The Devil’s first sin was not the temptation of Eve, but preceded the creation of the Garden. He “tried to destroy by violence before he succeeded in ruining by fraud.” You might like to compare Tolkien’s “Ainulindale” (the Elvish account of the creation of the world through music, in The Silmarillion), with the following meditation on the Exercises [...]
Some years ago I wrote a book about Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. It was called Secret Fire by the publisher DLT, and The Power of the Ring in the USA (Crossroad didn’t like the UK title). This year, with financial troubles at DLT, it went out of print (in both versions) and I was asked by Crossroad [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien composed a whole “Elvish Book of Genesis,” describing the creation of the world by the One God (Illuvatar). In that mythological account—which he believed to be compatible with the creation story in Genesis—God first proposes the world as a musical theme. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.” [...]
The White City, in its pride and presumption, lay under siege. Having gathered “his most cunning smiths and sorcerers,” Melko, the twisted one, had directed the creation of organic machines, through “iron and flame” to attack. Led by the leader of the demonic balrogs, Gothmog, and armed with such unholy weapons, Melko’s forces breached the [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) shaped my life in more ways than I can or ever will understand. At least in this life time. Though he died when I was only five years old, I have often given God thanks for allowing me to live on the same earth as Tolkien. Indeed, [...]
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien edited by Humphrey Carpenter The History of The Lord of the Rings edited by Christopher Tolkien If considered at all, Oxford philologist and novelist J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) remains a perplexing twentieth-century figure for most academics, conservative or otherwise. Most famous academically for his insightful and seminal 1936 essay on Beowulf, [...]
J. R. R. Tolkien ’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth by Bradley J. Birzer Much has been written of J.R.R. Tolkien’s accomplishment during the past half century, with critics struggling to understand the powerful grip exercised by the English fantasist’s writings upon readers. Some Tolkien-focused criticism has been enlightening, much has been repetitive, and a small [...]
According to J. R. R. Tolkien’s son, Christopher, Hugo Dyson (1896-1975) had quite enough, thank you, even though the lesser-known Oxford don was considered the most fun-loving of the Inklings. As another newly-written passage of The Lord of the Rings was read aloud by its author, Dyson was "lying on the couch, and lolling and shouting and saying, [...]
This month, fans around the world will flock to the cinema to watch the first of three installments of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit—the “prequel” to the award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy that was also released in three parts between 2001 and 2003 (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be released in U.S. theaters Dec. [...]
When we survey that last 100 years in even the most cursory manner possible, the one objective and rather obvious thing that holds the century together is both the attempt to deconstruct the human person and the counter effort to uphold his dignity. Contempt and defense, seemingly in a Manichaen-like struggle. While the Gulags, the [...]
Over the last decade and a half, as many readers of TIC have probably noted, I’ve had the blessed opportunity of researching and writing about Russell Kirk (1918-1994), generally agreed upon as the founder of post-war American conservatism. At first, I did this mostly as a hobby, having become intensely interested in Christian Humanism through [...]
Irving Babbitt, C. S. Lewis, Russell Kirk In a world agog with labels and categories we too often leave important ideas behind. With paleocons, traditionalists, neocons, Leocons, libertarians, classical liberals, anarcho-capitalists, distributists, and agrarians, the right can be as bad as the left in its fetish for classification. One group that defies easy [...]
In the opening to his lengthy 1939 academic lecture to the University of St. Andrews, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien warned that those who entered myth did so at great peril to themselves and to the very realm of myth itself. That realm, Tolkien stated, is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: [...]
I am grateful to the founding parents and benefactors of the Lyceum that you have not had to grow up in a cultural wilderness as I did. Why anyone would be nostalgic for the 70’s I do not know. To give you an idea of how bad it was: In 1973, Admiral Jeremiah Denton returned [...]