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Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Children's and Young Adult Literature
Orpheus And The Harrowing Of Hell In The Tale Of Beren And Lúthien, Giovanni Carmine Costabile
Orpheus And The Harrowing Of Hell In The Tale Of Beren And Lúthien, Giovanni Carmine Costabile
Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature
Critics have observed that Beren and Lúthien’s tale is a Christian retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The “Harrowing of Hell” tradition is widespread in Italy as attested by the mosaic of San Marco among others, but it is in France that the Ovid Moralized reconnects it to Orpheus who descended into the Underworld to save Eurydice (an already late antique parallel) and therefore attests a happy ending version of the story that can be found in medieval England and also in various classical sources, perhaps even in the original legend of Orpheus. The apocryphal Harrowing is also …
Otherworldly But Not The Otherworld: Tolkien’S Adaptation Of Medieval Faerie And Fairies Into A Sub-Creative Elvendom, Elliott Thomas Collins
Otherworldly But Not The Otherworld: Tolkien’S Adaptation Of Medieval Faerie And Fairies Into A Sub-Creative Elvendom, Elliott Thomas Collins
Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature
Through a comparative analysis of Lothlorien and the medieval stories of Lanval and Sir Orfeo, this article attempts to shed some light on how the inherently pessimistic and recursive nature of Tolkien's sub-creation affects his adaptation of medieval Faerie into a sub-creative elvendom born of the creative instincts of the elves. In doing so, the article also questions Tolkien's adherence to parameters of Faerie and characteristics of elves as laid out in OFS.