What are millions of readers all over the world getting out of reading The Lord of the Rings? Newly reissued with a new afterword, Patrick Curry's Defending Middle-earth argues, in part, that Tolkien has found a way to provide something close to spirit in a secular age. His focus is on three main aspects of Tolkien's fiction: the social and political structure of Middle-earth a...
What are millions of readers all over the world getting out of reading The Lord of the Rings? Newly reissued with a new afterword, Patrick Curry's Defending Middle-earth argues, in part, that Tolkien has found a way to provide something close to spirit in a secular age. His focus is on three main aspects of Tolkien's fiction: the social and political structure of Middle-earth and how the varying cultures within it find common cause in the face of a shared threat; the nature and ecology of Middle-earth and how what we think of as the natural world joins the battle against mindless, mechanized destruction; and the spirituality and ethics of Middle-earth, for which Curry provides a particularly insightful and resonant examination that will deepen the understanding of the millions of fans who have taken The Lord of the Rings to heart.
作者简介
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Patrick Curry (born 1951) is a Canadian-born British scholar who has worked and taught on a variety of subjects from cultural astronomy to divination, the ecology movement, and the nature of enchantment. He is known for his studies of J. R. R. Tolkien.
目录
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1. Introduction: radical nostalgia
2. The Shire: culture, society and politics
3. Middle-Earth: nature and ecology
4. The Sea: spirituality and ethics
5. Fantasy, Literature and the Mythopoeic Imagination
6. Conclusion: hope without guarantees
1. Introduction: radical nostalgia
2. The Shire: culture, society and politics
3. Middle-Earth: nature and ecology
4. The Sea: spirituality and ethics
5. Fantasy, Literature and the Mythopoeic Imagination
6. Conclusion: hope without guarantees
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原文摘录
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It is also noteworthy that when the German publishers of *The Hobbit* wrote to Tolkien in 1938 asking if he was of 'arisch' (aryan) origins, and could prove it, he refused to do so, indignantly replying that if 'I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of *Jewish* origin. I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.' He consequently advised Allen & Unwin that he was inclined to 'let a German translation go hang.'
Nor is Middle-earth fascist, let alone Nazi. The Shire, for example, functions by a sort of municipal (not representative) democracy, which Tolkien himself accurately described as 'half republic half aristocracy.' The former half has, typically, been ignored by Tolkien's critics in their eagerness to assail the latter; but... (查看原文)
还没人写过短评呢
还没人写过短评呢