RIP Christopher Tolkien, Keeper of the Lore

Article by Joshua Young Somehow I assumed that Christopher Tolkien was much younger, but maybe I just formed that image a long time ago. Regardless, it’s sad to hear of his passing.  Outside of his father, the famed J.R.R., Christopher is probably the one most responsible for all things Middle Earth. He compiled his father’s notes…

Father Word

What is it about that word? Aroostook. The County, they call it here in Maine. A word is a tiny thing, a written word. It is smaller than a leaf—a word printed on a page. Rarely as big as a blade of grass. Don’t even bother comparing its size to a tree. And yet…. Words…

Charming Notions: The Neo-Orthanc cult of Saruman

Over at Bruce Charlton’s Notions, the good professor shares some Ork-related humor: A simple household candle… or is it? Few have yet noticed the sinister resurgence of those who revere the name of Saruman. I became aware of the problem some years ago when a shiny black pillar was erected near to my place of…

If J.R.R. Tolkien liked to write satire…

If J.R.R. Tolkien liked to write satire, the satire he wrote was secured in what he loved. He loved languages, of course, importantly. But I’m not learned enough to say if his languages are in anyway satirical. I can say however that he employed his love of language in his satires. What did he love…

Literary Dark Device

Article by S. Dorman Tevildo Prince of Cats was the first imaginative incarnation of Sauron the Dark Lord, whose power was destroyed in the unmaking of his Ring in the Third Age of Middle-earth. As many know, the process of writing is drafting and redrafting, a sort of making and remaking. An early incarnation of…

“Kubla Khan” and Father Nicholas Christmas?

 Article by David Llewellyn Dodds In 1927, John Livingston Lowes published The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination with a revised edition following in 1930. He traces the “caves of ice” in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” (lines 36, 47) to William Bartram’s Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and…

High Diction

Article by S.Dorman   Author and journalist John Garth taught a course at Signum University on Tolkien’s War-time experience and its influence on language and creativity. J.R.R. Tolkien seems always to have been a lover of high diction, in communion with his love of philology and making languages, but Mr. Garth points out that Tolkien’s…

The Ship has Sailed

Article by J. Conrad Matthews Last week, I was looking at some artwork for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign I am playing in. The game had a new Dungeon Master, (not me!) and I was looking for a ‘look’ for my player. The sessions are lots of fun, the players are determining many of the…