Nature is no doubt a life-study, or a study for eternity (for those so gifted); but there is a part of man which is not “Nature,” and which therefore is not obliged to study it, and is, in fact, wholly unsatisfied by it. – J. R. R. Tolkien Many of my essays for The Imaginative [...]
My wife has just sent me two links showing a linguistic family tree illustrating the relationship of the various modern European and Oriental languages with their Indo-European roots.[1] This use of a tree-metaphor to encapsulate the living traditionalism at the heart of language was one of the imaginative roots of J.R.R. Tolkien’s creation of the tree-like [...]
“In your presence there is abundance of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” – Ps. 16.11 Perhaps it is the noticeable lack of concrete information surrounding what Heaven is and will be that so jibes against our modern mechanistic minds, but this is no doubt something that so many Christians find very [...]
My family and I spent much of the Christmas season this year in Middle Earth—or at any rate Peter Jackson’s version thereof. For a number of years now we have watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy over three days, starting on Christmas Eve. And, of course, the final installment of Mr. Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy [...]
Did Bilbo Baggins steal the One Ring from Gollum? Tolkien geeks debate the issue to this day. The more interesting question: Did author J.R.R. Tolkien steal the ring from composer Richard Wagner? In our chapter on the ring in our recently released book The Hobbit Party, we bring in everything from Plato and the Panopticon [...]
There is very little in our modern life that is more muddle-headed than the view that most moderns have of the Middle Ages. For most moderns the Middle Ages are dismissed as being barbaric and violent, whereas, of course, our own enlightened and progressive times are, by comparison, civilized and peaceful. One thinks, for instance, [...]
In Joseph Pearce’s second critique of our work on Tolkien’s political thought, he begins by saying he hardly knows where to start. We would like to suggest, respectfully, that Mr. Pearce start by reading our book, where we develop our arguments at some length. In his second post, as with the first, he refers to [...]
I hardly know where to start in responding to Messrs. Richards’ and Witt’s “response” to my earlier article on “Distributism in the Shire”. More to the point, I hardly know where to end. There seems so much to discuss. There is the question of Tolkien’s agreement with Belloc on the practical aspects of distributism, specifically [...]
Out of the nightmare of the Somme came a sickly scholar who would gather up the tragedy of the trenches and turn it into the unexpected literary triumph of the century. Despite the derision of the academics, J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece continues to be hailed as the most popular book of the twentieth century and Tolkien [...]
Joseph Pearce, whose work we appreciate, has issued a critical response in The Imaginative Conservative to our new book from Ignatius Press about J.R.R. Tolkien’s political and economic vision. Or rather, he has issued a critical response to a short answer one of us gave in an interview about the book. Mr. Pearce begins: “In [...]
In a very interesting interview in Catholic World Report, Jay W. Richards, co-author of The Hobbit Party, a new book examining the political thought of J. R. R. Tolkien, sought to distance Tolkien from the political views of G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Whilst paying lip service to the romantic aspirations of distributism, the political [...]
As they approach the end of their long journey, Frodo and his companions are disturbed by rumors that the their beloved Shire is not well. They are even more disturbed when Gandalf tells them: “I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. [...]
With the Battle of the Pelennor Fields won, the Captains of the West prepare to march on the Black Gate. But one warrior has a dreamy, faraway look: Legolas the elf-prince, recounting the story of his perilous journey with the returning King through the Paths of the Dead. As Galadriel prophesied, he has heard the [...]
The New York Times Review of Books once placed J.R.R. Tolkien’s collective writings and stories about Middle-earth on its list of the twenty greatest literary works of the twentieth century. The ability of Tolkien to create an alternative society with a fully developed system of morals and beliefs was cited as the main reason for this [...]