J. R. R. Tolkien

''Beowulf'' and the Influence of Old English on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

by Hugo Joly-Morin

¿Las chicas son guerreras? Recepción femenina de The Lord of the Rings

by Margarita Carretero González

Published in the journal Dossiers Feministes, nº 1 (1998). Some of my views on the character of Éowyn have been updated in later publications.

The Spiritual Milieu Based on J.R.R. Tolkien's Literary Mythology

by Markus Altena Davidsen

Published in Adam Possamai (ed.; 2012), Handbook of Hyper-real Religions, in the series Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion 5, Leiden & Boston. Brill, 185-204.

The Black Gate of Alexander/ Tracing Possible Influence of the Alexander Romance on JRR Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings"

by Aleksandra Kleczar

Published in 'Studia Litteraria UIC' 2, 2007

The paper analyses the similarities and the possible dependence of J. R. R. Tolkien's image of the Black Gate of... more The paper analyses the similarities and the possible dependence of J. R. R. Tolkien's image of the Black Gate of Mordor on the image of the Caspian Gates and the gate of Alexander in medieval versoins of the Alexander Romance.

"Role-Playing toward a Virtual Musical Democracy in The Lord of the Rings Online," Ethnomusicology 56:1 (2012), 31-62.

by William Cheng

¿ Las Chicas Son Guerreras?: Recepción Femenina De The Lord of the Rings

by Margarita Carretero González

Published in Dossiers Feministes, no. 1 (1998). I have updated my views on the character of Éowyn in later publications.

J. R. R. Tolkien’s Creative Ethic and Its Finnish Analogues

by Matthew Bardowell

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 20, no. 1, 2009

J. R. R. Tolkien invests the acts of creation in Middle-Earth with consistent philosophical principles. In deriving... more J. R. R. Tolkien invests the acts of creation in Middle-Earth with consistent philosophical principles. In deriving these philosophical principles, Tolkien drew from other mythologies he admired—one of which is the Kalevala. Though scholars typically acknowledge Tolkien’s Finnish influence in the form of surface parallels between the Kalevala and plotlines from his legendarium, I argue the Finnish epic poem contributes creative ethics in the form of mythic oppositions that inform several instances of making in Middle-Earth. Using the mythic oppositions of harmony vs. dissonance, antiquity vs. modernity, and remembrance vs. creation, this study examines the ways in which Tolkien synthesizes these motifs to offer the reader an evaluative method applicable to the acts of creation in his oeuvre. Understanding the philosophical values underlying each mythic opposition, the reader will gain an evaluative tool by which to judge between legitimate and illegitimate forms of creation
in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.

Tolkien and Thomas: Examining the Relationship between St Thomas Aquinas and J.R.R. Tolkien

by Amber Lee Baker

basic abstract/thesis proposal

Cosntruyendo un mundo de ficción: el prólogo de the lord of the rings

by antonio dominguez leiva

„Talk to the Dragon: Tolkien as Translator,“ Tolkien Studies 6 (2009), 27–39.

by Ármann Jakobsson

page proofs.

Abstract: Images of whitness throughout indo-european myth and lore and their interpretation in user generated popular culture

by Felix Abrudan

Abstract of working paper. Personal project.

Author Identification Techniques

by Juliane Witte

A Final Draft

Author Identification requires an analytical mindset, in order to be able to see past the words and the story and find... more Author Identification requires an analytical mindset, in order to be able to see past the words and the story and find the author’s fingerprint. This fingerprint is made up of so called characteristics of an author’s style. Each human has a different writing style, which is influenced by dialect and idiolect, language processing and metalinguistic awareness. It has been proven that syntactic punctuation is a valid characteristic because punctuation is often done subconsciously, whereas vocabulary can be “manipulated”.

Statistical and computational methods are used because these allow humans to spot aspects of writing that a human eye would miss. Statistics is a crucial part of making Author Identification scientifically credible. Author identification techniques, such as the Chi-Squared Technique, rely on a statistical fundament to show whether their results are in any way significant and also allow these techniques to be peer-reviewed. A clear example of this is the Cusum Technique. In developing this technique, Jill Farringdon has neglected the statistical basis, which means no significance threshold can be applied. It means you can corrupt your data in every way possible to make it show the result you would like to see, thereby decreasing this techniques credibility

… of the JRR Tolkien Centenary Conference, 1992: Proceedings of the Conference Held at Keble College, Oxford, England, 17th-24th August 1992 to …

by Pat Reynolds

The Myth behind Middle Earth - a modern mythmaker's saga

by Felix Abrudan

University Seminar Paper.

Towards the Centre of the Self by Getting Inside the Belly of the Dragon: Levels of Initiation in Tolkien's Works

by Robert Lazu

A short version of my paper delivered at the Oxford Tolkien Conference "The Lord of the Rings. Sources of Inspiration" organized by Exeter College, Oxford, Monday 21st to Friday 25th August 2006. Published in "Acta Iassyensia Comparationis", 5/2007.

The methodology used in this paper is that of mythologic analysis (or “mythanalysis”). Established and perfected by... more The methodology used in this paper is that of mythologic analysis (or “mythanalysis”). Established and perfected by historians of religions and literary critics, this method allows a
good degree of interdisciplinarity. Thus, fields as far apart as theology, history of religions and comparative literature can be fruitfully brought together, and the topic of religious symbolism (usually associated with creations of classical mythology and the corpus of Jewish and Christian traditions) can be also discussed in terms of a discreet continuity in modern works such as those of J.R.R. Tolkien. The paper focuses on one recurring symbolic theme in Tolkien’s works: the process of
initiation of the hero, who is confronted with the dragon. Analysed before by some important scholars of folklore and historians of religions, such as V.I. Propp, M. Eliade, W. Bölsche, G.E. Smith, A.R. Radcliff-Brown or E.A.W. Budge, the theme of the hero confronting the monster represents one of the key-stones in the process of initiation underwent by each and every hero of Tolkien’s stories: Beren, Aragorn, Gandalf or even
the little hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Following this hermeneutic path does result (in our opinion) into realizing that religious symbolism is a powerful element in Tolkien’s work, indeed.

Images and Symbols in Tolkien's Works. Hell

by Robert Lazu

Published in "Archaeus. Studies in the History of Religions", XI-XII/2007-2008.

By highlighting the profile of hell as a symbol of evil, constantly encountered as such at all levels of human... more By highlighting the profile of hell as a symbol of evil, constantly encountered as such at all levels of human culture, the author’s aim is to reveal its powerful influence on Tolkien’s works. Just like the paradisiacal paradigm, the “archetype” of hell continues to impregnate deeply “the anthropological structures of the imaginary realm” (Gilbert Durand) even in the context of a radically desacralized culture. Although J. R. R. Tolkien did not consciously and programmatically speculate on such symbols, he had possibly hoped for a more specialized appeal to his readers by introducing these symbols in his literary creation. How does one account for the recurrence of so many symbolic hypostases of hell in Tolkien’s works? Tolkien seems to have been partly aware of the symbolism embedded in the structure of the evil fortresses in Middle-earth. However, we should not conclude that he had a premeditated systematic “plan” of including certain symbols in the framework of his fairy tales.

Food Studies in the Romantic Period: (S)mashing History

by Tim Morton

Published in Romanticism 12.1 (2006), 1–4.

The promises and perils of food studies: in particular, the way in which food is fetishized as ontically given. The promises and perils of food studies: in particular, the way in which food is fetishized as ontically given.

Green and Grey

by Christopher Michael Luna

Reflections on an experience of childhood reading reveals some of the ways that children's literature can shape our... more Reflections on an experience of childhood reading reveals some of the ways that children's literature can shape our linguistic perception of the world.

Putting Osiris Back Together: Reclaiming Culture and Story in Egyptian Mythology

by David Ketter

Senior thesis. Co-authored with Marlin Klingensmith. Presented at Geneva College, April 2010.

A new framework for engaging with mythology. A new framework for engaging with mythology.

Transcendent Transexuality

by Riki Sarah Dennis

It was difficult for me to make the choice to ad this paper. It comes from my heart.