Chivalrous and self-effacing in a completely genuine and unconscious way, Thomas Howard was a bona fide gentleman, in the old-fashioned sense of the word. He was a walking witness of all that is good and gracious in life, serving as a tacit reminder of goodness, truth, and beauty. Thomas Howard When Thomas Howard [...]
My first and last care is not politics but education. Education seems to me inherently conservative, being the transmission, and thus the saving, of a tradition’s treasures of fiction and thought. But education is also inherently imaginative. Author’s Note: I wish to dedicate this essay to a writer of books whose greatness is at once [...]
The dreams I had have been forgotten now— The dreams I once believed I knew were true— The dreams I know will haunt me every day— The dreams I dreamt about just yesterday— The dreams I won’t forget to dream each day— […]
As an anthropologist and folklorist, Andrew Lang believed that fairy tales and folklore serve as records of the past in the cultural realm, much like the tradition of common law in the legal realm. Through the study of cultural norms and folkways, one can understand the mores of the present. Some men should never have [...]
In our zeal to articulate how Christianity has shaped civilization, we are apt to neglect the specific role of prayer. The good, the true, and the beautiful fostered by our civilization have been initiated and sustained by prayer. If one does not pray, what measure of human cultivation is one missing? Art and Prayer: The [...]
Hardly an opera producer now, confronted with a masterpiece that might otherwise delight and console an audience, can control the desire to desecrate. The more exalted the music, the more demeaning the production. What modern producers seem to forget is that audiences are gifted with the faculty of imagination. The disappearance of the bourgeoisie has led [...]
Zombie legends remain a relevant medium that continues to capture the imaginations of modern people. As with any myth or legend, we gain wisdom about ourselves when we endeavor to unearth the symbolic meanings that lie buried beneath the surface. At times, what we find is as frightening as it is illuminating. With the Halloween [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien proclaimed that fairy—like all mythology—is an expression of our deepest longings and fears. Fairy itself, far from being supernatural, is the most natural of worlds, and reminds us of the deepest truths of existence. For J.R.R. Tolkien, Fairy was a world parallel to ours, embodying many of the rules and norms and ideas [...]
Lay down your armor And play for me your precious lyre; And let me hear Your deepest dreams and frail desires. […]
Coming when it did in J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing career, “On Fairy Stories” reveals more about the mind and soul of the man than any other non-fiction work he produced in his lifetime. Not too long after Tolkien had published The Hobbit—to much critical acclaim—and was just beginning a sequel to it, the Faculty of Arts [...]
In his short story, “Leaf by Niggle,” J.R.R. Tolkien provides a much more colourful and comforting purgatorial vision than that afforded by Dante. Niggle, a personification of the Artist, recognizes the landscape as the perfect, living form of which his painting was but a shadow or a foreshadowing. J.R.R. Tolkien expressed a dislike for formal [...]
Who goes there riding through the night and fog?— A father and son come journeying along. He holds him tight as he rides through the storm, He grips him safely and he keeps him warm. […]
Even though Walter R. Brooks’ “Freddy the Pig” series doesn’t aim to teach a moral story, deliver great epiphanies, or grapple directly with universal human themes, the books are refreshingly unself-conscious and yet still make a considerable contribution to American literature in the same way the works of P.G. Wodehouse have done for English literature—through [...]
‘You may say this to Théoden son of Thengel: open war lies before him, with Sauron or against him. None may live now as they have lived, and few shall keep what they call their own. —J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings ‘Ware, ‘ware! in the watches of the night; for the devil reigns in darkness while [...]