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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Enigma Of Goldberry: Tolkien’S Narrative Braiding Of Genre- And Symbol-Related Vocabularies In The Withywindle River-Daughter, Derek Simon
Journal of Tolkien Research
The enigma of Goldberry continues to stimulate diverse readings of her narrative in the Withywindle Cottage episode. The root contention of this article is that Goldberry’s enigma is textured through Tolkien’s complex narrative braiding of multiple genre- and symbol-specific vocabularies woven together throughout her episode. The effort to interpret the enigma of Goldberry needs to be grounded in the philological, lexical, and thematic signifiers circulating in her storyline. These mythopoeic signifiers are variously conveyed by the genre- and symbol-related vocabularies influencing her enigma in the narrative. Where much of the critical commentary has justifiably considered a single strand of source …
Beyond All Worlds: George Macdonald, The Pre-Tolkienians, And The Forgotten Possibilities Of Fantasy, Ethan Patrick Stevens
Beyond All Worlds: George Macdonald, The Pre-Tolkienians, And The Forgotten Possibilities Of Fantasy, Ethan Patrick Stevens
Masters Theses
The history of modern fantasy has been powerfully shaped by the worldbuilding paradigm so successfully executed in J.R.R. Tolkien's 1954-55 trilogy The Lord of the Rings. However, there were nearly a hundred and fifty years of creative work between the birth of fantasy as a genre and Tolkien’s publication of The Lord of the Rings. By examining the pre-Tolkienian fantasists, we find that Tolkien's way of exhaustive consistency was not, and is not, the only way to write fantasy. Phantastes (1858), the first novel by the influential Victorian fantasist George MacDonald, defies contemporary worldbuilding standards almost constantly in …
Genre In Translations Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, Madison Schow
Genre In Translations Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, Madison Schow
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
A comparison of J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published posthumously in 1975, and Simon Armitage’s 2007 translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight reveals that a translator’s choices can affect the genre of a work. Tolkien’s foreignizing translation situates Sir Gawain in the tradition of medievalist fantasy and should be read in the context of twentieth century fantasy, the same genre as Tolkien’s original works. Armitage’s domesticating translation places Sir Gawain in the context of twenty-first century fantasy. An examination of the subgenres represented in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ghost story, thriller, …
Tolkien’S Coleridgean Legacy, Martina Juričková 928827
Tolkien’S Coleridgean Legacy, Martina Juričková 928827
Journal of Tolkien Research
In his published materials, Tolkien rarely ever directly mentioned by name any philosophers or literary theoretics he might have been influenced or outright inspired by in forming his own views on the origin, nature, and purpose of myth, imagination, and literature as presented in his essay On Fairy-stories. However, as an Oxford Don, he must have been well acquainted with the theoretical-philosophical work of one of the greatest British literati and, I daresay, progenitor of the fantasy genre in the Isles, Samuel Coleridge. Anyone conversant with Tolkien’s lore who starts reading Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria must be stricken by how …
Well, I’M Back: Samwise Gamgee And The Future Of Tolkien’S Literary Pastoral, Mg Prezioso
Well, I’M Back: Samwise Gamgee And The Future Of Tolkien’S Literary Pastoral, Mg Prezioso
Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature
This article examines the treatment of the literary pastoral in The Lord of the Rings in order to demonstrate that Tolkien’s pastoral, often considered a vestige of authorial nostalgia, is as forward-looking as it is wistful. Through Samwise Gamgee and his connection to the Shire, Tolkien presents a pastoral that, though rooted in memory, is as mutable as nature itself – one that orients the reader forward and conveys that change is not only something to be accepted, but also embraced.
Hearing Tolkien In Vaughan Williams?, Keri Hui
Hearing Tolkien In Vaughan Williams?, Keri Hui
Journal of Tolkien Research
In recent years, musicians and Tolkien readers alike have associated Ralph Vaughan Williams’ music, particularly Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), The Lark Ascending (1914), and Fantasia on Greensleeves (1934), with Tolkien’s fantasies. This article explores this tendency to hear Tolkien’s Middle-earth in Vaughan Williams’ musical fantasies, calling attention to the similarities in their shared devotion to the idea of English consciousness, interest in combining ecclesiastical and folk materials, and pastoral vision. A juxtaposition of their approach and philosophies not only helps explain the musical echoes, however, but also confirms an appealing mark of Tolkien’s craft is its …
“Legato Con Amore In Un Volume”: Can Tolkien’S Ainulindalë Accommodate Divine Knowledge?, John Wm. Houghton
“Legato Con Amore In Un Volume”: Can Tolkien’S Ainulindalë Accommodate Divine Knowledge?, John Wm. Houghton
Journal of Tolkien Research
Tolkien's depiction of Eru Iluvatar in the Silmarillion as coming to know the Song of the Ainur only as he hears it conflicts with ideas about the nature of divine knowledge developed by such thinkers as Ibn Sina, Maimoindes, and Thomas Aquinas--as well as with more general ideas about omniscience and eternity. Texts recently published in The Nature of Middle-earth indicate that Tolkien was aware of some of these divergences. The fact that he classifies the Ainulindalë as a "legend" in which divine thought is merely "represented" as music offers some possibilities for reconciliation with the theological tradition, but Tolkien …
The David Oberhelman Collection Of Science Fiction, Fantasy, And Tolkieniana At Oklahoma State University, Phillip Fitzsimmons
The David Oberhelman Collection Of Science Fiction, Fantasy, And Tolkieniana At Oklahoma State University, Phillip Fitzsimmons
Faculty Books & Book Chapters
In September 2020 I drove to the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Stillwater campus to see “The David Oberhelman J. R. R. Tolkien Collection” exhibit, on display on the Edmon Low Library’s second-floor mezzanine in the Lisa and Mark Snell Gallery.
Books Within Books In Fantasy And Science Fiction: “You Are The Dreamer And The Dream”, Phillip Fitzsimmons
Books Within Books In Fantasy And Science Fiction: “You Are The Dreamer And The Dream”, Phillip Fitzsimmons
Faculty Books & Book Chapters
This chapter discusses books that exist only within works of science fiction and fantasy—what the “List of Fictional Books” on Wikipedia calls a “fictional book” and what Claire Fallon calls “invented books” in her article for the Huffpost website, “Fictional Books Within Books We Wish Were Real.”
A Publication History Of The Complete Guide To Middle-Earth By Robert Foster, Kevin P. Edgecomb
A Publication History Of The Complete Guide To Middle-Earth By Robert Foster, Kevin P. Edgecomb
Journal of Tolkien Research
The Complete Guide to Middle-earth by Robert Foster has been a popular and helpful resource for readers of the Middle-earth fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien for over five decades now. This article presents a publication history of US and UK editions of this work, leading from its beginninings in 1966—the writings of a teenager in a fanzine—to the latest , lavishly illustrated edition of 2003.
Environmentalism In J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, Sophie Butler
Environmentalism In J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, Sophie Butler
4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien
The theme of environmentalism within Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, while sometimes underlying, is an ever-present background to the characters and actions of Middle-Earth.The hero’s movements through nature contrasted with the criminal destruction of nature by the villains presents two clear perspectives about the treatment of nature, but Tolkien also inserts his perspective through the inclusion of Tree characters, like Ents. Trees and tree characters are an essential part of Tolkien's legendarium that help to illuminate the author's claims about environmentalism and the impacts of progress on the world. How characters interact with nature inform their ethics and point …
The Tragedy Of Krudhog The Cruel: A Horrid Tale Best Never Told At All, Eric Ramos
The Tragedy Of Krudhog The Cruel: A Horrid Tale Best Never Told At All, Eric Ramos
4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien
What have I to tell you, unlucky one, of this vision brought before me? Hear it here that I, Othur Lokbrok, do not speak with a voice of my own, but rather echo the Sisters Weird, come to me one night in a passion and fury beyond all earthly resemblance. Thereupon that cursed night was I, awake and trembling, for out of a dream my spirit raised itself vigilant, as hushed voices seemed to seep and slither eerily through my window. Then in the dark at the foot of my bed a dampened candle glowed red hot as three faces, …
Hope Without Assurance: The Eucatastrophic Nature Of Tolkien's Arda, Grant Glavin
Hope Without Assurance: The Eucatastrophic Nature Of Tolkien's Arda, Grant Glavin
Honors Undergraduate Theses
J.R.R. Tolkien’s massive body of work represents decades of effort from a man who, burdened by the suffering and grief of a world he considered to be fallen, wished to combine his love of fairy-stories and mythology with the otherworldly hope of eucatastrophe, Tolkien’s word for unexpected divine joy amid suffering, present at the heart of his strong Catholic beliefs. Tolkien’s world of Arda is consequently full of suffering; it is written as a dark and dangerous place, where dyscatastrophe, the prerequisite suffering before eucatastrophe, exists within the world from its conception and Eden has never been obtainable …