Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Mutations Of Grief: Pathological Loss And The Psychoanalytic Journey In Mary Shelley’S Frankenstein, Sazia Islam

Student Theses and Dissertations

The intricacies of the human mind and the ways we comprehend and experience grief throughout our lives are subjects that many authors strive to depict, yet few achieve with accuracy and depth. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein exemplifies a nuanced and profound exploration of grief, interwoven within a narrative of overreaching ambition and its devastating consequences. In my thesis, I contend that Shelley masterfully crafted the Frankenstein narrative to demonstrate that grief can arise from losses extending beyond the physical death of loved ones, highlighting how the fluctuation between yearning and despair unveils the intricate psychological complexities of unresolved grief. Shelley’s thematic …

Fallen Kingdoms And Ancient Monoliths: The Influence Of Atlantis And Egypt In Tolkien’S Númenor, Charlotte J. Brockway

Journal of Tolkien Research

In light of the recent publication of The Fall of Númenor, my essay aims to focus on Tolkien’s, somewhat underappreciated, influences on Gondor; particularly Ancient Egypt. This essay looks at Plato's Timaeus and Critias, Ignatius Donnelly's theories, and examines the Atlantean and Egyptian motifs in Tolkien’s version of Westernesse, in particular, the remnants of Atlantean civilization survived by Egyptian colonists which mirror the Realms of Exile (Gondor and Arnor).

Title: Questioning Attebery’S ‘Bullseye’: Interviews With Young Readers Of Fantasy May De-Center The Lord Of The Rings, Luke Shelton

Journal of Tolkien Research

In 2018 and 2019, I interviewed young readers about their opinions of The Lord of the Rings (LotR) as a part of my PhD thesis. Their ideas concerning the genre of the text destabilize Attebery's use of it as a central point for the genre. Since these readers do not demonstrate a consensus that LotR is a work of fantasy, one is left to wonder if the idea of the fuzzy set proposed by Attebery is accurate when considering the lived experiences of readers. This leads to several questions about why these young readers have categorized the story …

Skilled Smiths And Princes Of Elves: The Wayland-Legend And The First Age Of Middle-Earth, Lillian Hammen

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article examines the influence of the legend of Wayland the Smith, a literary figure common to medieval Germanic literature, upon the fantasy writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. Although Tolkien did not publish on Wayland specifically, his scholarly interests included the figure, who frequently appeared in the Old English and Old Norse texts Tolkien studied and taught. Despite clear evidence of Tolkien’s interest in Wayland, and the frequency with which scholarly and creative discourse discussed Wayland in Tolkien’s lifetime, few scholars have engaged the connection between Tolkien’s writings and the medieval figure. This article attempts to address this lacuna in the …

“And Each Day After They Did Likewise.” Looking At Life Together As The Fulcrum Of Éowyn’S And Faramir’S Love Story, Christian S. Trenk

Journal of Tolkien Research

The love story between Éowyn and Faramir in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is sometimes misunderstood as a patriarchal submission of the Rohirric shieldmaiden. This paper contradicts such interpretations, exploring instead how Tolkien subtly constructs their love as a liberating experience for Éowyn. In the looks they cast separately, at each other, as well as together, Éowyn's inner healing is expressed, enabling the love to Faramir, and both their eventual wholeness.

A Mute Pleasure: Novelistic Poetics In The Nineteenth-Century, Ryan Everitt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through special attention to the non-narrative, descriptive, lyrical, or even boring passages that interrupt the story, this dissertation explores what happens when the nineteenth-century British novel envelops experiences that were traditionally (or since Romanticism) in the domain of poetry: longings for escape, exhilarating affects of freedom, opaque moments of revelation. In most cases, I characterize the novel discourse as representing a prosaic consciousness that wrestles with its more visceral yet vital “other,” poetic consciousness. To articulate how poetry survives within novelistic discourse, this dissertation is organized around sets of opposing terms, whose unresolved tension becomes the basis of my analysis …

Reading Tolkien In Chinese: Religion, Fantasy, And Translation (2024) By Eric Reinders, Giovanni Carmine Costabile

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Giovanni Carmine Constabile, of Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy, and Translation (2024) by Eric Reinders

Mapping Middle-Earth: Environmental And Political Narratives In J. R. R. Tolkien’S Cartographies (2024) By Anahit Behrooz, Stefan Ekman

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Stefan Ekman, of Mapping Middle-earth (2024) by Anahit Behrooz

Milton: Politics Of Desire And Dispossession, Sawyer K. Kemp

Open Educational Resources

In this course we will study John Milton’s most famous poem, Paradise Lost, alongside a selection of his major verse and prose works. Milton’s literary projects were inextricably political, and we will wade into the discourse of his legacy as either—or both—state propagandist or public scholar. We will discuss and explore Milton’s role in the charged political climate of the British Revolution of the 17^th century, as well as his work on gender, marriage, divorce, the free press, sin, and heroism.

How do we read Milton’s work in our own political climates of unrest? How has deconstruction of …

Do Androids Dream Of Bad Tv?: Un/Originality In Neil Burger’S Voyagers, Tom Ue, Callum M. Mcnutt

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Critics did not take kindly to Neil Burger’s Voyager (2021). On Rotten Tomatoes, the film scored a dismal 25%, and the consensus is that it’s a trip best not taken: “It has a game cast and a premise ripe with potential, but Voyagers drifts in familiar orbit rather than fully exploring its intriguing themes.” This article seeks neither to reclaim the film as an unjustly neglected cinematic masterpiece nor to assert its importance in the canon of dystopian works. Rather, it treats Voyagers as a test case for exploring our own critical investment in the genre. Our aims are …

Peeking Into Closets: A Review Of Danielle Bobker's The Closet: The Eighteenth-Century Architecture Of Intimacy, Karenza Sutton-Bennett

Criticism

A Review of Danielle Bobker's The Closet: The Eighteenth-Century Architecture of Intimacy

Narrative Forms Of Violence: Fascism, Nazism, And The Holocaust In 20th-Century British Fiction, David Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Narrative Forms of Violence: Fascism, Nazism, and The Holocaust in 20^th-Century British Fiction examines how British authors explore fascist and Nazi violence through narrative. The texts in this project challenge the popular perception of Nazis and fascists and help to enrich the understanding of these character types in artistic representations of fascism and the Holocaust. I seek to reveal how each author in the three central texts examined presents fascist violence’s march toward the mainstream and the ways ordinary people deal with political violence. Each author critically depicts growing fascist regimes in World War II-era Europe and contemplates …

Germanic Heroes, Courage, And Fate: Northern Narratives Of J.R.R. Tolkien’S Legendarium (2024) By Richard Z. Gallant, Andrew Higgins

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Andrew Higgins, of Germanic Heroes, Courage, and Fate: Northern Narratives in J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium (2024) by Richard Z. Gallant

From Ghitterns To Harps: How Tolkien’S Music Became Generic, Alexander Retakh

Journal of Tolkien Research

When music is discussed in Tolkien studies, the primary focus is the songs and, typically, their non-musical content. However, appearances of instrumental music and its performance are often critical to the narrative. This talk focuses on Tolkien’s construction and use of music. Its descriptions were growing more economical as he developed as a writer and his musical references became simpler.

Tolkien has often been accused of being almost illiterate musically, yet a more careful reading of his letters shows that he merely saw himself as a musical amateur. In Oxford he could not avoid learning about the Early Music movement, …

Tolkien: Voyage En Terre Du Milieu (2019), Ed. By Vincent Ferré And Frédéric Manfrin, Deidre A. Dawson

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Deidre A. Dawson, of Tolkien: Voyage en Terre du Milieu (2019) ed. by Vincent Ferré and Frédéric Manfrin

“[T]He Observance Of Trifles": Mapping Imperial Assemblages In Nineteenth-Century British Serialized Crime Fiction, Dana Joy Gavin

English Theses & Dissertations

This project investigates representations of the ecological and Imperialist relationships in a selection of serialized crime fiction texts: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret, Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventures (appearing in The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly beginning in 1891). I examine serialized crime fiction published in the nineteenth century as a map of the ecological and Imperialist relationships established through the nineteenth-century British publishing industry. Serialized crime fiction was both popular and profitable, representing not only commercial success but one that tapped into the reading populace’s imagination. Readers craved serialized stories …

The Literary Role Of History In The Fiction Of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024), By Nicholas Birns, Thomas Honegger

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Thomas Honegger, of The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024) by Nicholas Birns

From Imagination To Faërie: Tolkien’S Thomist Fantasy (2022) By Yannick Imbert, John Wm. Houghton

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by John Wm. Houghton, of From Imagination to Faërie: Tolkien’s Thomist Fantasy (2022) by Yannick Imbert

Reimagining The Single-Author Seminar: Teaching Wheatley Peters, Milton, And The Master’S Discourse, Kate Ozment

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This article discusses a senior-level literature course that puts into dialogue Phillis Wheatley Peters and John Milton. Wheatley Peters’ poetry on tyranny and freedom during the American Revolution, especially “America,” is compared to Milton’s Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Areopagitica, and Paradise Lost, which explore the same themes during the English Civil War. Students trace how Milton’s transformative but narrowed ideas of freedom for enfranchised subjects in England are powerfully reimagined by Wheatley Peters in double meanings of freedom for the colonies and enslaved subjects. Secondary sources allow students to engage in the canon-building of Milton as …

A Review Of Ann Radcliffe's The Romance Of The Forest, Edited By Shelley King And John B. Pierce, Annette Hulbert

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

The Romance of the Forest has long been one of the most teachable of Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic novels, given its relatively shorter length and popularity at the time of its publication. Now, Shelley King and John B. Pierce have prepared with great thoroughness an updated version of the text for Broadview that proves a worthy successor to Chloe Chard’s Oxford World Classics edition, published in 1986. The edition builds on Chard’s notes and includes extensive historical appendices that would benefit both teachers and scholars of Radcliffe’s work.