Or the True Nature of Glamour
Today, the word “glamour” is more closely associated with ‘50’s film starlets and glossy magazines than with its original meaning.
Here is what the dictionaries say:
GLAMOUR:
1720, “magic, enchantment” (especially in phrase to cast the glamour), a variant of Scot. gramarye “magic, enchantment, spell,” alt. of Eng. grammar (q.v.) with a medieval sense of “any sort of scholarship, especially occult learning.” Popularized by the writings of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Sense of “magical beauty, alluring charm” first recorded 1840. Glamorous can be dated to 1882 (slang shortening glam first attested 1936); glamorize is dated 1936.
The etymology is intriguing and a little frustrating. “Gammayre” is almost systematically listed as a Sottish variant on “grammar” (14th century), which is of course from Greek grammatike tekhne ‘art of letters’, from gramma ‘letter of the alphabet’. Not much to do with spells, but more with spelling. Hmmm… spells and spelling… it’s tempting, but a bit of a long-jump of faith, casting spells is not really like spelling correctly, despite the magic of putting names to things.
Here is what the 1913 Webster’s Dictionary has to say
Gla”mour (?), n. [Scot. glamour, glamer; cf. Icel. glámeggdr one who is troubled with the glaucoma (?); or Icel. glām-sni weakness of sight, glamour; glāmr name of the moon, also of a ghost + sni sight akin to E. see. Perh., however, a corruption of E. gramarye.]
1. A charm affecting the eye, making objects appear different from what they really are.
2. Witchcraft; magic; a spell. Tennyson.
3. A kind of haze in the air, causing things to appear different from what they really are.
The air filled with a strange, pale glamour that seemed to lie over the broad valley. W. Black.
4. Any artificial interest in, or association with, an object, through which it appears delusively magnified or glorified. Glamour gift, Glamour might, the gift or power of producing a glamour. The former is used figuratively, of the gift of fascination peculiar to women.
It had much of glamour might To make a lady seem a knight. Sir W. Scott.
Did the word travel to Iceland in a longship and back? Good question. (For the time being, I can’t even get the computer to spell the two Icelandic words in the definition properly.)
Here is what the same dictionary say about “Grammayre”
Gram”a*rye (?), n. [OE. gramer, grameri, gramori, grammar, magic, OF. gramaire, F. grammaire. See Grammar.] Necromancy; magic. Sir W. Scott.
Necromancy? This is getting creepy. (Necromancy is just “black” art, by the way, the etymology points to “nigromaunce” or black divination, not at all the same origin as “necro” – from Greek nekros ‘corpse.’)
Back to glamour.
“Glamour”, when you need it to rhyme, goes with the “our” suffixes – amour, clamour, paramour, enamour. While all these are linked in spirit and effect, making them etymological cousins is a little risky. Whatever the case, Glamour is magic. The kind that turns your head, lifts your feet from the ground, makes you forget where you are, who you are with. A spell. In the words of Llewelyn Powys: “…the girls appeared to be under a glamour.”
And, it is largely lacking the unpleasant connotations of spells cast by greed, envy or wickedness. These are spells closer to nature, closer to the nature of enchantment and faeirie. The peril is simply being human. Limited as we are, even a little glimpse of the sublime puts us out of our heads, puts us under a spell. (Besides, the folktale wicked witch is a simplification of vaster themes to do with diabolizing feminine empowerment.)
Quite frankly, I’d like to see glamour come back. And add a few verbs with new definitions:
Bewilder |biwīldər| To be lost in the beauty of nature, or entranced and enchanted by the landscape.
Bemuse |biˈmyoōz| To place in a state of receptivity to the muse, heightened artistic sensibilty and insight.*
Man’s relationship to nature is a paradoxical one. What we know as the modern world displays a dichotomy and an ambiguity proportional to our ability to destroy nature (when we’re not busy demonstrating downright schizophrenia, that is). Urbanization has largely removed “danger” from nature. It’s no longer hostile or threatening (except to our zero-risk sensibilties, exacerbated by ignoring common sense in most cases). It won’t fall on us or wash us away, freeze us to death or gobble us up unless we leave the beaten path. (The advent of recreational walking is a relatively recent occurence, it’s offspring “hiking” even more so, otherwise it’s rare we endanger ourselves of necessity, going from A to B. Besides, the wrong side of the tracks and the bad section of town is now a far more appropriate background for modern Little Red Riding Hoods. The wild side isn’t in the woods any longer.)
Also, our perception of nature still is grandly influenced both by Darwinian thought and by the Victorian down-the-nose observation of our ancestors, be they far-flung Neolithic or medieval. We’ve been told that man lived in terror of everything for so long – terror of the night, terror the sun would not rise, fearing fire, beasts, fellow men, the year 1000, the end of the world – that our 21st century civilization is justified just by existing. Lucky us, think of all those things we no longer fear!
Naturally, we find, invent and adamantly deny novel predicaments, real or imagined, from nuclear winter to global warming, space aliens to foreigners to unemployment and globalization. (And Y2K bugs – remember those? The grandest high-tech scam in recent history. Hundreds of millions spent to overhaul systems and… nothing happened, both in countries that spent fortunes and countries where not a finger was lifted or a penny spent.) It’s just as likely that historians a century or two from now will detail our fears as we detail those of our predecessors. Being afraid is in the nature of things.
But, that’s neither here nor there. “Fear” of nature (and it’s likely our ancestors were a lot more level-headed, pragmatic and well-equipped than us lot, and even more likely they would scratch their heads and wonder what we are on about) at least meant humans were in touch with nature. And, given the variety and creativity of myth and legend, deeply perceptive of it. Nature has glamour.
To draw it means to be drawn to it, to be drawn out of oneself and towards something far grander. To take a walk in the woods, whether metaphorically or with sturdy boots, depending on location and destination. But wherever it is, to be sure you take a good long look on the way.
* There are other old words I’d root for too, like “wyrd”, which has just become a synonym for “strange”, and lost the sense pertaining to fate.
This said, I do love the calligraphy of fields and trees, especially when a decent mist throws a bit of a wash over everything. Photos on the road to Saint-Ursanne. There was a kind of haze in the air, causing things to appear different from what they really are.
“The air filled with a strange, pale glamour that seemed to lie over the broad valley.”
Sounds about right to me.
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THE FRODO FRANCHISE
I love getting books in the post, and this one is a doubly pleasurable surprise, given that I had totally forgotten about it. I corresponded briefly with author Kristin Thompson ages ago about a book project she was working on, and the result turned up in the mail this week. (And signed by the author too!)
The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood
by Kristin Thompson
University of California Press
August 27, 2007
ISBN-10: 0520247744
ISBN-13: 978-0520247741
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Of course, it’s on pre-order from Amazon.
Tom Shippey, who is no stranger to Middle-Earth, says: “This is the best all-around view of the Tolkien phenomenon. Thompson understands the books, she understands the movies—she also understands the money and the franchising. Best of all, she understands the people. Thompson offers cultural criticism of the highest order, examining one of the most significant shifts in contemporary popular media.”
