Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

“The Atmosphere That Supports Life On Earth”: An Ecocritical Approach To Tolkien’S Arda, Elizabeth Anne Turello

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Ecocriticism speaks to the relationship between the environment and literature, a progressively vital topic of discussion. What is often overlooked, however, is the necessity of the theory’s applicability to stories of speculative fiction; that is, ones existing outside the realm of the real world or, as is the case with the father of modern-day fantasy J.R.R. Tolkien, a mythology set in the ancient days of our world (“Arda”). At first, it may seem contradictory to learn about our surroundings through fictionalized ones seemingly irrelevant to Earth’s own; this apparent contradiction is not valid, though, as the relationship between humans and …

Fantasy And Faith: Lewis And Tolkien On Magic In Fantastical Literature, Zion Lang

Senior Honors Theses

Despite biblical warnings against the occult, Christian authors C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien incorporated many kinds of magic into their works of fantasy. These authors had an orthodox view of the occult, but they also believed that fantasy magic differs from the esoteric: its purpose is imaginative, rather than power-seeking, and it is usually part of the imagined laws of the fantasy world. Lewis focused on the mythic side of fantasy and included more ambiguous magic. Tolkien focused on fantasy as eucatastrophic fairy tale, and his works include somewhat divine supernatural forces. Nonetheless, both authors saw fantasy …

The Vision Of The Inklings: Mythopoeia And Modern Christian Literature, Emmalene Sotomayor

Senior Honors Theses

The Inklings wrote with the intention to convey truth through myth. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and their friends developed stories to point readers to something greater—very often God. Christian creators now can look to their example while writing their own works of art. Currently, Christian fiction is in a sad state, known for mediocre romance novels that hardly portray faith in a moving or truthful manner. Believers can use the wisdom of Tolkien and Lewis to develop their own excellent works. Lewis and Tolkien’s beliefs in myth pointing to God, hope against adversity, and good resisting …

Cultural Memory And The Search For Identity In Victorian Fantasy Fiction, Sadie Boggs

Honors College Theses

Fantasy literature's origins can be traced through myths and folktales, medieval romances, enlightenment fairy tale fantasy, and Romanticism, before finally taking firmer root in the Victorian period and blooming into its own genre in 20th century modern fantasy. Victorian thinkers reacted to the Enlightenment’s realism and technological innovation by “rediscovering” the Middle Ages as a time of beauty, simplicity, and moral virtue. Simultaneously, Psychology developed as a recognized field of study, and theories emerged about the psychological process of memory formation and retrieval, as well as its reliability and relation to identity.

Considering these psychological theories, Victorian fantasy's cultural memory …

Sauron: Weirdly Sexy, Robert T. Tally Jr.

Journal of Tolkien Research

A popular meme depict Galadriel and Frodo admitting that Sauron is "weirdly sexy," a humorous allusion to The Rings of Power’s Halbrand. The show's controversial revelation of Halbrand as Sauron highlights the differences between Tolkien’s construction of Second and Third Age Sauron as an attractive or admirable leader compared to Peter Jackson’s portrayal of him as a monster or disembodied fiery eyeball. This, in turn, has implications for the geopolitical order of Middle-earth in which many people legitimately might wish to be on Sauron’s side. Acknowledging Sauron's "sexiness" may allow us to see Tolkien's world system in a new …

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 …

George Macdonald's Phantastes As A Bildungsroman Of Spiritual Reality, Hannah O'Malley

Senior Theses

George MacDonald's 1858 novel Phantastes is one of the first fantasy novels written for adults, but it has received little attention in part because of its confusing structure. I argue that Phantastes is best understood as a Bildungsroman, a novel of formation. While the Bildungsroman is usually a realist novel of commercial society, Phantastes’ fantasy elements allow the protagonist to grow up into a spiritual reality that contrasts with many commercial values. MacDonald uses the fantasy genre to show his protagonist's inner development as he learns humility, gains feminine and childlike virtues, and leaves behind the old self

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.”

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.

Orts 77, 2022, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

The last two and half years have seen big changes in how we connect and interact with each other, and this is especially the case for a Society like ours, where many are also geographically separated. While covid is still with us, hopefully things are slowly returning to the “new normal,” however, some of the changes that have occurred will have lasting significance, particularly the accelerated use of technology and move online. There is definitely still a place for face to face meetings, but Societies like ours also need to adapt, and a recurring theme in this newsletter is change. …

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Girlhood In The Creation, Content, And Consumption Of Victorian Children’S Literature, Betsy Barthelemy

English Honors Projects

The Golden Age of (British) Children’s Literature was famous not only for the proliferation of fiction it hosted, but also for how much of that work featured young heroine protagonists. Starting with the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and examining two other fantasy works compared with three realistic children's novels from this half-century period, this project elucidates the differences between these genres and examines how authors used the characteristics of each to empower their heroines. It argues that these fictitious heroines influenced real-world readers to create progressive futures by providing examples of rebellious girl characters finding happy endings.

On Ways Of Studying Tolkien: Notes Toward A Better (Epic) Fantasy Criticism, Dennis Wilson Wise

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article examines major academic approaches used in the study of J.R.R. Tolkien. It argues that certain themes from political philosopher Leo Strauss, by helping us to develop a new theoretical lens, can elucidate several politically salient aspects of Tolkien's work, including thymos and his dialectic between ancient and modern. Four previous (though flawed) Straussian interpretations of Tolkien are highlighted. Finally, by analyzing the tensions that arise when pairing critical theory and its attendant bias against nature with Tolkien and epic fantasy, this article argues for the timeliness of a Straussian lens for studying fantasy and Tolkien alike.

Feminist Theology And The Fantastic In Jewish Poetics And Children's Literature (1960s–Present), Meira S. Levinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the development of Jewish fantasy rhetoric in post-WWII British and American literature, focusing on three genres: kabbalistic Beat poetry, children’s fantasy, and graphic novels/comics. Despite increasing scholarly attention to all these areas, little work has focused on fantasy rhetoric or issues of gender and sexuality within non-canonical Jewish literature, or on interplays of religion and fantasy in children’s literature. Jewish kabbalistic poetry and children’s fantasy speak to each other in their mutual engagements with the otherworldly, mystical and monstrous, interrogations of gender, and complex portrayals of feminist theological potentialities. I identify and analyze Jewish-hermeneutic themes and methodologies …

Syncretic Immersion: Tolkien’S Languages As History, Artifacts, And Meta-Narratives, Stewart Raymond Zdrojowy

Online Theses and Dissertations

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth has been dissected and researched by philologists, medievalists, and literary theorists for decades. Though his work with languages (both historical and invented) has garnered attention over the past few decades, few scholars have looked at his languages in terms of their rhetorical functions within the narrative (as history), with the narrative (as artifacts), and without (as cultural participation). Mark Wolf’s theories on immersion is applied to Tolkien’s legendarium and illuminates his works as uniquely fixated in several modes of immersion at once. Narrative immersion is utilized to understand Tolkien’s works as a furthering of cultural values, languages, …

From Longinus To Tolkien: A Theory Of The Fantastic Sublime, Seth Wilson

English Department Theses

As concepts, the fantastic and the sublime share much in common. Both have the power to take a reader outside the scope of his or her own worldview and experience, and both share the paradoxical power to both elevate and humble the human spirit. So it is surprising that few scholars have explored the intersection between these two constructs, and none has attempted to systematically explore how this intersection operates in the context of literary theory. This thesis endeavors to build a theoretical framework for the fantastic sublime by exploring its constituent parts. First, I examine the contribution of the …

The Power Fantastic: How Genre Expectations Mediate Authority, Angela Rose Cox

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reconciles academic and popular uses of the term genre, concluding that genre is a transmedial, mutable, associative, recognized system regulated through tacit understandings of prestige and power in a given Social space. The study employs a digital humanities method (dependent on digitally facilitated data analysis), conducting descriptive discourse analysis on collected online discussions from fan spaces concerning the fantasy genre and matters related to fantasy. In this way, I construct an image of the fantasy genre, and genre in general, as a multimodal space in which material freely passes between traditional and new media and participants actively negotiate …

Fantasy Incarnate: Of Elves And Men, Simon J. Cook Dr.

Journal of Tolkien Research

This essay proposes the idea of incarnation as a key to unlocking Tolkien’s conception of fantasy as set out in the 'Origins' section of On Fairy Stories. Tolkien's intellectual context is explored and his conception of mythology as a blending of imagination and history examined. The essay also establishes the differences between mortal and Elvish fantasy and argues that Tolkien's Elves engage in a different kind of incarnational art than do mortals. In conclusion it is claimed that in ‘Origins’ Tolkien reworked the speculations of mid-Victorian comparative philology into an aesthetic theory of artistic creation grounded upon the notion …

Orts 75, 2015, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

Over the past year, I and a couple of other postgraduate/early career researchers who share my interest in fantasy studies have launched an initiative called Reading the Fantastic (www.readingthe- fantastic.tumblr.com) at the University of Leeds (UK); our focus is the exploration of fantasy, fairy tale and folk tale texts as spaces of multi-cultural and intercultural connection. Initially involving a guest speaker talk and regular reading group sessions collecting fantasy and fairy tale texts from a wide range of cultures, our activities have expanded (thanks to various funding grants). In addition to adding a regular seminar series to our reading group …

Clockwork Heroines: Female Characters In Steampunk Literature, Cassie N. Bergman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Steampunk is a progressive literary genre that evokes, imitates, and re-imagines the nineteenth century and favors the Industrial Revolution ideals of science and technology. In a historical framework, it mixes nineteenth-century conventions and retrofuturistic machinery with science fiction and fantasy elements. Steampunk authors are able to radically redefine socio-cultural implications that affect both past and contemporary societies. The following study explores the multitude of characteristics that define Steampunk literature as an interdisciplinary study. Chapter 1 explores the definitions and literary genres that construct Steampunk and includes a brief literary history of Steampunk works. Chapter 2 focuses on Cherie Priest’s novel …

Orts 74, 2013, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

The George MacDonald Society will be hosting a conference from lunchtime Wednesday 13 August to Friday 15 August 2014 at C.S. Lewis' own College, Magdalen, in Oxford. The provisional title is Re-­‐ Imagining the Inklings: the Victorian Roots of Modern Fantasy, and will be chaired by Professor Stephen Prickett our Chairman.

"Just A Fool's Hope": J.R.R. Tolkien's Eucatastrophe As The Paradigm Of Christian Hope, Margaret A. Bush

Senior Honors Theses

In his essay titled “On Fairy-Stories,” J.R.R. Tolkien uses the term “eucatastrophe” to describe the unexpected, fortunate turn of events for the protagonist in a fantasy story. Tolkien applies the word beyond its literary context to signify the Christian’s experience of joy, especially resulting from the Incarnation and Resurrection. Such an explicit link between fiction and theology seems absent from his more well-known work, The Lord of the Rings. Yet both Tolkien himself and critics of his writing have labeled the novel a modern-day classic of Christian literature. This thesis will defend the Christian label of The Lord of …

Orts 73, 2012, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

Orts will soon join North Wind’s Online Digital Archive, thanks to the ongoing efforts of John Pennington, who teaches at Saint Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. Dr. Pennington, one of the editors of North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies, previously oversaw the digitization of the academic journal. Jaena Manson, an editorial intern at the journal, is assisting in the process, a considerable task given that the archive will encompass the newsletter’s entire history, from the first issue published over thirty years ago in 1981 to the present edition. As with North Wind, the Orts archive will be …

Orts 72, 2011, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

MacDonald on BBC Television

George MacDonald received welcome publicity on BBC Television’s popular Sunday afternoon religious programme Songs of Praise on 16th January this year when I was interviewed about his life and work in a programme broadcast from Arundel in West Sussex. Songs of Praise, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, is centred around hymns chosen by local people and sung in a cathedral or large church, but also includes interviews with local people and others about matters of interest.

Orts 71, 2010, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

Annual General Meeting The next Annual General Meeting of the Society will be held on Saturday 6th November 2010 at 10 Appian Court, Parnell Road, London E3 2RS at 2pm. Space is limited, so if you intend coming please contact Roger Bardet on + 44 (0)20 8980 0083 or at [email protected]. The purpose of the meeting is to receive accounts and a report of the Society’s activities, to elect officers and committee for 2011 and to discuss the Society’s future programme. The nearest underground is either Mile End or Bow Road. Members wishing to explore the neighbourhood ahead of time …

Review In Studies In Medieval And Renaissance Teaching Of "Ents, Elves And Eriador: The Environmental Vision Of J.R.R. Tolkien", Paul Siewers

Other Faculty Research and Publications

A review of a book-length ecocritical study of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy writing.

Lies Breathed Through Silver: Mythological Constructs In Tolkien’S Works, Joshua Mccrowell

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

It’s not hard to imagine the English air being warm the night John Ronald Reuel Tolkien brought Clive Staples Lewis hard won into Christianity. The image of their lengthy midnight talk has since become almost mythic to those who study those two authors because of the impact that Christianity (and the other) had on each other’s lives. Lewis’ most famous works - everything from Narnia to his Space Trilogy to his apologetics - all are based on and inspired by his faith. Similarly, Tolkien once said that “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic …

Orts 70, 2007, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

In the summer of 2005, just as we were commemorating the centenary of George MacDonald's death, I received a surprise telephone call from Kate Davies. She was helping two aunts to move out of their large house in Sanderstead, Surrey and into sheltered accommodation and had discovered a large collection of George MacDonald books, many of them first editions and many signed by the author, that had belonged to her aunts' grandfather, William Carey Davies, a Croydon man (south of London) who had been George's private secretary in his later years. Her aunts' father, George MacDonald Davies, had had a …

Orts 69, 2006, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

The MacDonalds moved to Manchester in 1853 and later moved into 3, Camp terrace, Lower Broughton, 'a nice house, large, and in some respects handsome' for £35 a year. Greville was born during this period, and MacDonald attended the inaugural lecture of the Working Men's College given by his friend F.D. Maurice. MacDonald's first book Within and Without was published during his Manchester years.

Orts 67, 2005, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

(The Princess and the Goblin at the Gordon Schools, Huntly, December 15 through 17, 2004)

The Gordon Schools' production of The Princess and the Goblin was a treat. In Stuart Paterson's adaptation for the stage, George MacDonald's fable retains its particular charm; but, being a tale of good versus evil, it also provides the elements of pantomime.

Orts 68, 2005, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

An English Heritage blue plaque was unveiled by the wellknown biographer and novelist A.N. Wilson at Tudor Lodge, 20 Albert Street, Camden Town in north London on Tuesday 28th June. George MacDonald and his family lived at Tudor Lodge from 1860 to 1863 in the early days of his career as a writer. The plaque describes MacDonald most appropriately as a 'Story Teller'. Mr. Wilson made a speech quoting from his favourite MacDonald book, At the Back of the North Wind. Then the Society's Chairman, Richard Lines, made a short speech giving an overview of MacDonald's significance, followed by John …