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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What was so wrong in Aulë’s desire to make creatures of his own in the likeness of the Children whom Ilúvatar intended to make? What kind of power did Aulë intend his making to have? And where did Tolkien get the idea that the Valar should be able to make things like children? In this episode, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown considers the stories told in Genesis and the Book of Enoch about the ‘sons of God’ who had children with the daughters of men as sources or models for Tolkien’s efforts to create a mythology including “beings of the same order of beauty, power, and majesty as the ‘gods’ of higher mythology, which [could] yet be accepted…by a mind that believes in the Blessed Trinity.” What did Aulë do that Azazel did not? And where does Grendel fit in?