Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Reviews, Ruth Berman, Joe R. Christopher, Janet Brennan Croft, Mike Foster, Harley Sims, Richard C. West

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

The Making of a Mystic: New and Selected Letters of Evelyn Underhill. Ed. Carol Poston. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher.

From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine's Journey through Myth and Legend. Valerie Estelle Frankel. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft.

The Wizard of Oz and Philosophy: Wicked Wisdom of the West (Popular Culture and Philosophy, Vol. 37). Ed. Randall E. Auxier and Phillip S. Seng. Reviewed by Ruth Berman.

C.S. Lewis's Lost Aeneid: Arms and the Exile. Edited with an Introduction by A.T. Reyes. Reviewed by Richard C. West.

The Ring and the Cross: Christianity and The Lord of the Rings …

"Beowulf: The Monsters And The Critics" Seventy-Five Years Later, Michael D.C. Drout

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

Scholar Guest of Honor speech, Mythcon 42. A discussion of the continuing influence of Tolkien’s famed Beowulf essay on its seventy-fifth anniversary. Shows how the essay both opened up and limited later Beowulf scholarship, and draws some interesting parallels with the current state of Tolkien scholarship. Along the way, questions the wisdom of believing everything an author says about his own work, and asserts the value of familiarity with critical history.

Thresholds To Middle-Earth: Allegories Of Reading, Allegories For Knowledge And Transformation, Andrew Hallam

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

Alexei Kondratiev Student Presentation Award, Mythcon 42. Begins by strongly questioning Tolkien’s own assertions about allegory, and draws on a wide range of theory and scholarship to show the subtle operation of a deep pattern of allegory in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings centered around imagery of readers and reading, thresholds and journeys.

The Pearl Maiden's Psyche: The Middle English Pearl And The Allegorical-Visionary Impulse In Till We Have Faces, T. S. Miller

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

Lewis’s firm assertion that Till We Have Faces is not the least bit allegorical is challenged through its parallels in plot and theme with the highly allegorical Middle English Pearl. The deep allegorical structures in both revolve around seeing truly and falsely, and blindness both intentional and ignorant.

Into The Lion's Den: Joy Davidman And Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Don W. King

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

Looks at Davidman’s involvement with Hollywood—her short and unlamented stint in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Junior Writer Program in 1939, and her movie reviews for the Communist Party of the USA newspaper, New Masses, in 1941–1943. Davidman’s incisive wit, impatience with any hint of phoniness, and passion for social, racial, and gender justice come through clearly in her writing.

The Great War And Narnia: C.S. Lewis As Soldier And Creator, Brian Melton

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

Looks at influence of World War I in Lewis’s autobiography and on war in Narnia, correcting mistaken search by some critics for deep-seated war trauma in Lewis’s life. Reinforces that Lewis and Tolkien were not psychological twins, had differing personalities going into the war, and came out of it with different approaches to dealing with war in their fiction. The Chronicles being children’s books, Lewis operated under certain self-imposed restrictions in writing them, and yet managed to convey some realistic lessons about war learned through his own harrowing experiences. Also addresses the issue of gaps in Lewis’s autobiography.

Is A "Christian" Mystery Story Possible? Charles Williams's War In Heaven As A Generic Case Study, Sørina Higgins

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

Examines War in Heaven’s radical upsetting of the detective novel norms promised in its first few paragraphs and shows how Williams uses and subverts these conventions and leads us to contemplate, instead of a mystery and its solution, an insoluble Mystery with a capital M.

Christian, Norse And Celtic: Metaphysical Belief Structures In Nancy Farmer's The Saxon Saga, Marek Oziewicz

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

Introduces a young adult historical-fantasy trilogy, The Saxon Saga by Nancy Farmer, and elucidates the value of its multicultural approach in our distrustful and fragmented age. The respectful representation of three conflicting cultures in the novels—Christian, Norse, and Celtic—demonstrates to young readers that people may hold vastly different metaphysical views and yet may have many core values in common, enough to forge a relationship of mutual trust.

The Lord Of The Rings' Interlace: The Adaptation To Film, Emily E. Auger

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

An investigation of how Tolkien’s interlacing narrative technique is translated in the recent film trilogy, and in particular, Jackson’s method of interlacing Isildur’s story, Gollum’s torture in Mordor, and Elrond’s expanded council with foreshadowings and re-echoings of dialogue and visual cues.

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

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

No abstract provided.

A Matter Of Time: C.S. Lewis's Dark Tower Manuscript And Composition Process, Jonathan B. Himes

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

Explores Lewis’s writing process in the unfinished Dark Tower, leading us through his examination of the manuscript and explaining his conclusions about the order of composition and Lewis’s writing methods.

Narrative Dualism In C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, Sadie H. Bullard

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

Introduces the concept of “narrative dualism” to understand both Lewis’s technique and his authorial purpose in creating opposing but parallel experiences, motifs, and motivations for Jane and Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength.

Dialogic War: From The Battle Of Maldon To The War Of The Ring, Peter Grybauskas

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

Examines Tolkien’s ability to hold two conflicting ways of thinking in creative tension, representing them through equally sympathetic characters each fairly having their own say, as he does in “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son.” Grybauskas finds a parallel to this in the way Battle of Maldon balances its praise of Northern courage with its censure of the Earl of Maldon’s Ofermod.

The Dantean Structure Of The Great Divorce, Joe R. Christopher

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

Examines the underlying structure of Lewis’s The Great Divorce, and its mirroring of the Purgatorio.

Cordial Dislike: Reinventing The Celestial Ladies Of Pearl And Purgatorio In Tolkien's Galadriel, Sarah Downey

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

Considers the Celestial Lady characters from Pearl and Purgatorio as influences on Tolkien’s Galadriel, in character, appearance, situation, and allegorical significance.

The Precious And The Pearl: The Influence Of Pearl On The Nature Of The One Ring, Noah Koubenec

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

Examines some roots of Tolkien’s One Ring in Pearl’s themes and motifs, characters, and allegorical functions.

Letters: Stalin's Orcs, Robert T. Tally Jr.

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

Following up on his article in Mythlore 29.1/2, the author summarizes a recent discovery that Josef Stalin once attempted to create a superior species of warrior by cross-breeding humans and apes.

Reviews, Gregory Bassham, David Bratman, Joe R. Christopher, Charles A. Huttar, Douglas C. Kane, Harley Sims, Donna A. White

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

A Sword between the Sexes?: C.S. Lewis and the Gender Debates. Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher.

The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis. Edited by Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward. Reviewed by Gregory Bassham.

The Law and Harry Potter. Jeffrey E. Thomas and Franklin G. Snyder, eds. Reviewed by Douglas C. Kane.

Merlin: Knowledge and Power through the Ages. Stephen Knight. Reviewed by Harley J. Sims.

Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Sources of Inspiration. Ed. by Stratford Caldecott and Thomas Honegger. Reviewed by Charles A. Huttar.

One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Series of …

Art According To Romantic Theology: Charles Williams's Analysis Of Dante Reapplied To J.R.R. Tolkien's "Leaf By Niggle", Michael Milburn

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

Provides a grounding in Charles Williams’s “romantic theology,” which was heavily indebted to his reading of Dante, and the application of romantic theology to art, which Milburn demonstrates by examining Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle” through this lens. Winner of the Alexei Kondratiev Award at Mythcon 41.

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

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

No abstract provided.

Túrin And Aragorn: Evading And Embracing Fate, Janet Brennan Croft

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

Considers the characters of Aragorn and Túrin and how, at the level of motif, their name changes throughout the legendarium reflect their own very different relationships with their wyrd and the fate of the universe.

A Bibliography Of Glen Goodknight's Articles, Reviews, And Major Editorials In Mythlore, Janet Brennan Croft

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

Describes Mythopoeic Society founder GoodKnight’s influence on Inklings scholarship. Lists his scholarly articles, book and media reviews, and selected editorials in Mythlore, Tolkien Journal, and the published Mythopoeic Conference proceedings.

Two Rings To Rule Them All: A Comparative Study Of Tolkien And Wagner, Jamie Mcgregor

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

A close comparison of Wagner’s Ring Cycle and the history of the One Ring in Tolkien’s legendarium which goes far beyond the usual shallow or dismissive comparison between the two. Here we see Tolkien, as he frequently did, absorbing the influence of an earlier author and responding in the form of a correction based on his sense that Wagner had, as Shippey put it, “got something very important not quite right” (Road 344).