Sharing the stage with Sayer, Wade Center founder and director Prof. Clyde Kilby, bless his memory, looked as if he wished he had a Ring conferring invisibility to put on at that moment. ...his ...appointment to the Magdalen College fellowship in 1925, Sayer relates that Jack lived in near-poverty "His only personal luxuries were beer, whiskey, and tobacco, the first and last of which he regarded almost as necessities. ...he gradually viewed her as a surrogate mother to whom he owed allegiance and support. ...as soon as I suggested that he should come and spend a weekend on the Malvern Hills, he jumped at the offer. First student, then fellow Christian and fellow literature teacher, and most finally a friend, George Sayer shared this simple secret with J.R.R. Tolkien and CS.
But, then, what is the point of bringing into such peaceful surroundings these monstrous black - or, even worse, brown - herrings? And how is a fascist to be defined if the term can be stretched to ...include hobbits? Not surprisingly, given the apparendy pacific nature of hobbits, there have been practically no discussions of Tolkien's fiction that link it in any way, either positively or negatively, with fascism. One of the very few exceptions is Robert Plank, who interprets the penultimate chapter of Lord of the Rings ("The Scouring of the Shire") as a negative depiction of a fascist (or possibly communist) take-over of the Shire, even though, as he acknowledges, Tolkien specifically warned against any such interpretation (111 and 114). Plank never really defines what he means by fascism (neither does Tolkien, for that matter, when he disclaims any links to it), as is evident from Plank's uncertainty as to whether the evil wizard Saruman and his thugs are to be seen as fascists or communists.
The description and simile aligns her with the Moon Goddess.3 For the duration of LotR Gandalf seems to be ubiquitous, all-knowing, rather like an outmoded representation of God the Father with his ...dignified age, stern voice and long white beard.4 Only after Galadriel has gone, and only upon reflection, we might wonder how much of the action was her responsibility, and to what extent did she, even more than Gandalf, hold pre-knowledge of the epic events, and exert goddess-like influence. ...I suggest that the sense that Morgan and Bertilak's lady function as one unit with dual aspects of beauty and ugliness, so function together as a Loathly Lady after the ilk of Dame Ragnelle, results from this paradigm of displacement that they share.21 (It is not new to make the association between Morgan le Fey and the Irish Sovereignty hag.22) The Loathly Lady motif, in its earliest Irish sovereignty form, is an allegory about the male experience of kingship, so it has always offered a shape-shifting female body to the service of ideas about masculinity. Helen Cooper cautions that it is unlikely that the Gawain poet would be aware of early Celtic sources, but Elisabeth Brewer makes speculative good sense of the sources of the poem. 23 Sheila Fisher points out of SGGK that "whatever meanings accumulate around the threat of women ... female sexuality is the source, if not the essence, of them all" (79), but actually Morgan's threat is more oblique than being merely a sexual one, and the truly threatening aspect is the sense of the two women working at both ends of the triple Goddess spectrum as hag and desirable beauty. 24 Maire Bhreathnach considers the darker side of the Loathly Lady. 25 For a theological consideration of water, see Tertullian's De baptismo (c200), which H. G. Wood notes "tells us more about the practice and doctrine ... than any previous authority" (386). ...a suggestion captures the syncretism of both motifs, and furthermore aligns feminine sexuality- I am suggesting that the Grail is a womblike source of grace- with these two images of women and life-giving water. 28 Kim McCone notes that "female symbols of sovereignty are not infrequently represented as bestowing a drink upon kings-to-be" (109).
Tolkien himself worked with several strong female scholars at Oxford such as "medieval historian Margerie Reeves and Mrs. Sutherland, a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall specializing in Provençal studies" ...(Fredrick and McBride 4). ...when Tolkien was writing his masterpiece, from 1937 to 1948, women were even controlling the home front in Englandtaking over "male" jobs during World War II. ...Faramir "asL· that Éowyn Lady of Rohan should be his wife, and she grants it full willing" (Return 276, emphasis added). Faramir and Éowyn can be seen as more of a modern ideal for marriage, the uniting of equal life partners. ...the love story and subsequent "healing" process of Éowyn should be seen as an independent woman's self-willed transformation. Éowyn also grows and changes, unlike many of the major characters such as Aragorn. ...Éowyn's role should not be slighted; Tolkien has chosen to put her at the forefront of his theme of preservation.
Susan Carter looks at her role in the text of The Lord of the Rings - specifically at what is not revealed about her there - finding parallels with the treatment of Morgan Ie Fey in Sir Gawain and ...the Green Knight, one of the Middle English texts with which Tolkien was most associated as a scholar. Daniel Peretti applies folk-tale analysis tools to the climactic Mount Doom scene of The Lord of the Rings, finding intriguing roots in the "ogre blinded" motif most familiar to readers from the Polyphemos episode of The Odyssey. ...we are saddened to note the passing of Candice Fredrick, coauthor with Sam McBride of Women Among the Inklings and "Battling the Woman Warrior" in this volume, on December 27, 2006. -
...he became absorbed by Homer early in his life: "I was brought up in the Classics, and first discovered the sensation of literary pleasure in Homer" (Letters 172). Having escaped from the ogre's ...dwelling, the hero sometimes mocks the ogre, and often the monster throws him a magic ring, but when the hero puts it on, the ring repeatedly yells 'Here I am/ thereby guiding the blinded ogre to him. Since the ring cannot be removed, the man is obliged to cut off his finger, after which he escapes, taking with him the ogre's valuables. ...as Frodo and Sam near his land, they come upon a defiled monument to an ancient king of Gondor, whose head has been replaced by "a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead" (702). According to Ortutay, "a peculiar attraction between related or similar types and structures ... leads through a series of variants to the birth of new types and forms.
...she concludes her lament with a wish or prayer that Frodo may as a special grace be granted a purgatorial (but not penal) sojourn in Eressea, the Solitary Isle in sight of Aman, though for her the ...way is closed. ... On arriving in Middle-earth after the tortuous crossing of the Helcaraxë (the Grinding Ice) necessitated by Fëanor 's burning of the ships at Losgar (Sil. 97), Galadriel dwelt for a time in Doriath, where she met her future husband Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol, King of Doriath and brother of Olwë. ...Thingol was also Galadriel's maternal uncle.)3 There, Galadriel also befriended Melian the Maia, wife of Thingol and mother of Lúthien Tinuviel. The History of Galadriel and Celeborn Before turning to consider the most striking illustration of this transformation of Galadriel's "sin" in the late work "The Shibboleth of Fëanor" which dates from after Feb. 1968 (HME 12:331), it is necessary at least briefly to consider the accounts of "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn," which Christopher Tolkien included in The Unfinished Tales, published in 1982. Since these accounts deal with the history of Galadriel, Celeborn and Amroth in the Second Age of Middle-earth, they are only indirectly relevant to the topic of this paper. The fact that Tolkien continued to think about Galadriel and her place in his own private mythology of the First Age right until the very end of his life, indicates also how important Tolkien himself considered her. 1 An earlier version of this paper was given on 27th July, 2004 at Mythcon XXXIV in Nashville, Tennessee. Since there are many editions of The Lord of the Rings available and readers may not have access to the (one-volume) edition used in this paper, reference is made to both the book and chapter number, and the volume and page numbers (e.g. Book JL.8; p.364).
According to Marc Bloch's socially based definition of feudalism in Feudal Society, the king ruled over all the people of his kingdom, including the various levels of aristocrats. ...Saruman, with ...his wicked machines and newly bred ores, actually represents a warning against the potential danger and destruction that come with the dawn of the Industrial Age and which are realized in the war and ruin of the twentieth century. There are a number of these characters in The Lord of the Rings: they multiply as the book progresses; their fealty is the mainstay of Middle-earth and what guarantees that all of its people will survive. ...particularly through the characters of Denethor, Saruman, and Boromir, Tolkien demonstrates the destructive potential of those who cannot embrace the role of steward or vassal and who strive for a power that is above and beyond that assigned them. ...Gollum addresses the Ring and later "his" self as other, in an effort to create some sense of a warped community to provide himself with the companionship that all beings must have.
