Includes bibliographical references (p. [268]-284) and index.
Contents:
16. Richard C. West. pt. 1. Real-world myth in a secondary world : mythological aspects in the story of Beren and Lʹuthien / 2. "An industrious little devil" : E.V. Gordon as friend and collaborator with Tolkien / Douglas A. Anderson -- 3. "There would always be a fairy-tale" : J.R.R. Tolkien and the folklore controversy / Verlyn Flieger -- 4. A kind of mid-wife : J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis--sharing influence / Andrew Lazo -- 5. "I wish to speak" : Tolkien's voice in his Beowulf essay / Mary Faraci -- 6. Middle-earth, the Middle Ages, and the Aryan nation : myth and history in World War II / Christine Chism -- pt. 2. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the rings and medieval literary and mythological texts/contexts. 7. Tolkien's Wild Men : from medieval to modern / Verlyn Flieger -- 8. The valkyrie reflex in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the rings : Galadriel, Shelob, ʹEowyn, and Arwen / Leslie A. Donovan -- 9. Exilic imagining in The Seafarer and The Lord of the rings / Miranda Wilcox -- 10. "Oathbreakers, why have ye come?" : Tolkien's "Passing of the Grey Company" and the twelfth-century Exercitus mortuorum / Margaret A. Sinex -- pt. 3. J.R.R. Tolkien : the texts/contexts of medieval patristics, theology, and iconography. 11. Augustine in the cottage of lost play : the Ainulindalë as asterisk cosmogony / John William Houghton -- 12. The "music of the spheres" : relationships between Tolkien's The Silmarillion and medieval cosmological and religious theory / Bradford Lee Eden -- 13. The anthropology of Arda : creation, theology, and the race of Men / Jonathan Evans -- 14. "A land without stain" : medieval images of Mary and their use in the characterization of Galadriel / Michael W. Maher -- pt. 4. J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion mythology : medievalized retextualization and theory. 15. The great chain of reading : (inter- )textual relations and the technique of mythopoesis in the Tʹurin story / Gergely Nagy -- 16. Real-world myth in a secondary world : mythological aspects in the story of Beren and Lʹuthien / Richard C. West.
Summary:
"Tolkien the Medievalist explores how Tolkien's creative worlds were shaped by his own scholarship on medieval literature. In trying to create a "mythology for England" in the space of his fiction, Tolkien inevitably drew upon extant medieval languages and literatures." "This is the first recent collection to examine anew the question of Tolkien's medievalness. Interdisciplinary in approach, the essays explore Tolkien's position within the context of twentieth-century medieval scholarship and religious movements and his use of various works of medieval literature as a palimpsest for the development of his own ideas.". "In the first section, essays focus on how Professor Tolkien invested his professional interests in his writing and how those works and the movements of his day may have affected his fiction. The second and third sections focus on specific episodes, characters, concepts, and images and how they correspond to medieval literary antecedents, in Old Norse, Old and Middle English, medieval Latin, and in medieval Catholicism. In the fourth section, essays discuss how mythological retextualization in his fiction assumed a medieval form.". "Essential reading for all scholars interested in J. R. R. Tolkien, this work will also be of vital interest to those working in the fields of medieval history and literature, literary history, and literature in the early twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.