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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Quendi, Eldar, Calaquendi, Moriquendi, Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, Sindar, Nondor, Úmanyar, Avari—what’s in a name, and why did the Elves in Tolkien’s legendarium have so many of them? In this episode, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown focuses the lens of her attention on the refraction of the Elves through the crystal of language to unlock the mystery of sub-creation as a splintering of light from “a single White to many hues…endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind.” No, there isn’t an easier way to say this, which is why Tolkien had to do it with Elves! Along the way, we meet Wood-elves, Light-elves, Deep-elves, and Sea-elves; learn where the Elves awoke and what were the first things that they saw; and consider the relationship between the literal and metaphoric, Light and Word, as revealed through the sundering of the Elves into their various kindreds. H/t Verlyn Flieger, Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World (2002).