“Tolkien’s importance as a postwar writer who used fantasy to explore profound moral and spiritual themes was not recognized when The Lord of the Rings was first published in the 1950s. Back in 1936, the subtitle of Tolkien’s academic paper on Beowulf, ‘The Monsters and the Critics,’ had half jokingly implied that the literary critics of the Old English poem which Tolkien loved were adversaries of the hero, perhaps even akin to monsters themselves. And so, when The Lord of the Rings did appear in print, Tolkien knew pretty well what to expect. In fact, it was derided by a number of critics on both sides of the Atlantic, Edmund Wilson famously describing it as ‘juvenile trash.’
“The reason often given for despising the novel was that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ were so clearly delineated that the plot was simplistic and childish. But . . . Tolkien was well aware of the complexity and muddle of real life — and yet held his writing to be ‘realistic,’ indeed truer to the inner life than most of the supposedly ‘grown up’ novels the critics had in mind. . . .
Tolkien drew upon a much older tradition of storytelling than the modern novel, with its typically materialistic assumptions. He was retrieving the art of mythological or mythopoeic thinking, which is as old as mankind itself and deeply entwined with our religious sense. The book appeals to universal constants in human nature, constants that are reflected in traditional mythology and folklore the world over. Mythological thinking does not provide an ‘escape’ from reality so much as an ‘intensification’ of it, as another fantasy writer (Alan Garner) once rightly said. It is this that in part explains the novel’s wide appeal — and also the contempt it aroused among those whose world-view and mindset are closed in advance against all such uses of the imagination.
“The Lord of the Rings may be read, therefore, as an exciting story that spectacularly revives an almost-extinct literary genre. But it can also be enjoyed in other ways: as an extended meditation on what it means to be English, or as an imaginative response to the experience of modern warfare, or as a moving evocation of the intimate relationship between love and heroism. . . . [I]t can be read, too, as an exploration of the roots of human language and consciousness. Most strangely of all, perhaps, it can be read as a deliberate experiment in a kind of time travel using dreams and ‘linguistic ghosts’ to overcome the limitations of individual memory and experience.”
— from Stratford Caldecott, The Power of the Ring: The Spiritual Vision Behind The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit (Crossroad, 2003 and 2012)
Related reading and listening
- How fantasy restores the world — In this 2019 lecture, Alison Milbank shows how fantasy can help restore to us a vision of human flourishing that counters the atomization and meaninglessness of modern life. (43 minutes)
- The integration of theoretical and mythic intelligence — FROM VOL. 156 William C. Hackett discusses the relationships between philosophy and theology, and of both to the meaning embedded in myth. (29 minutes)
- What hath Hobbiton to do with Jerusalem? — Holly Ordway on the pre-Christian religion in Middle-earth
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 160 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Jessica Hooten Wilson, Kyle Hughes, Gil Bailie, D. C. Schindler, Paul Tyson, and Holly Ordway
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- Middle Earth’s animating logic — In his 1993 article “J. R. R. Tolkien: Lover of the Logos,” Mark Sebanc explains how the heart of Tolkien’s creative work — in stories and essays — is energized by a recognition that the presence of what Balthasar calls the “Christ form” is the source of all meaning and beauty. (60 minutes)
- MYST and mythic guests — Game designers Rand and Robyn Miller explain how their game’s creation was influenced by their love for the fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. (13 minutes)
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- Echoes of Middle-earth — Holly Ordway describes the overwhelming influence that J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings has had on the development of the fantasy genre in the past 50 years. (12 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 151 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Richard Stivers, Holly Ordway, Robin Phillips, Scott Newstok, Junius Johnson, and Peter Mercer-Taylor
- Thomas Howard, R.I.P. — Thomas Howard encouraged in many students and readers an imaginative appropriation of faith and truth. This interview — released at the time of his death in 2020 — includes his discussion of C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. (55 minutes)
- How myth speaks to deep desires in the human heart — Rolland Hein explains that George MacDonald is a writer of myth functioning rightly, and that such myth affects people a-rationally, stirring something in them much deeper than intellect or emotion alone. (15 minutes)
- Thomas Howard on Charles Williams — From a 1995 interview, literary scholar Thomas Howard describes the texture and depth of the “metaphysical thrillers” of Charles Williams. (16 minutes)
- Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy — Critic Alan Jacobs summarizes the theological and moral vision that Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy broadcasts — a vision that unfolds through his dark retelling of the Genesis story. (18 minutes)
- Virtue and myth in Middle-earth — Ralph C. Wood and Bradley Birzer discuss Christian wisdom, virtues, and the strength of myth in J. R. R. Tolkien’s created world of Middle-earth. (33 minutes)
- Man, myth, and Middle-earth — Tom Shippey and Joseph Pearce discuss the “author of the century,” J. R. R. Tolkien, and assert the power of myth to convey deep truth. (26 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 144 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Jonathan Mcintosh, Kevin Vost, Malcolm Guite, R. David Cox, Grant Brodrecht, and Peter Bouteneff
- Further up and further in: understanding Narnia — Joseph Pearce explains how fairy stories can open our eyes to the depths of reality if we read them with the virtue of humility. (15 minutes)
- Chesterton and Tolkien as theologians — Alison Milbank discusses how both Chesterton and Tolkien restore reason to fantasy and help us to see things as we were meant to see them. (20 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 125 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Brent Hull, David Koyzis, Steve Wilkens, Roger Lundin, Craig Bernthal, and Kerry McCarthy
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 117 — FEATURED GUESTS: Matthew Dickerson, Jennifer Woodruff Tait, Jeffry Davis, Philip Ryken, and Robert P. George
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 99 — FEATURED GUESTS: Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Paul A. Rahe, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew J. Cherlin, Dale Keuhne, and Alison Milbank
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 93 — FEATURED GUESTS: Alan Jacobs, James A. Herrick, Robert C. Roberts, J. Daryl Charles, Allan C. Carlson, and Sheila O’Connor-Ambrose
- The Heav’ns and All the Powers Therein — Michael Ward makes a compelling case that the qualities attributed to the seven planets in the cosmology of antiquity and the Middle Ages are embodied in C. S. Lewis‘s seven books about Narnia. (68 minutes)
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- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 66 — FEATURED GUESTS: Leon Kass, Nigel Cameron, Susan Wise Bauer, Esther Lightcap Meek, John Shelton Lawrence, and Ralph Wood
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 53 — FEATURED GUESTS: Lawrence Adams, Dana Gioia, Elmer M. Colyer, R. A. Herrera, Margaret Visser, and Joseph Pearce
- Maker of Middle-earth — Tom Shippey, Joseph Pearce, and Ralph Wood examine J. R. R. Tolkien and his mythological Lord of the Rings trilogy to explore what makes Tolkien’s work resonant and a vessel for truth. (86 minutes)
- Till We Have Faces and the Meaning of Myth — Literary critic Thomas Howard explains why C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces is best understood not as a novel or fantasy but as a myth. (49 minutes)
