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J. R. R. Tolkien was a professional philologist and an author of fantasy fiction, starting with the children's book The Hobbit in 1937. The Andrew Lang Lecture was important as it brought him to clarify his view of fairy stories as a legitimate literary genre, rather than something intended exclusively for children. [2]
Edited by Baillie Tolkien, a daughter-in-law of Tolkien; 1980 Poems and Stories (a compilation of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, On Fairy-Stories, Leaf by Niggle, Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wootton Major) 1981 The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien and Humphrey Carpenter)
In his essay "On Fairy-Stories", Tolkien discusses the function of dreams in fantasy, stating that [7] [T 1] in dreams strange powers of the mind may be unlocked. In some of them a man may for a space wield the power of Faërie, that power which, even as it conceives the story, causes it to take living form and colour before the eyes.
"On Fairy-Stories", the 1939 Andrew Lang lecture at St Andrew's University, is a defence of the fantasy genre. "A Secret Vice" talks about creating imaginary languages, giving background to Tolkien's Quenya and Sindarin. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is a study of the medieval poem of the same name.
The commentary formed the basis of Tolkien's acclaimed 1936 lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics". [1] [2] There follows Tolkien's story "Sellic Spell", with a short introduction and notes by Christopher Tolkien. It represents Tolkien's attempt to reconstruct the folktale underlying the narrative of the first half of Beowulf.
Devin Brown, writing in Mythlore, argues that storytelling itself is "the ultimate time travel machine", noting that Tolkien's 1939 essay "On Fairy-Stories" stated that a defining characteristic of a fairy story is "its ability to transport the reader outside of time to realms otherwise inaccessible". [12]
A quality of literature that Tolkien particularly prized, and sought to achieve in The Lord of the Rings, was the impression of depth, of hidden vistas into ancient history. He found this especially in Beowulf, but also in other works that he admired, such as Virgil's Aeneid, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Sir Orfeo, and Grimms' Fairy Tales. [31]
Tolkien was not the first author to create fictional worlds, as George MacDonald and H. Rider Haggard had done so, and were praised for their "mythopoeic" gifts by Tolkien's friend and fellow-Inkling C. S. Lewis. [19] Tolkien however went much further, spending many years developing what has been called a mythology for England, starting in 1914.
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related to: tolkien on fairy stories annotated