Overview
This book examines key points of J. R. R. Tolkien’s life and writing career in relation to his views on humanism and feminism, particularly his sympathy for and toleration of those who are different, deemed unimportant, or marginalized—namely, the Other. Jane Chance argues such empathy derived from a variety of causes ranging from the loss of his parents during his early life to a consciousness of the injustice and violence in both World Wars. As a result of his obligation to research and publish in his field and propelled by his sense of abjection and diminution of self, Tolkien concealed aspects of the personal in relatively consistent ways in his medieval adaptations, lectures, essays, and translations, many only recently published. These scholarly writings blend with and relate to his fictional writings in various ways depending on the moment at which he began teaching, translating, or editing a specific medieval work and, simultaneously, composing a specific poem, fantasy, or fairy-story. What Tolkien read and studied from the time before and during his college days at Exeter and continued researching until he died opens a door into understanding how he uniquely interpreted and repurposed the medieval in constructing fantasy.
Full Product Details
Author: Jane Chance
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan
Edition: 2016 ed.
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9781349679867
ISBN 10: 1349679860
Pages: 290
Publication Date: 13 May 2019
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
Deal with Tolkien's own life experience with otherness and examine how that experience informed reflections of otherness in his writing. ... the book features a prominent dedication to Chance as well as a vintage photo opposite its table of contents. ... deserve a place on the bookshelves of Tolkien scholars and serious fans. (Jason Fisher, Mythlore, Vol. 37 (2), 2019)
“Deal with Tolkien’s own life experience with otherness and examine how that experience informed reflections of otherness in his writing. … the book features a prominent dedication to Chance as well as a vintage photo opposite its table of contents. … deserve a place on the bookshelves of Tolkien scholars and serious fans.” (Jason Fisher, Mythlore, Vol. 37 (2), 2019)
Deal with Tolkien's own life experience with otherness and examine how that experience informed reflections of otherness in his writing. ... deserve a place on the bookshelves of Tolkien scholars and serious fans. (Jason Fisher, Mythlore, Vol. 37 (2), 2019)
Author Information
Jane Chance is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor Emerita in English at Rice University, USA, and a recipient of an honorary doctorate of letters from Purdue University (2013). Author of twenty-five books and over a hundred articles and reviews, she has received Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, among others, as well as membership at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, a Rockefeller Foundation residency at Bellagio, and book and article prizes for her work.
