Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Timeless Moments: Russell Kirk, Charles Williams, And Stephen King On The Afterlife, Camilo Peralta

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

What happens to us after death is one of the oldest and most difficult questions. Even the standard response of many Christians, that we go to either Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory, can only partly satisfy, because while we experience the passing of time in a linear manner, those places are said to exist completely outside of time. How, then, can it make sense to speak of “going” to Heaven or Hell after death? Must we not always and forever be there—even during our lifetimes? Russell Kirk, a Catholic historian from Michigan who often speculated about the afterlife in his fiction …

Tolkien, Augustinian Theodicy, And 'Lovecraftian' Evil, Perry Neil Harrison

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

A number of scholars have commented upon Augustine of Hippo’s influence upon J.R.R. Tolkien’s portrayal of evil in his legendarium. However, in his seminal work J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, Tom Shippey pushes back against this perception, noting that there are some forms of evil in the legendarium that do not adhere to the Augustine’s belief that evil is merely a “twisting” of good. This article argues that Ungoliant is one such exception to the Augustinian paradigm because of the uncertainty regarding her origins.This uncertainty complicates the Augustinian view of evil that permeates the legendarium and instead echoes …

Tolkien, Enchantment, And Loss: Steps On The Developmental Journey By John Rosegrant, Timothy K. Lenz

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

No abstract provided.

The One Ring Of King Solomon, Giovanni Carmine Costabile

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Tolkien source criticism has long been looking for the source of the One Ring in the wrong places. Neither the historical ispiration from World War II and the Atomic Bomb nor the proposed literary influences such as the Ring of the Nibelungs, Wagner's Ring, or the several examples of invisibility rings found in world literature may suffice to explain the complexity of Tolkien's unique creation. Nonetheless, the same cannot be said so easily with regards to another possible source once we survey the richness of the related legends: it is the fabled signet ring of King Solomon.

Terry Pratchett’S Witches Novels And The Consensus Fantasy Universe: A Feminist Perspective, Clair J. Hutchings-Budd Ms

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Abstract

Between 1987 and 2015, Terry Pratchett published eleven novels and one short story within his Discworld universe that came to be known as his “Witches” sub-series. In these texts he engaged with the narrative imperatives, preoccupations, and tropes which together make up the consensus fantasy universe, and those deeper mythologies and legendarium with which the author necessarily has an intertextual relationship. This paper focuses upon one aspect of that consensus universe, which is the difference between male and female magical practitioners—witches and wizards—in the fantasy canon, and how Pratchett sought to challenge and subvert the stereotypes of the genre …

Goddess And Mortal: The Celtic And The French Morgan Le Fay In Tolkien’S Silmarillion, Clare Moore

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Few characters change more in their depiction throughout ‘traditional’ Arthurian literature than Morgan le Fay, who transitions from the benevolent and supernatural Queen of the Isle of Apples to the mortal sister of King Arthur with a complicated relationship to her brother and his court. These two versions of the Arthurian enchantress are represented in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini and the French Vulgate Cycle, and they parallel two of Tolkien’s prominent female characters in The Silmarillion: Lúthien and Aredhel. Establishing parallels between Monmouth’s Morgen and Tolkien’s Lúthien demonstrates both a connection to the Celtic tradition and a departure …

Tellers Of Dark Fairy Tales: Common Themes In The Works Of C.S. Lewis And Terence Fisher, Gabriel C. Salter

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This article explores connections between C.S. Lewis and filmmaker Terence Fisher, notably how their works explore themes like the charm of evil, white magic’s dubious nature, and myth hinting at divine truths. By viewing these themes, Fisher and Lewis’s common views on fairy tales, and how feedback informed their work, scholars discover nuance in the perceived “Inklings versus secular British culture” dichotomy.

Tolkien And The Classical World, Edited By Hamish Williams, Larry J. Swain

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

No abstract provided.

The Romance And The Real: A. S. Byatt’S Possession: A Romance, Jordana Long

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Demonstrates Possession’s mythic elements, in particular, how the encounter between the fictitious Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash and his daughter Maia in the novel’s Postscript constitutes Ash’s confrontation with Slavoj Žižek’s famous interpretation of the Lacanian Real. Building on Žižek, argues that Ash’s encounter with the Real actually springs from and mediates grace. This reimagining of the Real is an integral element of myth and introduces the mythic into Possession, giving it the qualities of a Romance.

Gunslinger Roland From Yeats’S Towers Came(?): A Little-Studied Influence On Stephen King’S Dark Tower Series, Abigail L. Montgomery

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This essay has two major goals. Its general aim is to join the growing body of scholarship that takes Stephen King’s work seriously as literature in its own right and in conversation with other, traditionally canonical, works. This essay specifically does so by examining the apparent, though unreferenced, influence of William Butler Yeats’s poems “The Tower” and “The Black Tower” on King’s longest, strangest, most challenging and most self-referential work—the Dark Tower series. King references Yeats elsewhere in his fiction, and a rich, non-linear intertextuality connects the Dark Tower series to much of the rest of King’s work. Taking this …

On The Shoulders Of Humphrey Carpenter: Reconsidering Biographical Representation And Scholarly Perception Of Edith Tolkien, Nicole M. Duplessis

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

In his obituary for Carpenter, Douglas A. Anderson reviews Carpenter’s “long and complex” involvement with the subject of his 1977 authorized biography, indicating that “with [Carpenter’s] passing it is time to begin to assess his changing perspectives on Tolkien and on his own Tolkien-related work.” Since its publication, Carpenter’s biography of Tolkien, which Anderson calls “an excellent book. . . unusually accurate more than a quarter of a century after it was written, despite many advances in Tolkien scholarship” remains a largely unquestioned authority, its influence so entrenched as to be virtually invisible. As a result, scholarship on Tolkien, from …

C.S. Lewis And Christian Postmodernism: Word, Image, And Beyond. Kyoko Yuasa, Peter G. Epps

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

In C. S. Lewis and Christian Postmodernism, Kyoko Yuasa has managed to advance the cause of careful reading and discussion of Lewis’s novels as contemporary cultural artifacts, rather than mere ciphers for apologetics or mere fluff for children, for both Japanese and American audiences. This is no mean feat, not only in terms of translation but also in terms of trans-Pacific discourse, and Yuasa deserves great credit for the accomplishment. Her close reading of several of Lewis’s major fiction works in a comparative frame she derives from works by Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark, Doris Lessing, and John Fowles yields …

J.R.R. Tolkien, Romanticist And Poet. Julian Eilmann. Translated By Evelyn Koch, Kris Swank

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

No abstract provided.

The Unlikely Milliner & The Magician Of Threadneedle-Street [Article], K. A. Laity

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Susanna Clarke uses the tarot in her novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell much as she uses history: twisting it to open up spaces for magic and playfulness. She offers modifications on the traditional Tarot de Marseille that accurately predict the narrative events, yet deftly obscures the outcomes by leading the readers (and the characters) to jump to the wrong conclusions. Laity’s analysis of the Tarot readings performed by Childermas and Vinculus shows that Strange and Norrell enjoy mastery in magic, only to find that that mastery brings great suffering to others and also isolates them from the world as …