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Awesome.

Can anyone tell me whether the following quote from Morgoth's Ring is accurate?
"And yet even so he would have been defeated, because it would still have
'existed'. independent of his own mind, and a world in potential" (396).

The author of the article and I both wonder about that internal period after
"existed."

Ted

------------------------------
Dr. Theodore J. Sherman, Editor
Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and
Mythopoeic Literature
Associate Professor of English
Box X041, Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN  37132
615 898-5836 Office
615 898-5098 FAX
tsherman@... Office
tedsherman@... Home



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I have what I believe is a British first edition of the book, and what it
says is:

And yet even so he would have been defeated, because it would still have
'existed', independent of his own mind, and a world in potential.

Wendell Wagner


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 09/01/2001 5:26:19 PM Central Daylight Time,
tedsherman@... writes:

> Can anyone tell me whether the following quote from Morgoth's Ring is
> accurate?

Which reminds me, LOTR itself must have been corrected, and corrected, and
corrected - yet today I found a typo (an omitted word)  on p. 366 of the
one-vol paperback.

Would it be a good idea to have a Group Read here in the months leading up to
the movie release?  And if so, of the first volume only (which approximates
what is covered in the first movie), or of the whole thing?

I myself am (as of today) now pursuing the captured hobbits up to the eaves
of Fangorn, and thinking that the best parts (still) are perhaps from the
leaving of Rivendell up to the leaving of Lothlorien.  The approach to
Caradhras and the failure there, the entry into Moria, and the realm of
Galadriel... sheer magic, all of it.

Mary S

In a message dated 9/1/2001 10:33:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Stolzi@...
writes:

> Which reminds me, LOTR itself must have been corrected, and corrected, and
>  corrected - yet today I found a typo (an omitted word)  on p. 366 of
> the
>   one-vol paperback.

The only mistake I've found is in (older) paperback version of the second
book. I can't remember which page it was on. My heart rejoices in that it is
the only one I've ever found in them. I find mistakes all the time in books.
It bugs me :-)

--Niff, infj
NiffMarie@...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Anyone who has a library and a garden wants for nothing."
Cicero

Ted and all,

The author, having finally consulted her own copy  of _Morgoth's Ring_,
has discovered that the wording in the American edition is the same as
Wedell noted below. Ergo, the oddly placed period in the author's article
was a result of the author being a lousy typist. Mea culpa to Ted...

Edith

On Sat, 1 Sep 2001 WendellWag@... wrote:

> I have what I believe is a British first edition of the book, and what it
> says is:
>
> And yet even so he would have been defeated, because it would still have
> 'existed', independent of his own mind, and a world in potential.
>
> Wendell Wagner
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> The Mythopoeic Society website http://www.mythsoc.org
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

Thanks, Wendell and Edith.

Ted (who is casting no aspersions upon anyone's typing abilties)

------------------------------
Dr. Theodore J. Sherman, Editor
Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and
Mythopoeic Literature
Associate Professor of English
Box X041, Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN  37132
615 898-5836 Office
615 898-5098 FAX
tsherman@... Office
tedsherman@... Home

----- Original Message -----
From: Edith Louise Crowe <ecrowe@...>
To: <mythsoc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 3:00 PM
Subject: Re: [mythsoc] quotation question


> Ted and all,
>
> The author, having finally consulted her own copy  of _Morgoth's Ring_,
> has discovered that the wording in the American edition is the same as
> Wedell noted below. Ergo, the oddly placed period in the author's article
> was a result of the author being a lousy typist. Mea culpa to Ted...
>
> Edith
>
> On Sat, 1 Sep 2001 WendellWag@... wrote:
>
> > I have what I believe is a British first edition of the book, and what
it
> > says is:
> >
> > And yet even so he would have been defeated, because it would still have
> > 'existed', independent of his own mind, and a world in potential.
> >
> > Wendell Wagner
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > The Mythopoeic Society website http://www.mythsoc.org
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
>
>
>
> The Mythopoeic Society website http://www.mythsoc.org
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

Mary,

Is this the one-volume paperback with the cover art from the upcoming
film???

Ted
------------------------------
Dr. Theodore J. Sherman, Editor
Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and
Mythopoeic Literature
Associate Professor of English
Box X041, Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN  37132
615 898-5836 Office
615 898-5098 FAX
tsherman@... Office
tedsherman@... Home

----- Original Message -----
From: <Stolzi@...>
To: <mythsoc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 7:33 PM
Subject: Re: [mythsoc] quotation question


> In a message dated 09/01/2001 5:26:19 PM Central Daylight Time,
> tedsherman@... writes:
>
> > Can anyone tell me whether the following quote from Morgoth's Ring is
> > accurate?
>
> Which reminds me, LOTR itself must have been corrected, and corrected, and
> corrected - yet today I found a typo (an omitted word)  on p. 366 of the
> one-vol paperback.
>
> Would it be a good idea to have a Group Read here in the months leading up
to
> the movie release?  And if so, of the first volume only (which
approximates
> what is covered in the first movie), or of the whole thing?
>
> I myself am (as of today) now pursuing the captured hobbits up to the
eaves
> of Fangorn, and thinking that the best parts (still) are perhaps from the
> leaving of Rivendell up to the leaving of Lothlorien.  The approach to
> Caradhras and the failure there, the entry into Moria, and the realm of
> Galadriel... sheer magic, all of it.
>
> Mary S
>
>
> The Mythopoeic Society website http://www.mythsoc.org
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

In a message dated 9/2/01 5:29:15 PM Central Daylight Time,
tedsherman@... writes:

> Is this the one-volume paperback with the cover art from the upcoming
>  film???

Well, I bought my one-volume earlier than that, but at a glance, I'd say the
setup, hence the page numberings, would be the same.  The typo, or rather
omission, is found in the passage where Galadriel is presenting each of the
Company with a gift.

"To Legolas she gave a bow such as the Galadrim used, longer and stouter than
the bows of Mirkwood, and strung with a string elf-hair."

In my old three-volume set (Ballantine paperback, copyright 1965, this
printing 1976, it is correctly given as:

"To Legolas she gave a bow such as the Galadrim used, longer and stouter than
the bows of Mirkwood, and strung with a string of elf-hair."


Diamond Proudbrook

Dear all,

     does anyone perhaps know the availability of the following people: Gwyneth
Hood, David Greenman, Mac Fenwick, Catherine Hooley, Robert Morse? They all
wrote on Tolkien and the classical, and not having enough
people yet for the Kalamazoo session I would like to ask them whether they could
/ would be willing to contribute.

Thank you in advance,
Gergely Nagy

Call for Papers--people who have attended this conference recommend it
highly.

Edith

Michael Levy wrote:

> Thought this paper call might be of interest to some of your members.
>
> Mike Levy
>
> Call for Papers-Fantastic Visions: Re-Presenting the Unreal
>
> The 23rd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
>
> March 20-24, 2002
>
> Ft. Lauderdale Airport Hilton, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
>
> The Fantastic in Children's and Young Adult Literature and Art
>
> The 23rd annual ICFA will focus on Children's and Young Adult Literature
> and Art.  Proposals for individual papers, paper sessions, and panels
> are solicited on any aspect of this topic, but we are particularly
> interested in seeing papers on the following:  the children's fantasies
> of  our Guest of Honor, Joan Aiken, and our Guest Writer, Molly Gloss;
> Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling and the British Invasion (including David
> Almond, Eva Ibbotson, and Brian Jacques); fantastic picture books and
> particularly the work of David Wiesner, Chris van Allsburg, and Leo and
> Diane Dillon; Ursula K. Le Guin's recent additions to the Earthsea
> series; and the science fiction of Monica Hughes, William Sleator,  and
> H. M. Hoover.
>
> Please send all proposals by October 1, 2001 to Michael Levy, Department
> of English, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI 54701, USA.
> Levym@....  Proposals should include a 500 word abstract and
> appropriate bibliography indicating the project's scholarly or
> theoretical cont

Dear Nagy Gergely,

Are you talking about Kalamazoo, Michigan? The Medievalist conference?  When
will that be?

--Gwenyth Hood

Nagy Gergely wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>     does anyone perhaps know the availability of the following people: Gwyneth
Hood, David Greenman, Mac Fenwick, Catherine Hooley, Robert Morse? They all
wrote on Tolkien and the classical, and not having enough
> people yet for the Kalamazoo session I would like to ask them whether they
could / would be willing to contribute.
>
> Thank you in advance,
> Gergely Nagy
>
>
> The Mythopoeic Society website http://www.mythsoc.org
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Yes, it's the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, MI, held in 2002 May 2-5.

Ted
------------------------------
Dr. Theodore J. Sherman, Editor
Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and
Mythopoeic Literature
Associate Professor of English
Box X041, Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN  37132
615 898-5836 Office
615 898-5098 FAX
tsherman@... Office
tedsherman@... Home

----- Original Message -----
From: Gwenyth E Hood <hood@...>
To: <mythsoc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: [mythsoc] some people wanted


> Dear Nagy Gergely,
>
> Are you talking about Kalamazoo, Michigan? The Medievalist conference?
When will that be?
>
> --Gwenyth Hood
>
> Nagy Gergely wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> >     does anyone perhaps know the availability of the following people:
Gwyneth Hood, David Greenman, Mac Fenwick, Catherine Hooley, Robert Morse?
They all wrote on Tolkien and the classical, and not having enough
> > people yet for the Kalamazoo session I would like to ask them whether
they could / would be willing to contribute.
> >
> > Thank you in advance,
> > Gergely Nagy
> >
> >
> > The Mythopoeic Society website http://www.mythsoc.org
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
> The Mythopoeic Society website http://www.mythsoc.org
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

Some of you were interviewed for this article earlier this year.  I
don't believe the October issue is on sale yet, so everyone who is
eagerly awaiting to see what was published will have to read the
scans on TheOneRing.Net.

http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/2/999635328

The biographical info on me is a bit off, despite my attempt to
explain it all to the fact-checker.  I did get a college education,
and I had hoped they would include that.  I worked as a volunteer at
a school for troubled teens a few years ago and my experience as a
dropout helped me establish a rapport with the kids.  But I would
rather they understand that I WENT BACK TO SCHOOL in the end.

Ah, well.

Anyway, I'm not going to blast Wired for getting a few things wrong,
but thought I'd warn people there may be other errors in the article.

Michael
AKA the Chipmunk-cheeked One....

Took my name to the anagram server today.

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html

Several versions, to my pleasure, included myth and Oz.

I wasn't so crazy about the ones with sloth, stench, and sly.

No, I haven't tried my hobbit name,

Diamond Proudbrook.

Michael Martinez wrote:
>
> Some of you were interviewed for this article earlier this year.  I
> don't believe the October issue is on sale yet, so everyone who is
> eagerly awaiting to see what was published will have to read the
> scans on TheOneRing.Net.
>
> http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/2/999635328

Okay, I've tried to read this...twice. I went to the site and I can't
find a text file. What I find are scans of pages, which take a long time
to load and are not easily readable.

I went to the local newsstand and tried to find the actual article in
the actual magazine. The web article claims to be from the Sept. 01
issue of Wired, but the one I found on the magazine rack, dated
September 2001, does not have the cover shown there, and it does not
have this article.

So, where can I find the text (just the text) of this article, please?

Thank you.
Joan Marie

I took a closer look at the scanned front cover, and it's the October issue.
I haven't seen it on the news stand yet, though.

Janet
   -----Original Message-----
   From: Joan Marie Verba [mailto:verba001@...]
   Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 2:22 PM
   To: mythsoc@yahoogroups.com
   Subject: [mythsoc] TheOneRing.Net posts Wired article


   Michael Martinez wrote:
   >
   > Some of you were interviewed for this article earlier this year.  I
   > don't believe the October issue is on sale yet, so everyone who is
   > eagerly awaiting to see what was published will have to read the
   > scans on TheOneRing.Net.
   >
   > http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/2/999635328

   Okay, I've tried to read this...twice. I went to the site and I can't
   find a text file. What I find are scans of pages, which take a long time
   to load and are not easily readable.

   I went to the local newsstand and tried to find the actual article in
   the actual magazine. The web article claims to be from the Sept. 01
   issue of Wired, but the one I found on the magazine rack, dated
   September 2001, does not have the cover shown there, and it does not
   have this article.

   So, where can I find the text (just the text) of this article, please?

   Thank you.
   Joan Marie



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

A friend of mine has decided to celeberate the release of the Fellowship
of the Ring film in December by holding a study group on the
significances of myth and religion in the books. He has invited me to
participate. Can any of you suggest essays or other commentaries related
to the topic? Purtill's "Myth, Morality and Religion" immediately comes
to mind, also Ellwood's "Good News from Middle-earth" And then what's
next? I've got many books, but not time to reread them all, so I'll
welcome help. Grace E. Funk.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In mythsoc@y..., Janet Croft <jbcroft@o...> wrote:
> I took a closer look at the scanned front cover, and it's the
October issue.
> I haven't seen it on the news stand yet, though.

It is indeed the October issue (as I tried to convey in my original
message).  I believe it will go on sale next week.

For the rest of this story go to

  <A HREF="http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=95001080">OpinionJournal -
Taste</A>
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=95001080

Peter Gets Caught
In a Makeover:
Old Story, New Tail
Beatrix Potter's signature character gets Disneyfied down.

BY ERIC GIBSON
Friday, September 7, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT

Poor Peter Rabbit. He has bigger things to worry about than Mr. McGregor, the
curmudgeonly gardener who goes after him every time he steals in for a quick
radish. These days, it's the people on his own side of the fence, his
publishers, who pose the greatest threat.

Next year will mark the centenary of Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter
Rabbit," the first of nearly two-dozen children's stories she wrote and
illustrated. Penguin Books is planning a twofold celebration. Frederick Warne
(her original publisher and now a Penguin subdivision) will reissue 23
stories, some with illustrations by Potter that had been dropped from later
editions of her work.

But Penguin will also launch "Peter Rabbit Seedlings," a series of
adaptations aimed at the infant-toddler market, for which it has commissioned
an artist to redraw Peter. The new version will have heavier outlines, darker
clothing and fur, and a younger mien, to show him in a "more dynamic light,
doing things that children now want their book characters to be doing," as a
Penguin spokesman told the London Independent. Kids, say hello to the Mighty
Morphin Power Rabbit.

From the current Chronicle of Higher Education.
------------------------------
Dr. Theodore J. Sherman, Editor
Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and
Mythopoeic Literature
Associate Professor of English
Box X041, Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN  37132
615 898-5836 Office
615 898-5098 FAX
tsherman@... Office
tedsherman@... Home


>   From the issue dated September 7, 2001
>
>   Shot From the Canon
>
>      J.R.R. Tolkien may be the "author of the century," according
>   to a poll done by Waterstone's bookstores, but you won't find
>   him in the literary canon. Despite their legion of enthusiasts
>   worldwide, Tolkien's novels have been dismissed by critics as
>   juvenile, moralistic, and escapist (not to mention, badly
>   written). With fans eagerly awaiting the movie The Fellowship
>   of the Ring in December, we asked several experts to analyze
>   why the Oxford philologist gets no academic respect.
>
>   Tom A. Shippey, professor of English at Saint Louis University
>   and author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (Houghton
>   Mifflin, 2001):
>
>   For the last 60 years at least, British departments of English
>   language and literature have been engaged in internal warfare
>   between the language and the literature sides. The literature
>   side definitely won and has suppressed the philological
>   tradition of teaching English. In that sense, the popularity
>   of books like The Lord of the Rings, which were so
>   traditionally based on philology and Old English, didn't seem
>   to be fair somehow. It was an appeal to the popular vote over
>   the heads of the electoral college, and the electoral college
>   very much didn't like it.
>
>   It's always been perfectly okay for British professors to do
>   well by writing detective stories. For some reason detective
>   stories are not felt to be threatening. In fact, in a way,
>   they continue to operate within the norms of British culture
>   and the class system, and they also tend to reassert
>   rationality. Tolkien is threatening largely because he
>   addresses issues of social upheaval and wartime, which say
>   that you can't go back to where you were, that things are
>   going to change, that things are going to disappear.
>
>   Another way of looking at Tolkien is to say that in some
>   respects, he's seen as a threat to modernism and is felt to be
>   an antiquarian. But in other ways, actually, he seems to
>   fulfill many of the tenets of modernism, whereas many of the
>   proponents of modernism were operating on what we would call
>   radical chic. They say they're radical, they make radical
>   noises, but underneath -- not very far underneath -- there's a
>   kind of reluctance to move very far. I would say that Tolkien
>   was a surface conservative and a buried radical, and that many
>   of his critics were surface radicals and buried conservatives.
>
>   That kind of surface conservatism obviously upsets many people
>   who see it as a kind of bourgeois reaction. But class feelings
>   are much more complicated than that. The hostile reaction to
>   The Lord of the Rings has often been the haute bourgeoisie
>   saying very angrily that we and we alone are the only people
>   who will decide what is literature and what is not. And we
>   will not have lower-middle-class people like Tolkien -- and
>   you couldn't get much lower middle class than Tolkien, he was
>   very nearly underclass -- telling us what to think.
>
>   ***
>
>   Jane Chance, professor of English at Rice University and
>   author of The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power and
>   Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England (University Press of
>   Kentucky, 2001):
>
>   Tolkien is the Walt Whitman of his generation -- he speaks to
>   and for the common man. Academics don't like Tolkien because
>   they haven't read him, and the conservative ones suspect
>   fantasy and anything popular. Critics in England don't like
>   him because he was never part of the literary establishment
>   and never tried to be. And an academic who is successful
>   threatens all those critics and academics who secretly believe
>   if you can't write, you teach. Critics, because if an academic
>   like Tolkien can write and teach, then have the critics made a
>   mistake? Academics, because if an academic is writing for
>   children and young adults and making money, there must be
>   something wrong with his values and his scholarship
>   (academics, remember, belong to an institution that hearkens
>   back to the medieval monastic schools and monasteries where
>   monks took vows of poverty).
>
>   The academic/critical reaction against Tolkien is in part a
>   backlash against a male writer's lack of (Victorian)
>   manliness. Tolkien privileged children over adults, little
>   people over big, important ones, imagination over rationality,
>   writing fantasy over writing scholarly books. How other! How
>   feminine of him! He's writing against the grain of academic
>   virility, so to speak -- he's writing like a woman.
>
>   Obviously, the British academics don't value contemporary
>   fantasy as much as do American academics. Differences in
>   cultural values relating to class and national history make
>   Tolkien very special here, less so in Great Britain. Great
>   Britain is a great ossified feudal system that continues
>   today, in which the striations of class still limit mobility
>   and advancement. America is the country of Puritan and Quaker
>   protesters and criminals, where large mixes of diverse
>   cultures have succeeded, for the most part, at sorting out
>   differences. The Lord of the Rings critiques the hegemonies of
>   class and power: The major hero is the little hobbit, totally
>   ordinary in his pedestrian and petty appetites -- not the
>   powerful wizard who knows everything.
>
>   ***
>
>   Verlyn Flieger, professor of English at the University of
>   Maryland at College Park and author of A Question of Time:
>   J.R.R. Tolkien's Road to Faerie (Kent State University Press,
>   1997):
>
>   The Lord of the Rings is a literary phenomenon whose
>   popularity has persisted for nearly half a century, which has
>   been officially translated into more than 20 languages and
>   bootlegged into several others. Nevertheless, Tolkien's epic
>   romance occupies at best a marginal place in the modern
>   literary canon. Several circumstances account for this.
>
>   First, the opinion persists among his peers that he wasted his
>   time on fiction when he should have been producing
>   scholarship. (He did. His essay on Beowulf and the monsters,
>   and his article on Chaucer as a philologist, are scholarly
>   landmarks.) Second, there is a sense in the academy and the
>   larger world that a thing enjoyed by the masses cannot be
>   worth study.
>
>   Third, the tendency of some readers to superimpose
>   Middle-Earth on the actual world is seen as a retrograde and
>   childish phenomenon. People who name themselves or their
>   children after favorite characters, wear cloaks and tunics,
>   and enact scenes from the story in local parks and playgrounds
>   and scrawl "Frodo lives" on walls and sidewalks -- all this
>   leads to a confusion of the enthusiasts with the book. The
>   erroneous sense has grown that if not actually a pernicious
>   influence, it must be at least whimsical and overimaginative,
>   not to be taken seriously by serious readers.
>
>   Whether the film succeeds or fails, the book will live.
>   Tolkien is coming more and more to be seen as one who spoke to
>   and for his troubled time. The Lord of the Rings is a mirror.
>   A Middle-Earth threatened with annihilation, a Shire corrupted
>   by industry, a little man carrying the instrument of his
>   world's and his own destruction saved by his nemesis, Gollum,
>   at the Cracks of Doom -- these images reflect the 20th
>   century, its terrible wars and hopeful attempts to salvage
>   peace.
>
>   There has been already a slight but perceptible shift in
>   academic attitudes toward Tolkien and his work. A full day of
>   panels and papers at a recent major academic conference, four
>   projected discussion sessions at next year's conference, three
>   scholarly books on Tolkien's work published last year -- these
>   are signs of the times, overdue and to be welcomed.
>
>   ***
>
>   Brian John Rosebury, principal lecturer in English literature
>   at the University of Central Lancashire and author of Tolkien:
>   A Critical Assessment (St. Martin's Press, 1992):
>
>   There are several reasons for Tolkien's unpopularity, which
>   incidentally I think is gradually lessening. The first,
>   realism: the strength, especially in the '50s and '60s, of the
>   view that literature should directly or indirectly represent
>   "contemporary social and political realities." Tolkien's work,
>   especially The Lord of the Rings, did not appear to do this at
>   all, unless read as just the kind of crass allegory on
>   contemporary events that it isn't.
>
>   Recently it has become clearer that Tolkien's work has a
>   complex relation to 20th-century experience. His
>   near-anarchist distrust of political power and his "green"
>   attitudes of hostility to industrialism and pollution also now
>   look much less idiosyncratic than was the case from 1950 to
>   1970. I think it will also become clearer that Tolkien's
>   criticism of "the machine" puts him in a long tradition to
>   which late-19th-century writers such as Ruskin and perhaps
>   even Tolstoy belong.
>
>   Modernism: The other main strand in 20th-century literary
>   criticism until recently was the influence of modernism and
>   its norms. I argue in my book that Tolkien has many
>   "modernist" qualities -- not least his use of myth and his
>   willingness to redeploy and transform premodern literary
>   symbols and devices -- but he entirely lacks the modernist
>   irony about value and narrative. As modernism recedes further
>   into history, Tolkien's nonconformity will look more like a
>   welcome variation and less like a culpable failure to do the
>   bidding of the Zeitgeist.
>
>   Ideological hostility: Tolkien's actual religious, social, and
>   political views are much more subtle than are sometimes
>   supposed, but as a Roman Catholic with a skeptical view of
>   "progress" and the modern world, and a deep aversion to
>   secular ideologies including communism and feminism, he did
>   not qualify as "one of us" in the eyes of most
>   late-20th-century academics.
>
>   The fans: Though Tolkien's admirers included W.H. Auden and
>   Iris Murdoch, it was, and is, easy to find naive enthusiasts
>   and be irritated by them. The very range and intensity of
>   Tolkien's appeal to readers means that a high proportion of
>   them will not, at least at first, be equipped to give a
>   "sophisticated" explanation of the grounds of their pleasure.
>   And the fact that his work cuts across the norms of literary
>   and cultural criticism makes this more difficult -- there is
>   not a standard discourse to invoke. The forthcoming movie is
>   likely to renew this effect, unfortunately.
>

I tried to send this message a few days ago, but I haven't seen it
appear, so I'll try again.
A friend of mine has decided to celeberate the release of the Fellowship

of the Ring film in December by holding a study group on the
significances of myth and religion in the books. He has invited me to
participate. Can any of you suggest essays or other commentaries related

to the topic? Purtill's "Myth, Morality and Religion" immediately comes
to mind, also Ellwood's "Good News from Middle-earth" And then what's
next? I've got many books, but not time to reread them all, so I'll
welcome help. Grace E. Funk.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In mythsoc@y..., "Ted Sherman" <tedsherman@h...> wrote:
> From the current Chronicle of Higher Education.

I know many academics.  A lot of them are aware of Tolkien and love
him.  I don't know of any who fall into the category of anti-
Tolkienists that these familiar (and well-respected) names refer to
in the generic sense.

For once, I'd like to see a roundup article of the other side.  We
have people like Chris Mooney running around pretending Tolkien is
worth beating up on, but why can't the media find the academics who
turn their noses up at Tolkien?

Can anyone suggest a recent article from the last 4-5 years where
several of the anti-Tolkienists are cited?

Preferably one online, but I need to find out where Houston hides its
libraries anyway.

--- In mythsoc@y..., "Grace E. Funk" <gfunk@j...> wrote:
> I tried to send this message a few days ago, but I haven't seen it
> appear, so I'll try again.

I saw your message.  Like me, no one else responded the first time.
Your question is a bit too esoteric for my own tastes and research.
I've certainly seen a few people on the Internet take a whack at the
topic.  I've given it half-hearted attention myself.  But formal
literature?  I can't help you.

Just wanted you to know that someone had read your earlier message.
Good luck.  But I think that's a tough topic, unless you decide to
mine all the familiar sources (Shippey, Kosher, Carpenter, etc.).

I did see something a year or two ago, a scan of an article from a
Catholic magazine.  I'm not sure of where it would be.  Possibly
TheOneRing.Net, possibly TolkienOnline.Com.  I don't think it was
quite what you had in mind, but might have had some references to
look for.

One thing that I would like to see addressed is this charge:

  > (not to mention, badly written)

Granted, I don't read much literary criticism, let alone Tolkien
criticism, but I would like to see this charge expanded and refuted. Any
tips on where to look?

John

Grace,

I would look at two books by Joseph Pearce:

Tolkien: Man and Myth, Joesph Pearce, 257 pages, Ignatius, ISBN: 0898707110

Tolkien: Celebration, Joseph Pearce (Ed), Trafalgar Square, ISBN: 0006281206

The second has some essays that address your subject to some extent. I
enjoyed both of them.

John

One article that mentions some of the critics who dismiss Tolkien as poorly
written is "Kicking the Hobbit" by Chris Mooney in "The American Prospect"
(http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/10/mooney-c.html).  Edmind Wilson's "Ooh,
Those Awful Orcs" is the classic of early Tolkien-bashing, if you will.
Germaine Greer recently said "the bad dream has materialized" when she heard
Tolkien declared Author of the Century in several polls; Mooney references
her article.  And Harold Bloom's introductions to two collections of Tolkien
criticism seem rather nasty, if the phrases Mooney quotes are any
indication. (I expected better from Bloom, the great Shakespeare worshipper,
than to dismiss someone who wrote for the popular reader so lightly.)

And an article on religion in Tolkien that Grace might find worthwhile is
"Everyclod and Everyhero: The Image of Man in Tolkien" by Deborah Rogers,
reprinted in A Tolkien Compass by Jared Lobdell. Parallels to Adam and
Christ in various characters; I only have excerpts here in my office, so I
don't know how relevant the whole article is.

Janet
   -----Original Message-----
   From: John C. Meyers [mailto:jcmeyers@...]
   Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 3:31 PM
   To: mythsoc@yahoogroups.com
   Subject: Re: [mythsoc] Re: Myth and religion in LOTR


   Grace,

   I would look at two books by Joseph Pearce:

   Tolkien: Man and Myth, Joesph Pearce, 257 pages, Ignatius, ISBN:
0898707110

   Tolkien: Celebration, Joseph Pearce (Ed), Trafalgar Square, ISBN:
0006281206

   The second has some essays that address your subject to some extent. I
   enjoyed both of them.

   John


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Janet,

Thanks for the pointers. Of course I already knew about Wilson's famous
piece, but I don't remember it very well. I guess I'll have to go back
and read it again. As for Mooney's article, I vaguely recall seeing
pointers to it here before, but I can't be sure. I'll look it up to see
where he points me.

Thanks again,
John

--- In mythsoc@y..., Janet Croft <jbcroft@o...> wrote:
> One article that mentions some of the critics who dismiss Tolkien
as poorly
> written is "Kicking the Hobbit" by Chris Mooney in "The American
Prospect"
> (http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/10/mooney-c.html).  Edmind
Wilson's "Ooh,
> Those Awful Orcs" is the classic of early Tolkien-bashing, if you
will.

Yes, but he's also ancient history.  I was more interested in recent
stuff.  The Germaine Greer comment is more relevant to what I wanted
to see.

In a message dated 9/7/01 3:24:21 PM Central Daylight Time,
jcmeyers@... writes:

>
>  Granted, I don't read much literary criticism, let alone Tolkien
>  criticism, but I would like to see this charge expanded and refuted. Any
>  tips on where to look?

Shippey, JRR TOLKIEN: WRITER OF THE CENTURY addresses the charge that LOTR is
badly-written.

An excellent book overall (winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, this year,
for Inklings Scholarship).

Diamond Proudbrook