English Language and Literature Commons^™

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 …

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.

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.

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.

A Rumour Of Adventure: An Inkling Story, By Kees M. Paling. Reviewed By Ryder W. Miller., Ryder M. Miller

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

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!

Like Water In Your Footprints, R. L. Boyer

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

September, Meg Moseman

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Further Up And Further In, Meg Moseman

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Mythic Circle #41, Gwenyth E. Hood

The Mythic Circle

In #41, The Mythic Circle welcomes seven authors new to our pages. Lawrence Buentello debuts with a supernatural story of deceit and revenge. David Rogers explores the territory between nihilism and naiveté in a contemporary setting. Meg Moseman, Anum Sattar, Ted Snyder, Chad Chisholm, and Pawel Markiewicz all offer poems in varying styles and settings. Also we are happy to see some familiar names. Kevan Bowkett returns, this time offering, in prose, a poignant story of love and honor, playing out in an exotic mythological setting, and in verse, a humorous vignette from the life of a hero who knows …

Emergency Exit, David Rogers

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Touch, Christopher Tuthill

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Comet Of 1577, S. Dorman

The Mythic Circle

This story was written in the foothills of the Alleghenies in the early 1980s and later incorporate Into a novel, Fantastic Travelogue: Mark Twain and CS Lewis Talk Things over in The Hereafter. In the early 2000s this SF was begun as a project for the thesis paper in the CSUDH masters in humanities program (HUX). Mark Twain had written stories imagining travels in various parts of creation, leaving me with an impetus to re-imagine him as a character taking part in sundry aspects of same.

Ersaist Creation Myth, Lamar Johnson

The Mythic Circle

Explanation of “Ersaist Creation Myth”: This . . . is almost unarguably the most important passage [in a ninety-page poem of which an excerpt is published here] in terms of exposit ion, for, to create an epic of one’s own in the modern day, is (in part) to eschew the cultural context that would be provided by society in a modern day Christian, or Hindu epic. As a consequence, much of my epic is a delve into worldbuilding and the various tales and legends of its people. The solid story is that, just as there are Three Gods, so too …

Panning, Anum Sattar

The Mythic Circle

The poem “Panning” was written on the 3rd of July 2018 during a summer poetry tutorial at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. The poet portrays a woman as the natural landscape who has been exploited by a man she trusted. The persona is the river with very little gold flakes and the selfish lover does not have the patience to sieve them, so he takes a less cumbersome path and explodes her escarpment base to get what he wants. But in the end, even he loses out on her, because the fish and gold shavings are strewn “far …