Tolkien as a child of The Green Fairy Book Ruth Berman IN HIS ESSAY “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien identified himself as one of Andrew Lang’s intended audience (39)–he was born in 1892, in the same year as The Green Fairy Book, the third in Lang’s series of 12 “color” anthologies of fairy tales. In part, this […]
Category: Mythlore
“In the hilt is fame”: resonances of medieval swords and sword-lore in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings K.S. Whetter As part of the powerful and evocative scene in which the Company of the Nine embarks from Rivendell on the quest to return the One Ring to Mount Doom, J. R. […]
Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C. S. Lewis John D. Rateliff PAST WATCHFUL DRAGONS: FANTASY AND FAITH IN THE WORLD OF C. S. LEWIS. Ed. Amy H. Sturgis. Altadena, California: The Mythopoeic Press, 2007. 222 pages. $20.00. ISBN 978-1-887726-11-5. THIS, THE MYTHOPOEIC PRESS’S SEVENTH BOOK, is a collection of papers […]
Through a dark lens: Jackson’s Lord of the Rings as abject horror R.D. Hall THERE is no doubt that Peter Jackson makes excellent horror films. Linda Badley says in Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic, “Jackson is one of several talented young directors who found in splatter and grotesque fantasy the elements of a distinctive […]
Letters to Malcolm and the trouble with Narnia: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their 1949 crisis Eric Seddon IN THE EARLY SPRING OF 1949, C.S. Lewis read part of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, still in manuscript, to J.R.R. Tolkien. Expecting enthusiasm from his longtime friend and colleague, he received instead what would […]
Types of heroism in The Lord of the Rings – Critical Essay Romuald Ian Lakowski WHILE much has been written about J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, very little attention has been paid to Tolkien’s treatment of Masculine “types.” (1) A major complication in addressing the problem of the various patterns of […]
Imitative desire in Tolkien’s mythology: a Girardian perspective Hayden Head IN HIS BOOK THE EVERLASTING MAN, Chesterton cautions his readers about those students of mythology who claim to have discovered the key to unlocking the meaning of myths: There are too many keys to mythology, as there are too many cryptograms in Shakespeare. Everything is […]
A darker ignorance: C. S. Lewis and the nature of the fall – Critical Essay Mary R. Bowman Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of […]
It’s a Wonderful Life as Faerian Drama – 1 – the role of faeries in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and in Frank Capra’s film – Critical Essay Christopher Garbowski TOLKIEN is primarily known for his enormously popular The Lord of the Rings, which seems less a work of literature than a ticket to an […]
Applicability and truth in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion: readers, fantasy, and canonicity – Critical Essay Sara Upstone “Tolkien’s critics, not his readers, are our of touch with reality. Never has the intellectual establishment so richly deserved defiance.”(1) A 1997 Waterstone’s poll proclaimed Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings “the […]