Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Gods And Robots: Myths, Machines, And Ancient Dreams Of Technology By Adrienne Mayor, Emily E. Auger

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

This review briefly describes and assesses the chapter by chapter content of the book and the author's discussion of the imagining of robotics and artificial intelligence by the ancient Greeks in the art and literature.

The Fame Of C.S. Lewis: A Controversialist's Reception In Britain And America By Stephanie L. Derrick, Chad Chisholm

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

In her book The Fame of C.S. Lewis, Stephanie Derrick seeks to examine the question of Lewis’s continuing popularity and influence for later generations of readers. Based on her doctoral dissertation and eight years of research in the United Kingdom and United States, Derrick's book is a compelling and controversial read. Derrick discusses the life of Lewis, perceptions of him during his lifetime, and his posthumous reception as a writer. Derrick claims that we have to turn our gaze beyond Lewis to understand why he continues to be read long after he (and many of his lesser known contemporaries) …

The Echo Of Odin: Norse Mythology And Human Consciousness By Edward W.L. Smith, Emily E. Auger

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

This review briefly describes and assesses the chapter by chapter content of the book and the author's argument regarding the content of Norse mythology as representing a map of human consciousness.

H.P. Lovecraft: Selected Works, Critical Perspectives And Interviews On His Influence, Edited By Leverett Butts, Perry Neil Harrison

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

No abstract provided.

Fantastic Creatures In Mythology And Folklore: From Medieval Times To Present Day By Juliette Wood, Tiffany Brooke Martin

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

No abstract provided.

Doors In: The Fairy Tale World Of George Macdonald By Rolland Hein, Joseph Young

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

No abstract provided.

Death, Hope, And Wholeness In Owen Barfield’S Fairy Tales, Tiffany Brooke Martin

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

This article discusses Owen Barfield's unpublished and published fairy tale writings, and why his works and ideas (e.g., death, hope, and wholeness) are valuable to consider for children and adult readers, though he is not as well known as other Inklings or mythopoeic writers. Some of the fantasy texts include The Silver Trumpet and "The Child and the Giant."

Blowing The Morte: The Rites Of Manhood In William Rayner's Stag Boy, Christophe Van Eecke

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

William Rayner’s young adult novel Stag Boy (1972) is often discussed in surveys of children’s literature as a classic title, but it has received little probing critical attention. This article argues that the novel uses its narrative of a boy’s psychic association with a giant stag as an allegory for the transition from boyhood into manhood. In a detailed close reading of the novel, and following the model of the love chase of medieval romance, it is shown how the author borrows key elements from folklore (the shaming ritual of the stag hunt), myth (Herne the Hunter), and quest romances …

“What Man Am I?” The Hero’S Journey, The Beginning Of Individuation, And Taran Wanderer, Liam Butchart

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

Norman Holland's entreaty to refocus psychoanalysis toward self-knowledge animates this study. Focusing on Lloyd Alexander's Taran Wanderer (part of the Chronicles of Prydain), the novel's location at the crossroads of human psychological development and myth is examined using Jung's concept of individuation and Campbell's Hero's Journey in order to extract an underlying thematic question. The lessons learned from answering this question, in turn, teach us more about ourselves, illustrating the value of psychoanalysis both to the study of mythopoeic literature and to ourselves.

Dobby The Robot: The Science Fiction In Harry Potter, Emily Strand

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

Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke has famously argued that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This paper starts by exploring a few general ways in which science fiction influences Harry Potter, then focuses attention on one key element of science fiction which Potter quite clearly appropriates: the classic trope of the robot or created servant. First, using close textual analysis, the paper traces the robot trope and its accompanying features from its origins in Golem legends and in Shelley's Frankenstein, through classic works of science fiction, including Čapek’s R.U.R., Asimov’s I, Robot, Heinlein’s …

A Sense Of Darker Perspective: How The Marauders Convey Tolkien’S “Impression Of Depth” In Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, Katherine Sas

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

With the full introduction of the Marauders characters (James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew) into the Harry Potter series in The Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling shifted away from the storybook tone of the first two volumes to something darker and widened the scope of her story in depth and breadth. This paper examines how Rowling uses these characters to create what J.R.R. Tolkien called the “impression of depth” in her fictional world. While contrasting Rowling’s specific techniques with Tolkien’s, this paper argues that Rowling scales this literary device down to meet her young hero (and …

Pyramids In America: Rewriting The “Egypt Of The West” In Rick Riordan’S The Kane Chronicles Series, Heather K. Cyr

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

In this paper, I examine the use of well-known American landmarks in Rick Riordan’s The Kane Chronicles (2010-2012), a set of Children’s Fantasy novels that place Ancient Egyptian mythology in the modern world. With reference to the author’s more famous Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (2005-2009), this essay focuses on specific American landscapes in the first novel of the Egyptian mythology-inspired series, The Red Pyramid, arguing that Riordan’s use of Ancient Egyptian-inspired structures reflects the overall ethos of the text. On one level, Riordan’s use of modern American landmarks signals that new stories using old myths have just …

The Talking Beasts As Adam And Eve: Lewis And The Complexity Of "Dominion", Jean E. Graham

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

Although critics have used the Talking Beasts of Narnia along with Genesis as support for human “dominion” over animals, such usage is not altogether warranted. In The Magician’s Nephew, the roles of Adam and Eve are distributed among various characters, including the Talking Beasts. Thus they are not “mere” animals but are the Narnian equivalent of human beings, evolving in an accelerated evolutionary process similar to the normal-speed evolution Lewis describes for the human species in The Problem of Pain.

Doubles At Work: The Three Rovers In J.R.R. Tolkien's Roverandom., Jennifer Marchant

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

In this essay, I explore the protagonist’s two doubles in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Roverandom, concluding that they serve as companions, representations of alternative selves or lives, and catalysts to his spiritual development.

The Child’S Voyage And The Immram Tradition In Lewis, Tolkien, And Pullman, Kris Swank

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

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Philip Pullman have all written children’s fantasies derived from the medieval Irish immram, or voyage tale, best known from the voyage tales of the Irish figures, Saint Brendan and Mael Duin. William Flint Thrall defined the immram as “a sea-voyage tale in which a hero, accompanied by a few companions, wanders about from island to island, meets Otherworld wonders everywhere, and finally returns to his native land." In Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), Lucy and Edmund Pevensie are joined by their ill-mannered cousin Eustace on a voyage to a number of …

An Unexpected Poet: The Creative Works Of Dr. Robert E. Havard, Sarah B. O'Dell

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

Despite the incredible wealth of Inklings scholarship, little critical attention has been paid to the lesser-known members of the circle, including physician and writer Robert E. Havard (1901—1985). Dr. Havard has been noted as a “skilled and prolific writer” (Glyer 12) who was “well-read and keenly interested in the processes of literature and in theology” (Sayer 151). Yet, Inklings scholarship has long been limited to his appendix to Lewis’s The Problem of Pain and several memoirs on fellow Inklings. When asked regarding his own writing during a 1984 interview with Lyle W. Dorsett, Havard remarked that “I have never written …

The Arch And The Keystone, Verlyn Flieger

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

The growing body of writing both by and about Tolkien insures that not only can we no longer read the unknown book I discovered in 1956, we can't even all read the same book in 2019. We have too many opinions based on too much information from too many sources to come to a consensus. In spite of his fame, in spite of his position at the top of the heap, in spite of The Lord of the Ring's established position as Waterstone's Book of the Century, the world has and probably will continue to have trouble agreeing on …

Medievalism In A Song Of Ice And Fire And Game Of Thrones By Shiloh Carroll, Joseph Young

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

No abstract provided.

A Modern Fairy-Story: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Seen Through The Prism Of Tolkien’S Classic Essay, Douglas Charles Kane

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

Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-stories” provides both a definitive discussion of fairy-stories and their relationship to myth and fantasy and his most explicit analysis of his own art. In addition, in carefully laying out over the course of his essay what makes a true fairy-story, he also makes it possible to analyze other artists’ works to determine how successful they are as fairy-stories. Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell meets those standards on every point, and is thus shown to be a true modern fairy-story in the tradition that Tolkien documents so plainly.

The Romance And The Real: A. S. Byatt’S Possession: A Romance, Jordana Long

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

Demonstrates Possession’s mythic elements, in particular, how the encounter between the fictitious Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash and his daughter Maia in the novel’s Postscript constitutes Ash’s confrontation with Slavoj Žižek’s famous interpretation of the Lacanian Real. Building on Žižek, argues that Ash’s encounter with the Real actually springs from and mediates grace. This reimagining of the Real is an integral element of myth and introduces the mythic into Possession, giving it the qualities of a Romance.

Phantastes: Annotated Edition By George Macdonald. Edited By John Pennington And Roderick Mcgillis, Tiffany Brooke Martin Phd

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

No abstract provided.

The Faun’S Bookshelf: C.S. Lewis On Why Myth Matters By Charlie Starr, Louis Markos

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

No abstract provided.

Volume 116 Issue 1, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

The Southwestern - Archive

No abstract provided.

Mythcon 50 - Moving Forward, Looking Back, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon Programs

Mythcon 50: Moving Forward, Looking Back

To give its far-flung membership a chance to meet, and to present papers orally with audience response, The Mythopoeic Society has been holding conferences since its early days. These began with a one-day Narnia Conference in 1969, and the first annual Mythopoeic Conference was held at the Claremont Colleges (near Los Angeles) in September, 1970. This year’s conference is the third in a series of golden anniversaries for the Society, celebrating our 50th Mythcon.

Mythlore: Preserving The Past And Moving Into The Future, Phillip Fitzsimmons, Janet Brennan Croft, Benjamin Dressler

Faculty Articles & Research

We will show you how to find and read or download articles or whole issues of the journal, as well as show other features of the repository. We will demonstrate how authors submit articles and reviews using the Digital Commons platform, and discuss how author’s accounts can be used for corresponding with the editor and receiving usage reports that show the download frequency and world-wide distribution of readers of published articles.

Orion's Final Song, Chad Chisholm

The Mythic Circle

While there are different stories about the death of Orion, the inspiration for this poem mainly comes from Hesiod’s Astronomia where the huntsman Orion comes to Crete for the wild game and there becomes the beloved of Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt. Orion and Artemis became hunting companions, and the mortal huntsman won the heart of the young immortal. However, their love was short-lived. Because of his zeal for the hunt as well as his boasting, Orion angered Gaia, the primordial goddess of the Earth, who then sent a gigantic scorpion to battle the famous hunter. While …

Pog The Pinder, Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Ghost Dancing Between Worlds, R. L. Boyer

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Hard Rain, R. L. Boyer

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

My Dreamy Manifesto Under The Starry Sky - Cometward, Pawel Markiewicz

The Mythic Circle

Attention: This manifesto has in itself a magic power and it can finally refute the communist manifesto (1847/48) and its successors in the form of communist states. It burns a peaceful campfire!