2014 The Spiritual Tolkien Milieu: A Study of Fiction‐based Religion (full text) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Light from an Invisible Lamp: Natural Religion in The Lord of the Rings
1988
Argues that the tendency of many critics of The Lord of the Rings to “[mine] it for Christian content” does the work a disservice, since Tolkien explicitly states that a Secondary World should not contain Primary World elements. Examines the “natural religion” present in The Lord of the Rings, without obvious ritual, dogma, or
2019
At first glance, the worlds (sub)created by Tolkien and Martin may seem to have a number of crucial features in common. Both are meticulously crafted, with various, often deeply incompatible, layers of cultural identity and ethics (Gondor vs Mordor, Starks vs Lannisters etc.). Likewise, despite sometimes markedly different approaches in their worldbuilding strategies, the writers' indebtedness to medieval literature, history and values has been repeatedly examined by many a scholar, providing fertile grounds for cross-cultural explorations and evaluations. There are, however, certain vital, perhaps even fundamental, issues where the worlds of The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire are as distinct from one another as the proverbial chalk and cheese. One such issue clearly discernible to every Christian (or, at least, Christian-raised) reader of Tolkien-is the intriguing spiritual disparity between the characters living in Middle-earth and those that inhabit Martin's Westeros. The world of the former is almost practically devoid of any explicit manifestations of the divine (at the time of its first publication the readers were not yet aware of the (pre) existence of Eru Illúvatar), yet, at the same time, it is suffused with numerous Christian values and underpinnings which cannot be ignored if one seeks to get a fuller (and thus more meaningful) picture of Tolkien's fiction. The latter, on the other hand, appears to be resplendent with all sorts of gods-greater and lesser, "real" and imaginary, more or less merciful and forgiving-yet in the long run it fails (in most cases it seems to fail all along the line) to even partly comply with the Christian (or, as for that matter, any religion-based) ethics, perhaps in some ways implying that all religions (or theologically-based systems of beliefs) are equal, and therefore equally false (or, at least, uncertain) in their nature and moral direction. The following paper seeks to examine some of these differences, juxtaposing Tolkien's Catholic worldview with that of evidently agnostic (or even atheist) Martin. D espite the fact that, over the past two decades or so, the genre of fantasy has enjoyed a substantial resurgence of interest amongst the readers, 1 and, consequently, captured the critical attention of literary scholars, thus leading 1 Here, the word 'readers' encompasses, by extension, both the people who read fantasy novels and short stories and those who come into contact with the genre by means their various cinematic and televisual adaptations (as well as, less frequently, the original productions in the fantasy field).
2016 The Religious Affordance of Fiction: A Semiotic Approach
A curious aspect of late modern religion is the emergence of fiction-based religions, such as Jediism, based on George Lucas’ Star Wars saga, and Tolkien spirituality, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary mythology about Middle-earth. This article draws on narrative semiotics to explain why some fictional narratives (and not others) afford religious use and have hence given rise to fiction-based religions. I show that to afford religious use it is not enough that supernatural fiction tells about supernatural agents; it must also, to some extent, construct an aura of factuality around these supernatural agents. The main aim of this article is to identify and discuss those textual ‘veracity mechanisms’ that in various ways can help achieve such a sense of factuality. Each veracity mechanism is discussed and illustrated with examples from supernatural fiction, especially from Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. I furthermore show how conceptual blending theory can be used to analyse the cognitive processes involved in the religious interpretation of supernatural fiction. While the empirical focus is on supernatural fiction and fiction-based religion, the wider implications for the study of religious narratives are discussed throughout. The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Religion 46(4); http://www-tandfonline.com/ <10.1080/0048721X.2016.1210392>
Culture, Communion and Recovery: Tolkienian Fairy-Story and Inter-Religious Exchange
Recent scholarship on Tolkien has been especially attentive not only to the importance of religion in his personal life, but also to the wider theological implications which may be drawn from his works. In this study, Alana Vincent argues that the cultural influence of "The Lord of the Rings" provides an excellent model for understanding the mutually transformative relationship between religion and culture, and in so doing also provides an important and unexplored pathway for inter-religious exchange.