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 as a [...]
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 [...]
Considering that the use of words is dangerous and their abuse perilous, it should come as no surprise that “paganism” is a particularly dangerous word. The danger lies in the dangerous lies that arise when the word is employed thoughtlessly. It is, for instance, employed thoughtlessly by Christians when they describe any hedonist or heathen [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien’s love of the Anglo-Saxon language and culture is legendary among both Tolkien scholars and aficionados, as is his hatred of all things French. His biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, wrote that he suffered from “Gallophobia.”[1] His student and friend, George Sayer, commented that when Tolkien stayed with him and his wife, he very politely ate [...]
The day of the printed journal of imagination—dealing with ideas, literature, and poetry—seems to be fading. To be sure, it has been fading rather dramatically ever since the Second World War. Political and ideologically-oriented magazines, specialized academic journals packed full of discipline-specific jargon, and even the so-called best sellers have replaced the journals of imagination. [...]
In a recent post, English priest-blogger Fr. Ed Tomlinson likened the threat of secular modernism in the church to Tolkien’s Balrog. You may remember the great demon pursues the members of the Fellowship as they are fleeing the mines of Moria. The final confrontation is at the Bridge of Khazad-dum. Gandalf defies the Balrog crying, [...]
Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to explore the Middle Ages as they were, rather than through the muddled lens of the moderns. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher There is very little in our modern life that is more muddle-headed than the view that most moderns have of the [...]
One of the mysteries of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is the character of Tom Bombadil. Who is this odd, hill-leaping, silly-song-singing, farmer in the dell? Is this cavorting, yellow-booted bumpkin a darling that Tolkien could not kill, a rustic mechanical who simply had to have a part in the great saga? Was Bombadil [...]
“I should like to record my own love and my children’s love of E.A. Wyke-Smith’s Marvellous Land of Snergs,” reads an endorsement on the cover of that book. The endorser is J.R.R. Tolkien, and it was very kind of him to offer the guidance. Without him, it is likely we would only have visited a [...]
Ever since I arrived at Cambridge as a student in 1964 and encountered a tribe of full-grown women wearing puffed sleeves, clutching teddies, and babbling excitedly about the doings of hobbits, it has been my nightmare that J.R.R. Tolkien would turn out to be the most influential writer of the twentieth century. The bad dream [...]