Author: Bradley J. Birzer Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1684516242 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
With a new introduction by the author Peter Jackson's film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy - and the accompanying Rings-related paraphernalia and publicity - has played a unique role in the disemmination of Tolkien's imaginative creation to the masses. Yet, for most readers and viewers, the underlying meaning of Middle-earth has remained obscure. Bradley Birzer has remedied that with this fresh study. In J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth, Birzer reveals the surprisingly specific religious symbolism that permeates Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He also explores the social and political views that motivated the Oxford don, ultimately situating Tolkien within the Christian humanist tradition represented by Thomas More and T.S. Eliot, Dante and C.S. Lewis. Birzer argues that through the genre of myth Tolkien created a world that is essentially truer than the one we think we see around us everyday, a world that transcends the colorless disenchantment of our postmodern age.
Author: Bradley J. Birzer Publisher: ISBN: Category : Christian fiction, English Languages : en Pages : 246
Book Description
Explication of the religious symbolism and significance of Tolkien's Middle-earth stories and situation of Tolkien within the Christian humanist tradition represented by Thomas More and T.S. Eliot, Dante and C.S. Lewis.
Author: Bradley J. Birzer Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1684515351 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
With a new introduction by the author Peter Jackson's film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy - and the accompanying Rings-related paraphernalia and publicity - has played a unique role in the disemmination of Tolkien's imaginative creation to the masses. Yet, for most readers and viewers, the underlying meaning of Middle-earth has remained obscure. Bradley Birzer has remedied that with this fresh study. In J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth, Birzer reveals the surprisingly specific religious symbolism that permeates Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He also explores the social and political views that motivated the Oxford don, ultimately situating Tolkien within the Christian humanist tradition represented by Thomas More and T.S. Eliot, Dante and C.S. Lewis. Birzer argues that through the genre of myth Tolkien created a world that is essentially truer than the one we think we see around us everyday, a world that transcends the colorless disenchantment of our postmodern age.
Author: Richard Purtill Publisher: Ignatius Press ISBN: 1681492725 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 228
Book Description
Here is an in-depth look at the role myth, morality, and religion play in J.R.R. Tolkien's works such as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion-including Tolkien's private letters and revealing opinions of his own work. Richard L. Purtill brilliantly argues that Tolkien's extraordinary ability to touch his readers' lives through his storytelling-so unlike much modern literature-accounts for his enormous literary success. This book demonstrates the moral depth in Tolkien's work and cuts through current subjectivism and cynicism about morality. A careful reader will find a subtle religious dimension to Tolkien's work-all the more potent because it is below the surface. Purtill reveals that Tolkien's fantasy stories creatively incorporate profound religious and ethical ideas. For example, Purtill shows us how hobbits reflect both the pettiness of parochial humanity and unexpected heroism. Purtill, author of 19 books, effectively addresses larger issues of the place of myth, the relation of religion and morality to literature, the relation of Tolkien's work to traditional mythology, and the lessons Tolkien's work teaches for our own lives.
Author: Chris Wiley Publisher: ISBN: 9781954887022 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
""Some of the best insights ever made about J.R.R. Tolkien's invented world or, frankly, about 20th-century literature.... Here is a book of intense wisdom and penetrating thought." ~Bradley J. Birzer, author of J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth What is Tom Bombadil doing in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. His bright blue coat and yellow boots seem out-of-place with the grandeur of the rest of the narrative. In this book, C.R. Wiley shows that Tom is not an afterthought but Tolkien's way of making a profoundly important point. Tolkien once wrote, "[Tom Bombadil] represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function." Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry are a small glimpse of the perfect beauty, harmony, and happy ending that we all yearn for in our hearts. To understand Tom Bombadil is to understand more of Tolkien and his deeply Christian vision of the world"--
Author: Patrick Curry Publisher: ISBN: Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
The work of J.R.R. Tolkien has sold nearly 100 million copies worldwide, and continues to enthral new generations of readers. yet it has also been widely labelled as reactionary and escapist by hostile critics.
Author: Leslie Ellen Jones Publisher: ISBN: Category : Fantasy fiction, English Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
This title takes a popular - not academic - look at the mythic world and mythic themes that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien, not only the Germanic and Norse mythology that most experts discuss, but also Celtic and Finnish myths. It talks of the journeys and quests that inspired Tolkien.
Author: Jeffrey L. Morrow Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers ISBN: 1532600054 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 202
Book Description
J. R. R. Tolkien, the beloved author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, brings to his work a great treasure--his Christian faith. Tolkien's literary works are so popular in part because, in some sense, they pertain to the real world. This present volume is an attempt to understand better the deep Christian influences on his work but also to explore the relevance of Tolkien's work for theology today. After examining Tolkien's fiction in order better to appreciate Christian influences, this volume takes a closer look at Tolkien's theology of fantasy, his response to the more skeptical origins of religion research, and applies his work to contemporary questions about method in biblical studies. Tolkien's Christianity informed all he wrote. Moreover, his own theology of fantasy holds great promise for contemporary theology.
Author: Michael T. Jahosky Publisher: ISBN: 1725263130 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
Although many people today reject Christianity for intellectual reasons, greater numbers of people are rejecting Christianity because it does not engage their imagination. Christians must not only demonstrate that the Christian worldview is true, but that it is also good, beautiful, and relevant. The Good News of the Return of the King: The Gospel in Middle-earth is a book that endeavors to show the truth, goodness, and beauty of Jesus Christ, the gospel, and the biblical metanarrative by engaging the imagination through J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, as well as The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. In this book, I propose that J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a story about what Jesus' parables are about: the good news about the return of the king. As a work of imaginative fiction similar to Jesus' parables, The Lord of the Rings can bypass both intellectual and imaginative objections to the gospel and pull back the ""veil of familiarity"" that obscures the gospel for many.
Author: Bradley J. Birzer
Author: Bradley J. Birzer
Author: Bradley J. Birzer
Author: Richard Purtill
Author: Chris Wiley
Author: Patrick Curry
Author: Richard Lawrence Purtill
Author: Leslie Ellen Jones
Author: Jeffrey L. Morrow
Author: Michael T. Jahosky