Mythlore articles from September 2006

Mythlore archives from September 2006

Editorial.
September 22, 2006... The majority of papers in this particularly hefty issue of Mythlore fall readily into three groups examining different kinds of influences on authors of mythopoeic fiction. Our first three papers examine the ways in which scholarly...

"In the hilt is fame": resonances of medieval swords and sword-lore in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... As part of the powerful and evocative scene in which the Company of the Nine embarks from Rivendell on the quest to return the One Ring to Mount Doom, J. R. R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings provides a detailed description of the war gear...

Myth maker, unicorn maker: C.S. Lewis and the reshaping of medieval thought.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... In The Achievement of C.S. Lewis, Thomas Howard discusses some of the problems tied to reading Lewis's Narnia stories allegorically. He explains that instead of chasing "symbols up and down the landscapes of Narnia [...] [i]t is much better to...

The theory and practice of alliterative verse in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien.
September 22, 2006... J. R. R. Tolkien is best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and the creator of Middle-earth, but those who look beneath the surface quickly learn that his background lay in the study of philology and of Anglo-Saxon and...

"Surely you don't disbelieve": Tolkien and Pius X: anti-modernism in Middle-earth.(J.R.R. Tolkein and Pope Pius X)(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... The early Twentieth Century was an exciting time to be raised Roman Catholic in England. Historian Sheridan Gilley writes, "Catholic England came of age, when Pope Pius X in his Constitution Sapienti Consilio of 29 June 1908 declared England no...

The shell-shocked hobbit: the First World War and Tolkien's trauma of the Ring.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... In a letter to Professor L. W. Forster written on New Year's Eve, 1960, J.R.R. Tolkien reemphasized his insistence that the mythology of Middle-earth was not reliant on the events of the two World Wars that spanned much of the first half of his...

Lord Dunsany and the Great War: Don Rodriguez and the rebirth of romance.(Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett Dunsany's Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley)(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... In his classic cultural history of the First World War, The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell reminds his readers that "[i]rony is the attendant of hope, and the fuel of hope is innocence" (18). Fussell goes on to point out that the...

Playing by the rules: Kipling's "Great Game" vs. "the Great Dance" in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy.(Rudyard Kipling)(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... From his young adulthood until his old age, C. S. Lewis had a deep appreciation of Kipling's work. His letters as a young university student occasionally revealed this passion: "W. [Warren Lewis] had just been reading Puck of Pook's Hill [...]...

An unexpected Guest.(influence of William Morris on J. R. R. Tolkien's works)(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... J. R. R. Tolkien, always a very private man, was frequently irritated to receive letters suggesting "sources" or "inspirations" for The Lord of the Rings in the work of other writers. However, he was proud to acknowledge one influence, that of...

Dreaming of dragons: Tolkien's impact on Heaney's Beowulf.(J.R.R. Tolkien and Seamus Heaney)(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... As a result of surging interest in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, due in part to the Peter Jackson film adaptations and in part to the publication of Michael D. C. Drout's variorum edition of Tolkien's Beowulf and the Critics, both...

Wise warriors in Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling.(J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling)(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... The phrase "wise warrior" sounds like an oxymoron, like "military intelligence." But wise warrior is an apt description of Athena--goddess of wisdom, reason, agriculture, and civilization, who was born, fully armed, from the head of Zeus, and...

From isolation to community: Frodo's incomplete personal quest in The Lord of the Rings.(Character overview)
September 22, 2006... In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell describes a common protagonist found in the myths of all the world's cultures down through time. These universal heroes, under many different guises and many different names, all...

Bombadil's role in The Lord of the Rings.(Tom Bombadil)(Character overview)
September 22, 2006... When J.R.R. Tolkien began to plan a sequel to The Hobbit, his thoughts first turned to Tom Bombadil. His publisher, Stanley Unwin, had urged him to follow up the success of The Hobbit, but Tolkien was initially at a loss as to how to continue...

"Where is that worthless dreamer?" Bottom's fantastic redemption in Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream.(Michael Hoffman)(Character overview)
September 22, 2006... "What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?" (MND 3.1.60). So exclaims Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream when he suddenly comes upon a group of artisans who are rehearsing the play Pyramus and Thisbe for Duke Theseus's wedding celebration....