stimulating and sometimes hard-to-understand-company of Jane Chance and other
medievalists, reading the book ”Tolkien the medievalist”. The book is n:o three
in the series ”Routledge studies in medieval religion and culture”.
The chapters are:
An industrious little devil: E.G. Gordon as friend and collaborator with
Tolkien.
There would always be a fairy-tale: JRRT and the folklore controversy
A kind of mid-wife: JRRT and C S Lewis – sharing influences
Middle-earth, the Middle Ages, and the Aryan nation: myth and history in
WWII
Tolkien’s Wild Men: from medieval to modern
The Valkyrie reflex in JRRT: LotR: Galadriel, Shelob, Éowyn, and Arwen
Exile imagining in The Seafarer and LotR
”Oathbreakers, why have ye come?”: Tolkien's ”Passing of the Grey Company” and
the twelfth-century Exercitus mortuorum
Augustine in the cottage of lost play: the Ainulindalë as asterisk
cosmogony
The ”music of the spheres”: relationship between Tolkien’s The Silmarillion and
medieval cosmological and religious theory
The anthropology of Arda: creation, theology, and the race of Men
”A land without a stain”: medieval images of Mary and their use in the
characterization of Galadriel
The great chain of reading: (inter-)textual relations and the technique of
mythopoesis in the Túrin story
Real-world myth in a secondary world: mythological aspects in the story of
Beren and Luthien
Some of the chapters are very ”scholary”, but most of them can be enjoyed by
the average Tolkien-fan. As a matter of fact, I found some of the chapters
quite moving, and the one about why JRRT found it so hard to publish anything
after LotR almost sad. There are other scholary studies, which I have not read
yet, listed in this book, together with a 17 pages long reference-list.
After reading the book, I think I truly understand what JRRT meant when he said
he wanted to write a Mythology for England. He has taken many, many mythologies
and stories, mostly from Northern Europe and rewritten them and then mixed them
together into one logical, beautiful story (which is about what the reader
will/can see in it). It is a Catholic saga, since most of the themes,
characters a s o which JRRT borrowed were medieval or from older stories
written down during the early Middle Ages. But since JRRT:s books are
“pre-Christian” the religious details can’t be Christian, only act as an
“Oldest Testament”, if you understand what I mean. Pointing towards the Age of
Man, which is also the Age of Christ to Tolkien.
Personally, I find that knowing a lot about what inspired JRRT doesn’t change
my first impression, or lessens the story in any way. I manage to keep the
things apart. I’m just so amazed that he has woven such a lot of
“already-existing” material into it; I believed that he made most of LotR up
himself, and had the other material as background. Now I see that his genius
lies in the sewing together of all the borrowed parts, making the story modern
(!) and more alive than most stories I have read. Is it too drastic to say The
Mythology of our time?!
Hope you were intrigued by the names of the chapters; there is something for
all, I’m sure!
(To rewrite mythologies or old stories is not a modern thing. It’s been done
all through history. An author who has thought a lot about these things and has
written wonderful books with mythological themes is Alan Garner in ”Elidor”,
”The Owl Service”, ”Red
Shift”).
"If you don't know where you're going
any road will take you there!"
George Harrison
