Mythlore articles from March 2007

Mythlore archives from March 2007

Editorial.(Editorial)
March 22, 2007... This issue of Mythlore features a number of "paired" articles--two articles on similar topics which, when read together, offer interesting (and sometimes opposing!) insights into themes, characters, controversial issues, and influences. We...

Fantastical fact, home, or other? The imagined 'medieval' in C. S. Lewis.
March 22, 2007... FANTASY and reality, imagination and reason, desire and holiness, romanticism and apologetics: these and other analogous pairings are often conceived as diametric opposites psychologically, spiritually, cognitively and experientially in...

Feudal values, vassalage, and fealty in The Lord of the Rings.
March 22, 2007... THE social structure of Middle-earth, in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, is clearly based on medieval historical models. The style of governance and the societal landscape of Rohan and Minas Tirith are modeled on the individual, divided kingdoms...

Battling the woman warrior: females and combat in Tolkien and Lewis.(J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis)(Critical essay)
March 22, 2007... "BATTLES are ugly when women fight" (Lewis, Lion 105). With this statement Father Christmas makes a clear gender distinction for Narnian characters: while men's natures make them suited to combat, women's natures do not. Since Father Christmas...

Finding woman's role in The Lord of the Rings.(Character overview)
March 22, 2007... IN The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien gives the 20th century a fantasy epic of medieval proportions. It is a story of the littlest person, a hobbit, overcoming the tides of war. In his trilogy, Tolkien fashions a narrative that forcefully...

Through a dark lens: Jackson's Lord of the Rings as abject horror.
March 22, 2007... THERE is no doubt that Peter Jackson makes excellent horror films. Linda Badley says in Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic, "Jackson is one of several talented young directors who found in splatter and grotesque fantasy the elements of a...

The monstrosity of the gaze: critical problems with a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
March 22, 2007... IN the essay, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," J.R.R. Tolkien contends with early critics who debunk the poem's poetic and structural artistry: "[T]he monsters are not an inexplicable blunder of taste; they are essential, fundamentally...

Galadriel and Morgan le Fey: Tolkien's redemption of the lady of the lacuna.(J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings")
March 22, 2007... In that realm [the realm of fairy-story] its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut...

The Fall and Repentance of Galadriel.("The Lord of the Rings" character)
March 22, 2007... ALTHOUGH Galadriel is one of the best known and best loved characters in The Lord of the Rings, surprisingly little has been written about her. It is true that she only really plays an important role in the Lothlorien episode in Book II: 6-8,...

Prince Caspian and Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair.(Critical essay)
March 22, 2007... EVEN a casual glance at C. S. Lewis's personal writings--his diaries, his autobiography, and his private correspondence, particularly that to his lifelong friend Arthur Greeves (1)--reveals Lewis's deep love for the writings of William Morris,...

Pullman, Lewis, MacDonald, and The Anxiety of Influence.(Philip Pullman, George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis)(Critical essay)
March 22, 2007... Just as we can never embrace [...] a single person, but embrace the whole of her or his family romance, so we can never read a poet without reading the whole of his or her family romance as a poet. (Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of...

The Ogre Blinded and The Lord of the Rings.(Critical essay)
March 22, 2007... J.R.R. Tolkien drew upon many narrative sources to create his Middle-earth, some obvious and some obscure. But many of the studies on this subject ignore a particularly important scene: the climax at Mount Doom. The few critical examinations of...

Beorn and Tom Bombadil: a tale of two heroes.(Character overview)
March 22, 2007... IN The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, two characters appear to be purposefully designed to be literary complements of each other: Beorn and Tom Bombadil. In The Hobbit, Beorn helps Bilbo and his company on their way to the Lonely Mountain,...

Meaning, meanings, and epistemology in C. S. Lewis.(Critical essay)
March 22, 2007... AN obscure film (perhaps a Fellini or a David Lynch), a bizarre piece of modern art, or a complex poem frequently evoke from my students the question, "What does it mean?"--and they take for granted that they know exactly what they are asking....

The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide.(Book review)
March 22, 2007... THE J.R.R. TOLKIEN COMPANION AND GUIDE. Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 2 vol., 2300 pages. $100.00. ISBN 978-0007169726. Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond, two librarians known...

The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All.(Book review)
March 22, 2007... THE LORD OF THE RINGS AND PHILOSOPHY: ONE BOOK TO RULE THEM ALL. Edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson. Chicago: Open Court, 2003. 240pp. $17.95. ISBN 0-8126-9545-3. This recent volume in Open Court's Popular Culture and Philosophy...

Correction to issue 95/96.(Correction notice)
March 22, 2007... The following was inadvertently left out of the "About the Contributors" section of our previous issue. Our apologies to Dr. Fife, who contributed the article "Wise Warriors in Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling." ERNELLE FIFE received an MS in...