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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Writing to Milton Waldman about the scope of his legendarium, Tolkien insisted that “legends and myths are largely made of ‘truth,’” one such truth being that every story must contain a “fall”: “All stories are ultimately about the fall.” Like Men, the Elves fell—but how? And through whom? In this episode, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown breaks open the story of Fëanor’s marring to further explore Tolkien’s thinking about the importance of making and Light. What was so evil about Fëanor’s refusal to break the Silmarils, and what does his sin show us about our own failure to trust God?