Professor Rachel Fulton Brown takes you on a journey through the creation of JRR Tolkien’s legendarium, from its origins in Tolkien’s conversations with C.S. Lewis about the power of myth to its realization in the stories of the Silmarillion. Extended version of the course that she teaches at the University of Chicago.
Episode guide: https://fencingbearatprayer.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-forge-of-tolkien.html
Syllabus and course blog: http://tolkienmedievalandmodern.blogspot.com/
Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago, where she teaches courses on the history of Christianity, medieval European religious, cultural, and intellectual history, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. She blogs as Fencing Bear at Prayer, and she lectures on Logos, Tolkien, and medieval history at UATV. The Dragon Common Room is her online classroom for training poets in the arts of the Christian imagination. She and co-creators KJ Crilly, Kilts Khalfan, and Mel Wiggin host the Mosaic Ark on her UATV Logos and History channel.
Website: https://www.dragoncommonroom.com
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Enter Faerie, and you expect enchantment—the power of words, spoken or sung, to transform the world. But how can (or should) a Christian author invoke such spells without falling into the very temptations that the Ring or other magical devices like mirrors and palantiri would warn us about? In this episode, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown questions the role of magic words in fantasy literature generally and Tolkien specifically. Tolkien’s understanding of the power of the adjective is contrasted with the power of naming (Ursula LeGuin) and “root hunting” (Robert Graves), both of which are read in the context of one famous medieval book of word spells, The Sworn Book of Honorius (“Liber Iuratus Honorii”). Is there such a thing as “good” magic? How do spells differ from prayer? What role ought naming play in the Christian response to creation? In memoriam JOY, the best dog ever (November 8, 2019-October 27, 2020) Recorded as she lay at my feet. Her name was her truth, my joy. RIP.