timeless story?  Do the characters still hold up today?  Is their love still relevant?

~Ulmo

P. S.  How do you think the brief tragic bit about Gorlim and his wife Eilinel at the start fits in?  It seems like a radically different type of story, but also about love.