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Tolkien's Sentience Dilemma
J. R. R. Tolkien created a dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs when he made them able to speak. This meant they were sentient and open to morality, like Men. In Tolkien's Christian framework, that in turn meant they must have souls, so killing them would be wrong without very good reason. If he wanted killing them not to be such a problem, then they had to be non-sentient and without any moral sense, like ordinary animals. Both Tolkien and other scholars have been aware of the contradiction implied by this position: if Orcs were essentially "beasts", then they should not have had a moral sense; if they were corrupted Elves, then treating them as "other" to be slaughtered was straightforward racism. Tolkien made repeated attempts to resolve the dilemma. Context J. R. R. Tolkien was an English author and philologist of ancient Germanic languages, specialising in Old English; he spent much of his career as a professor at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hobbit
Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, they live barefooted, and dwell in homely underground houses which have windows, as they are typically built into the sides of hills. Their feet have naturally tough leathery soles (so they do not need shoes) and are covered on top with curly hair. Hobbits first appeared in the 1937 children's novel '' The Hobbit'', whose titular hobbit is the protagonist Bilbo Baggins, who is thrown into an unexpected adventure involving a dragon. In its sequel, '' The Lord of the Rings'', the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Pippin Took, and Merry Brandybuck are primary characters who all play key roles in fighting to save their world (" Middle-earth") from evil. In ''The Hobbit'', hobbits live together in a small town called Hobbiton, which in ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mythlore
''Mythlore'' is a biannual (originally quarterly) peer-reviewed academic journal founded by Glen GoodKnight and published by the Mythopoeic Society. Although it publishes articles that explore the genres of myth and fantasy in general, special attention is given to the three most prominent members of the Inklings: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. The current editor-in-chief is the Tolkien scholar Janet Brennan Croft. The Tolkien Society describes ''Mythlore'' as a "refereed scholarly journal". History ''Mythlore'' appeared in January 1969 under the editorship of Glen H. GoodKnight, founder of the Mythopoeic Society. Early issues were fanzines, albeit with a " sercon" ("serious and constructive") bent; for a time it included alternate issues of ''Mythprint''. ''Mythlore'' became a peer-reviewed journal beginning with issue #85 (Winter 1999), under the editorship of Theodore Sherman. Since 2006, it has been edited by Janet Brennan Croft. The full text of ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warg
In the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, a warg is a particularly large and evil kind of wolf that could be ridden by orcs. He derived the name and characteristics of his wargs by combining meanings and myths from Old Norse and Old English. In Norse mythology, a ''vargr'' (anglicised as warg) is a wolf, especially the wolf Fenrir that destroyed the god Odin in the battle of Ragnarök, and the wolves Sköll and Hati who perpetually chase the Sun and Moon. In Old English, a ''wearh'' is an outcast who may be strangled to death. Through Tolkien's influence, wargs have featured in fantasy books by authors including George R. R. Martin, and in media such as video games and role-playing games. Etymology and origins The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey states that Tolkien's spelling "warg" is a cross of Old Norse '' vargr'' and Old English '' wearh''. He notes that the words embody a shift in meaning from "wolf" to "outlaw": ''vargr'' c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halls Of Mandos
Valinor (Quenya'': Land of the Valar'') or the Blessed Realms is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the home of the immortal Valar on the continent of Aman, far to the west of Middle-earth; he used the name Aman mainly to mean Valinor. It included Eldamar, the land of the Elves, who as immortals were permitted to live in Valinor. Aman was known somewhat misleadingly as "the Undying Lands", but the land itself does not cause mortals to live forever., #156 to Father R. Murray, SJ, November 1954 However, only immortal beings were generally allowed to reside there. Exceptions were made for the surviving bearers of the One Ring: Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee, who dwelt there for a time, and the dwarf Gimli., "The Grey Havens", and Appendix B, entry for S.R. 1482 and 1541., #249 to Michael George Tolkien, October 1963 Scholars have described the similarity of Tolkien's myth of the attempt of Númenor to capture Aman to the biblical Tower of Babel an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earthly Paradise
In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan- Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31. The location of Eden is described in the Book of Genesis as the source of four tributaries. Various suggestions have been made for its location: at the head of the Persian Gulf, in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into the sea; and in Armenia. Like the Genesis flood narrative, the Genesis creation narrative and the account of the Tower of Babel, the story of Eden echoes the Mesopotamian myth of a king, as a primordial man, who is placed in a divine garden to guard the tree of life. The Hebrew Bible depicts Adam and Eve as walking around the Garden of Eden naked due to their sinlessness. Mentions of Eden are also made in the Bible elsewhere in Genesis, in Isaiah 51:3, Ezekiel 36:35, and J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South English Legendary
South English legendaries are compilations of versified saints' lives written in southern dialects of Middle English from the late 13th to 15th centuries. At least fifty of these manuscripts survive, preserving nearly three hundred hagiographic works. Manuscripts A legendary is any hagiographic collection. Earlier scholarship attempted to identify a unitary work known as the ''South English Legendary'' (''SEL'') that varied between different copies but still had an identifiable point of origin, similar to '' The Canterbury Tales'' or '' Piers Plowman''. More recent work understands 'South English legendaries' as a category of manuscripts that flourished in the later Middle Ages. The Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the sec ... houses the oldest manuscript (M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the '' Oxford English Dictionary'' specifies the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly followed the High to the Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English language became fragmented, localized, and was, for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470) and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Shippey
Thomas Alan Shippey (born 9 September 1943) is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien about whom he has written several books and many scholarly papers. His book ''The Road to Middle-Earth'' has been called "the single best thing written on Tolkien". Shippey's education and academic career have in several ways retraced those of Tolkien: he attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, became a professional philologist, occupied Tolkien's professorial chair at the University of Leeds, and taught Old English at the University of Oxford to the syllabus that Tolkien had devised. He has received three Mythopoeic Awards and a World Fantasy Award. He participated in the creation of Peter Jackson's ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy, assisting the dialect coaches. He featured as an expert medieva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tolkien Scholar
The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have generated a body of research covering many aspects of his fantasy writings. These encompass ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion'', along with his legendarium that remained unpublished until after his death, and the constructed languages that he invented, especially the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin. Scholars from different disciplines have examined the linguistic and literary origins of Middle-earth, and have explored many aspects of his writings from Christianity to feminism and race. Biographical Biographies of Tolkien have been written by Humphrey Carpenter, with his 1977 '' J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography'' and of Tolkien's wartime years by John Garth with his 2003 '' Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth''. Carpenter edited the 1981 ''The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien'', assisted by Christopher Tolkien. The brief period after the war when Tolkien worked for the OED is detailed in the 2006 book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmology Of Tolkien's Legendarium
The cosmology of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium combines aspects of Christian theology and metaphysics with pre-modern cosmological concepts in the flat Earth paradigm, along with the modern spherical Earth view of the Solar System. The created world, ''Eä'', includes the planet Arda, corresponding to the Earth. It is created flat, with the dwelling of the godlike Valar at its centre. When this is marred by the evil Vala Melkor, the world is reshaped, losing its perfect symmetry, and the Valar move to Valinor, but the Elves can still sail there from Middle-earth. When Men try to go there, hoping for immortality, Valinor and its continent of Aman are removed from Arda, which is reshaped as a round world. Scholars have compared the implied cosmology with that of Tolkien's religion, Roman Catholicism, and of Medieval poetry such as ''Pearl'' or Dante's '' Paradiso'', where there are three parts, Earth, Purgatory or the Earthly Paradise, and Heaven or the Celestial Paradise. Schola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Leiter Des Auf- Und Abstiegs
Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semiconductor wafer * Die (manufacturing), a material-shaping device * Die (philately) * Coin die, a metallic piece used to strike a coin * Die casting, a material-shaping process ** Sort (typesetting), a cast die for printing * Die cutting (web), process of using a die to shear webs of low-strength materials * Die, a tool used in paper embossing * Tap and die, cutting tools used to create screw threads in solid substances * Tool and die, the occupation of making dies Arts and media Music * ''Die'' (album), the seventh studio album by rapper Necro * Die (musician), Japanese musician, guitarist of the band Dir en grey * DJ Die, British DJ and musician with Reprazent * "DiE", a 2013 single by the Japanese idol group BiS * die!, an inactive Ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
