Symbols Representing Creationism in J. R. R. Tolkien’S ‘Ainulindale’ and ‘Valaquenta’
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence Upon J. R. R. Tolkien
University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2007 The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence upon J. R. R. Tolkien Kelvin Lee Massey University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Massey, Kelvin Lee, "The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence upon J. R. R. olkien.T " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2007. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/238 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kelvin Lee Massey entitled "The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence upon J. R. R. olkien.T " I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. David F. Goslee, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Thomas Heffernan, Michael Lofaro, Robert Bast Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kelvin Lee Massey entitled “The Roots of Middle-earth: William Morris’s Influence upon J. -
The Hidden Meaning of the Lord of the Rings the Theological Vision in Tolkien’S Fiction
LITERATURE The Hidden Meaning of The Lord of the Rings The Theological Vision in Tolkien’s Fiction Joseph Pearce LECTURE GUIDE Learn More www.CatholicCourses.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Lecture Summaries LECTURE 1 Introducing J.R.R. Tolkien: The Man behind the Myth...........................................4 LECTURE 2 True Myth: Tolkien, C.S. Lewis & the Truth of Fiction.............................................8 Feature: The Use of Language in The Lord of the Rings............................................12 LECTURE 3 The Meaning of the Ring: “To Rule Them All, and in the Darkness Bind Them”.......................................14 LECTURE 4 Of Elves & Men: Fighting the Long Defeat.................................................................18 Feature: The Scriptural Basis for Tolkien’s Middle-earth............................................22 LECTURE 5 Seeing Ourselves in the Story: The Hobbits, Boromir, Faramir, & Gollum as Everyman Figures.......... 24 LECTURE 6 Of Wizards & Kings: Frodo, Gandalf & Aragorn as Figures of Christ..... 28 Feature: The Five Races of Middle-earth................................................................................32 LECTURE 7 Beyond the Power of the Ring: The Riddle of Tom Bombadil & Other Neglected Characters....................34 LECTURE 8 Frodo’s Failure: The Triumph of Grace......................................................................... 38 Suggested Reading from Joseph Pearce................................................................................42 2 The Hidden Meaning -
Med20 Character Creation Rules
MIDDLE -EARTH D20 CHARACTER CREATION RULES To create characters for this campaign, o +4 racial bonus on any Craft skill of the players will use 25 points to purchase abilities player's choice — it should be noted that according to the Purchase rules on pages 15-16 Ñoldor were legendary for their work with of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core precious metals and jewelry. Rulebook . Then, character creation proceeds as o +2 racial bonus on any Perform (Sing) described in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game checks. Core Rulebook . Additionally, players will create o +2 racial bonus on saves vs. fire. a 2 nd -level character, but the 1 st -level must be a o +2 racial bonus on saves vs. poison. basic NPC class ! Players may use the Pathfinder o Immune to Aging: Ñoldor Elves are Roleplaying Game Advanced Player’s Guide , immortal unless killed. Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Combat , o Ñoldor Elves do not sleep, meditating and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic instead for about three hours every day. to create their characters. For all sources, use o Immune to natural cold. the following rules modifications. In addition, o Immune to disease, mundane or magical. the Variant Rules for Armor as Damage o Immune to scarring. Reduction, Called Shots, Piecemeal Armor, o Movement unimpeded by snow or wooded and Wounds and Vigor from Pathfinder terrain. Roleplaying Game Ultimate Combat (pp. 191-207) o Immune to any fear effects caused by are being utilized. Please note that these rules undead. are subject to change at any time without prior o Cannot be turned into undead. -
Clashing Perspectives of World Order in JRR Tolkien's Middle-Earth
ABSTRACT Fate, Providence, and Free Will: Clashing Perspectives of World Order in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth Helen Theresa Lasseter Mentor: Ralph C. Wood, Ph.D. Through the medium of a fictional world, Tolkien returns his modern audience to the ancient yet extremely relevant conflict between fate, providence, and the person’s freedom before them. Tolkien’s expression of a providential world order to Middle-earth incorporates the Northern Germanic cultures’ literary depiction of a fated world, while also reflecting the Anglo-Saxon poets’ insight that a single concept, wyrd, could signify both fate and providence. This dissertation asserts that Tolkien, while acknowledging as correct the Northern Germanic conception of humanity’s final powerlessness before the greater strength of wyrd as fate, uses the person’s ultimate weakness before wyrd as the means for the vindication of providence. Tolkien’s unique presentation of world order pays tribute to the pagan view of fate while transforming it into a Catholic understanding of providence. The first section of the dissertation shows how the conflict between fate and providence in The Silmarillion results from the elvish narrator’s perspective on temporal events. Chapter One examines the friction between fate and free will within The Silmarillion and within Tolkien’s Northern sources, specifically the Norse Eddas, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, and the Finnish The Kalevala. Chapter Two shows that Tolkien, following Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, presents Middle-earth’s providential order as including fated elements but still allowing for human freedom. The second section shows how The Lord of the Rings reflects but resolves the conflict in The Silmarillion between fate, providence, and free will. -
Tolkien's Monsters: Concept and Function in the Lord of the Rings (Part 1) the Balrog of Khazad-Dum
Volume 16 Number 1 Article 5 Fall 10-15-1989 Tolkien's Monsters: Concept and Function in The Lord of the Rings (Part 1) The Balrog of Khazad-dum Joe Abbott Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Abbott, Joe (1989) "Tolkien's Monsters: Concept and Function in The Lord of the Rings (Part 1) The Balrog of Khazad-dum," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 16 : No. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Three-part examination of “how Tolkien’s theory of the centrality of the monsters in Beowulf influenced his own concept of ‘monster’ and what function that concept should fulfill within” The Lord of the Rings. -
Lioi, Anthony. "The Great Music: Restoration As Counter-Apocalypse in the Tolkien Legendarium." Nerd Ecology: Defending the Earth with Unpopular Culture
Lioi, Anthony. "The Great Music: Restoration as Counter-Apocalypse in the Tolkien Legendarium." Nerd Ecology: Defending the Earth with Unpopular Culture. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 123–144. Environmental Cultures. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 25 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474219730.ch-005>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 25 September 2021, 12:12 UTC. Copyright © Anthony Lioi 2016. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 4 The Great Music: Restoration as Counter-Apocalypse in the Tolkien Legendarium In which I assert that J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium begins with an enchanted sky, which provides the narrative framework for a restoration ecology based on human alliance with other creatures. This alliance protects local and planetary environments from being treated like garbage. Tolkien’s restorative framework begins in the Silmarillion with “The Music of the Ainur,” a cosmogony that details the creation of the universe by Powers of the One figured as singers and players in a great music that becomes the cosmos. This is neither an organic model of the world as body nor a technical model of the world as machine, but the world as performance and enchantment, coming- into-being as an aesthetic phenomenon. What the hobbits call “magic” in the Lord of the Rings is enchantment, understood as participation in the music of continuous creation. In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien theorized literary enchantment as the creation of a “Secondary World” of art that others could inhabit. -
The Divine Alchemy of J. R. R. Tolkien's the Silmarillion David C
The Divine Alchemy of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion David C. Priester, Jr. Gray, GA B.A., English and Philosophy, Vanderbilt University, 2017 A Thesis presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of English University of Virginia May, 2020 Abstract J. R. R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion demonstrates a philosophy of creative imagination that is expressed in argumentative form in Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories.” Fully appreciating the imaginative architecture of Tolkien’s fantastic cosmos requires considering his creative work in literary and theological dimensions simultaneously. Creative writing becomes a kind of spiritual activity through which the mind participates in a spiritual or theological order of reality. Through archetypal patterns Tolkien’s fantasy expresses particular ways of encountering divine presence in the world. The imagination serves as a faculty of spiritual perception. Tolkien’s creative ethic resonates with the theological aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar, a consideration of which helps to illuminate the relationship of theology and imaginative literature in The Silmarillion. Creative endeavors may be seen as analogous to the works of alchemists pursuing the philosopher’s stone through the transfiguration of matter. The Silmarils symbolize the ideal fruits of creative activity and are analogous to the philosopher’s stone. Priester 1 The Divine Alchemy of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion Where shall we begin our study of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion? The beginning seems like a very good place to start: “There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought” (3). -
The Earthly Paradise in Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings
Marshall University Marshall Digital Scholar English Faculty Research English 1995 The aE rthly Paradise in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Gwenyth Hood Marshall University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://mds.marshall.edu/english_faculty Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, and the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Hood, Gwenyth. “The Earthly Paradise in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” Mythlore 80 (1995): 139-144. Print. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Research by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Earthly Paradise in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Gwenyth Hood Abstract: Valinor, modelled on the Earthly Paradise, is described more fully in Tolkien's posthumously published works than in The Lord of the Rings. Yet the fleeting Valinorean images within the trilogy have a powerful impact, heightening and simultaneously providing consolation for the horrors of Mordor. Keywords: Ainulindale, Earthly Paradise, Elves, innocence, L6rien, The Lord of the Rings, Valinor Throughout all the grim and harrowing ordeals which becomes the known universe with all its history (Tolkien, dominate the action of The Lord of the Rings, a lovely but 1977, p. 19). Part of this is Middle-earth in the Third Age, in fleeting vision haunts the background. This is the vision of which the action of the trilogy takes place. the Earthly Paradise, which enters some of the darkest From all this, we see that Iluvatar's first theme, the primal moments of the trilogy. -
Gandalf and Merlin: J.R.R
Volume 27 Number 1 Article 5 10-15-2008 Gandalf and Merlin: J.R.R. Tolkien's Adoption and Transformation of a Literary Tradition Frank P. Riga (retired) Canisius College, Buffalo, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Riga, Frank P. (2008) "Gandalf and Merlin: J.R.R. Tolkien's Adoption and Transformation of a Literary Tradition," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 27 : No. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol27/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Concerns the roots of the wizard Gandalf’s character in the legendary figure of Merlin, tracing Merlin’s development through a variety of English and continental literature up through the twentieth century, and showing how various authors, including Tolkien, interpreted and adapted the wizard for their purposes. -
A Structural Analysis of J.R.R. Tolkien's Textural Composition
A Structural Analysis of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Textural Composition Centering on The Silmarillion 文学研究科英文学専攻博士後期課程在学 松 本 裕 子 Yuko Matsumoto 1: Introduction/2: Methods/3: Textural Analysis/ 4: Compound Text/5: Conclusion Chapter 1: Introduction The purpose of this present thesis is to analyze the textural composition of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s The Silmarillion: The Silmarillion as a single published work separate from The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). Certainly, the former is very closely connected with the latter, especially, its last part, OF THE RINGS OF POWER AND THE THIRD AGE; the latter can be said to be a natural extension of the former in this sense. On the other hand, however, Quenta Silmarillion is formally supposed to be a single piece of work,1 though it is the essential part of The Silmarillion as a book. In brief there are two kinds of The Silmarillion, or more correctly, two levels of The Silmarillion: The Silmarillion in a broad sense and The (Quenta) Silmarillion in a narrow sense. This thesis treats The Silmarillion in the broad sense. Here we must not miss the following points. The work involved is based upon a vast corpus of materials put together under the title of The History of Middle-Earth: from which another book, Unfinished Tales, was published by Christopher Tolkien, his son, after Tolkien’s death. So it cannot be regarded as Tolkien’s edited work. Christopher Tolkien made a comment on that issue in the introduction of Unfinished Tales;2 1 The Silmarillion is made up of five parts of the tales: AINULINDALЁ, VALAQUENTA, Quenta Silmarillion, AKALLABÊTH, and OF THE RINGS OF POWER AND THE THIRD AGE. -
Magic, Enchantment, and the True Nature of Power in the Lord of the Rings
THE VICTORY OF HOPE: MAGIC, ENCHANTMENT, AND THE TRUE NATURE OF POWER IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS by ANSELM G. LEFAVE A THESIS Presented to the Departments of English and Religious Studies and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts June 2020 An Abstract of the Thesis of Anselm LeFave for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Departments of English and Religious Studies to be taken June 2020 Title: The Victory of Hope: Magic, Enchantment, and the True Nature of Power in The Lord of the Rings Approved: Professor Elizabeth Wheeler Primary Thesis Advisor This thesis is an extended analysis of power in the fantasy writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, principally The Lord of the Rings. In it, I argue that the supernatural power which would colloquially be identified as “magic” can be distinguished into two fundamentally different kinds of power. The first kind is the power of evil, of Sauron and his servants, and is properly called “magic.” Magic, in this sense, arises from lust for power and dominance, and is used to enslave, conquer, and deceive. Magicians like Sauron use their power for no one but themselves and no purpose but their own. The second kind is the power of good, of the heroes of the story, and following Tolkien I call it “enchantment.” Enchantment arises from a subordination of one’s will to a higher purpose, coming from a person or reality higher than one’s self. Enchantment manifests in the world when a character chooses in accordance with that purpose which they have received from beyond themselves. -
Christian Perspectives in the Lord of the Rings
Christian Perspectives in The Lord of the Rings DIANE SPEED The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like “religion”, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism. This is a quotation from a letter written by Tolkien on 2 December 1953 to Robert Murray, S. J.1 Tolkien had sought Murray’s comments on galley-proofs and typescript of some parts of the text before its first appearance in print in 1954 and 1955. Murray had replied that he discerned “a positive compatibility with the order of Grace”, and compared the image of Galadriel to that of the Virgin Mary.2 In other words, if we follow Murray’s lead, we may decode the narrative of The Lord of the Rings to find an overall representation of the central Christian discourse of salvation through divine grace, or we may find suggestive similarities to individual figures, or perhaps moments, in the Christian story on which that discourse is based. On the same occasion, however, Murray had also expressed his doubts about what critics would be able to make of the book, because he thought it defied classification.3 Murray’s comments and Tolkien’s statement bring to the reader’s attention important questions about the meaning of The Lord of the Rings and the ways in which the author has proceeded to construct that meaning.