J.R.R. Tolkien knows the sunlight. He may not be a wizard but he possesses a wizard’s wisdom. To see as he sees is to see everything in the glorious sunlight of Ilûvatar, the One who sees all and knows that it is Good… It might be stretching things a little to describe the author of [...]
For some time I’ve had the intention of drawing up a list of what I consider to be the best books on J.R.R. Tolkien. It is, therefore, not a list of the best books by him but the best books about him. That said, I can’t help but begin by giving The Letters of J.R.R. [...]
Friendship, or philia, is one of the “loves” that C.S. Lewis elucidates and celebrates in his book, The Four Loves, the others being familial love (storge), sexual love (eros) and Divine love (caritas or agape). Although not the greatest or highest of the loves, Lewis saw friendship as the noble coming together of those who [...]
This year marks the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest conflagrations in human history in which more than a million men were killed or wounded. One of the lucky survivors was J.R.R. Tolkien, who described the battle as being an “animal horror.” Bearing the psychological scars of this horror for [...]
Although Hilaire Belloc and J.R.R. Tolkien had much in common, not least of which was their shared and impassioned Catholicism, it is intriguing that they should differ so profoundly on the importance of the Anglo-Saxons. Picture the scene. An expectant audience, which includes the great Catholic writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, awaits the arrival of another great [...]
It has long been my passion (and, I believe, also my calling) to serve as a catalyst for a new Christian cultural revival in the English-speaking world. In this sense, it could be said that I am striving to be what might be called a “catalytic converter” of the culture. Thanks be to God, there [...]
The roaring success of the English television drama Downton Abbey had little to do with the grand house, the sumptuous costumes, the superb cast and intricately intriguing storyline. Having just finished watching the final season, it occurred to me that the series’s success has everything to do with fairytales. […]
As our own society seems plunged into ever darker decadence and despair, the beauty, truth and goodness of Tolkien’s classic is an astringent balm. It is the bright clear air of a spring morning in the midst of the contemporary atmosphere of the Dead Marshes. For Christmas last year, friends bought me the super-duper, fiftieth-anniversary, [...]
Multiculturalism is a thorny topic. It is also a topic on which any truly rational discussion is very difficult. The problem is that many people equate criticism of multiculturalism with racism. Since nobody wants to be accused of racism (quite rightly), it is easier and safer to avoid talking about anything that might get one [...]
There is a mystery at the heart of “The Lord of the Rings” that continues to baffle and confuse the critics. Is it “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work,” as author J.R.R. Tolkien claimed in a letter, or is it, as he claimed elsewhere, devoid of any intentional meaning or message? The Lord of the [...]
Readers of my earlier essay, “Defending Tolkien from the Cloak-and-Dagger Priest,” will know something of the controversy surrounding the attacks on Tolkien by an anonymous priest, whom I will henceforth refer to as Father X. Since, in that essay, I only addressed Father X’s inadequate understanding of allegory and myth, I would like to look [...]
Arguably the most important literary influence on The Lord of the Rings, the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf, helps us understand the way in which Tolkien both conceals and reveals the deepest meaning in his own work. Probably dating from the early eighth century, making it contemporaneous with the lives of Saints Boniface and Bede, Beowulf is [...]
I have never trusted those who hide behind a cloak of anonymity. It seems to me that they do not have the courage of their convictions, or else that they have something to hide. I have, therefore, been very suspicious of an anonymous “priest” who gives talks on the internet attacking J. R. R. Tolkien [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien considered music to be an essential part of life. Not only did he have his characters sing songs throughout the stories of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but in The Silmarillion, he also imagined creation itself as the making of music: And it came to pass that Ilúvatar called together all [...]