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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Unicorn Trade: Towards A Cultural History Of The Mass-Market Unicorn, Timothy S. Miller Apr 2023

The Unicorn Trade: Towards A Cultural History Of The Mass-Market Unicorn, Timothy S. Miller

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

As genre fantasy congealed around a Tolkienian core in the middle decades of the 20th century, two fantastical creatures emerged as the dominant emblems of the form: the dragon and the unicorn. Either one might serve to adorn genre labels on the spines of library books, or act as the colophon for a publisher’s fantasy line. Dipping in and out of touchstone texts in the fantasy tradition such as Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn and Michael Bishop’s Unicorn Mountain, this essay will commence a preliminary exploration of the wider mass cultural adoption of one of these two creatures, …


Useful Little Men: George R. R. Martin's Dwarfs As Grotesque Realists, Joseph Rex Young Oct 2020

Useful Little Men: George R. R. Martin's Dwarfs As Grotesque Realists, Joseph Rex Young

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

No abstract provided.


Letting Sleeping Abnormalities Lie: Lovecraft And The Futility Of Divination [Article], Carol S. Matthews Apr 2018

Letting Sleeping Abnormalities Lie: Lovecraft And The Futility Of Divination [Article], Carol S. Matthews

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

By way of divinatory dreams, astrology, geomancy, or other means, the Lovecraft quester discovers that universe is more deeply frightening than anything he could possibly have imagined. Lovecraft’s lack of faith in divination practices, not because of their inefficacy, but rather due to his conviction that humans lack the essential capacity to understand their lowly place in the universe, is ironically not shared by many of his admirers and followers, who have created magical and divination systems galore since Lovecraft’s demise.


Tolkien's Dialogue Between Enchantment And Loss, John Rosegrant Apr 2015

Tolkien's Dialogue Between Enchantment And Loss, John Rosegrant

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

Examines the tension between the theme of loss underlying so much of the content of The Lord of the Rings, and the enchantment of the form of the work; the balance between the two generates a melancholy beauty that brings readers back to the book over and over again. Tolkien’s own biography is used as an example of this balance of loss and enchantment playing out in real life.


Song As Mythic Conduit In The Fellowship Of The Ring, Cami Agan Apr 2008

Song As Mythic Conduit In The Fellowship Of The Ring, Cami Agan

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

Explores the complex layering of history and legend that convey Tolkien’s themes across a wide array of genres within the legendarium, reinforcing the sense of depth of time Tolkien hoped to achieve even within The Hobbit.


Tolkien's Elvish Craft, Dwayne Thorpe Oct 1996

Tolkien's Elvish Craft, Dwayne Thorpe

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

This paper examines “fusion”, the basis of artistry, in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Fusion takes place in descriptive passages, in the characters’ perception and in the language Tolkien uses. Fusion works toward the purpose of Tolkien’s fiction, which is to be found in the Christian views of earth and escapism, especially as expressed by sea-longing.


Where Do Elves Go To? Tolkien And A Fantasy Tradition, Norman Talbot Oct 1996

Where Do Elves Go To? Tolkien And A Fantasy Tradition, Norman Talbot

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

The departure of the Elves from Middle-earth haunted Tolkien’s imagination, but it has also fascinated many other writers before and since. After Kipling and Tolkien, the twin pivots in recent literary ideas about Elves, the destiny of the Elves is being treated in more and more diverse ways. But Hy Braseal is so hard to imagine, given the Americas in this century: how can the people of the starlight still “go west”? Most go “in” instead, into humanity or into places (and computer programs) with that special Elf-friendly charge.


Encounter Darkness: The Black Platonism Of David Lindsay, Adelheid Kegler Mar 1993

Encounter Darkness: The Black Platonism Of David Lindsay, Adelheid Kegler

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

Characterizes Lindsay as a “belated symbolist” whose characters are “personifications of ontological values.” Uses Neoplatonic “references to transcendence” but his imagery and technique do not suggest a positive view of transcendence.


From Belbury To Bernt-Arse: The Rhetoric Of The Wasteland In Lewis, Orwell And Hoban, Kath Filmer Dec 1987

From Belbury To Bernt-Arse: The Rhetoric Of The Wasteland In Lewis, Orwell And Hoban, Kath Filmer

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

Analyzes the rhetorical modes used in mythopoeic literature, using as examples 1984, Riddley Walker, and That Hideous Strength. Focuses on the rhetorical use of the image of the wasteland in these novels.


The Rags Of Lordship: Science Fiction, Fantasy, And The Reenchantment Of The World, Peter Lowentrout Feb 1985

The Rags Of Lordship: Science Fiction, Fantasy, And The Reenchantment Of The World, Peter Lowentrout

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

Sees a movement at the leading edges of our culture away from the desacralized world and back toward the mythic. Sees the genres of science fiction and fantasy providing aesthetic windows to the sacred. Along with science and religion, they participate in a resynthesis of our culture’s assumptions, pointing toward individuality within fundamental unity and broader notions of causality.