Approaches to Teaching Tolkien\u27s The Lord of the Rings and Other Works (2015) edited by Leslie A. Donovan

Book review of Approaches to Teaching Tolkien\u27s The Lord of the Rings and Other Works (2015), edited by Leslie A. Donova

Introduction to the Special Issue on Tolkien\u27s Animals

Introduction to the Special Issue on Tolkien\u27s Animal

\u3ci\u3eThe Hobbit\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eThe Father Christmas Letters\u3c/i\u3e

Traces the mutual influences of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the letters he wrote to his children in the person of Father Christmas. Similar themes in Roverandom and The Book of Lost Tales are also discussed. She tracks the development of several motifs that appear throughout, like irascible wizards, playful elves, invented languages, impudent bears, and fireworks

\u3ci\u3eTolkien and the Sea: Proceedings of the Tolkien Society Seminar 1996\u3c/i\u3e, edited by Richard Cranshaw and Shaun Gunner

Review of the book Tolkien and the Sea: Proceedings of the Tolkien Society Seminar 1996

The Poetry of Geoffrey Bache Smith with Special Note of Tolkienian Contexts

Following the Great War (1914–1918), J.R.R. Tolkien edited the poetry collection A Spring Harvest (1918) by his close friend, Lieutenant Geoffrey Bache Smith (October 18, 1894 – December 3, 1916), who died of wounds from shrapnel while stationed on the Somme. According to John Garth, it was “one of the many slim, sad volumes of poetry published posthumously as a memorial of those who died in war.” A spring harvest is a barren harvest, but even at his young age, Smith left a number of stirring poems on life, death, and destiny that seem, in retrospect, to have prophesied his own brief lifetime and the sacrifices of his generation. The poems also illustrate several motifs and even phrases which Tolkien used in his own legendarium. This conference paper delivered at the 2021 Tolkien Symposium examines a few of Smith’s poems in the context of Tolkien’s work, and is derived from Kris Swank’s doctoral research at the University of Glasgow

The Sweet and the Bitter : Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien\u27s The Lord of the Rings (2018) by Amy Amendt-Raduege; and Fantasies of Time and Death: Dunsany, Eddison, Tolkien (2020) by Anna Vaninskaya

Book reviews by Kris Swank of The Sweet and the Bitter : Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien\u27s The Lord of the Rings (2018) by Amy Amendt-Raduege; and Fantasies of Time and Death: Dunsany, Eddison, Tolkien (2020) by Anna Vaninskay

\u3ci\u3eTolkien’s Modern Reading\u3c/i\u3e by Holly Ordway

Ordway’s book aims to challenge an assumption that J.R.R. Tolkien is “fundamentally rooted and grounded in the past, partaking only minimally of the modern world” (5). She hopes to accomplish this by proving her main argument that, “Tolkien’s modern reading was both more extensive, and more significant in its influence on the legendarium, than has hitherto been recognized” (291). Ordway gathers 148 authors and more than 200 titles that Tolkien is known to have owned or read, and traces their influence on the development of Middle-earth. Despite a number of factual errors, and a flawed assumption that those interested in Tolkien are largely unaware of his interest in modern literature, the text is engaging, avoids academic jargon, and gathers a large amount of information under one convenient cover

Tolkien’s Animals: A Bibliography

Bibliography of scholarly and popular science research on Tolkien’s various animal species includes more than 100 English-language entries from literary, mythological, cultural, historical, philological, psychological, religious, and scientific perspectives. Includes entries on animal sentience/personhood, general surveys of animals, and analysis of specific species: bats, bears (including Beorn), birds, cats, cryptids, deer, dogs (including wolves and foxes), dragons, elephants, horses, sea-life, and spiders

Approaches to Teaching Tolkien\u27s The Lord of the Rings and Other Works (2015) edited by Leslie A. Donovan

Book review of Approaches to Teaching Tolkien\u27s The Lord of the Rings and Other Works (2015), edited by Leslie A. Donova