January 15, 2010 10:07 AM
Tolkein, Catholicism and Lord of the Rings
I read The Lord of the Rings
All by way of saying that no matter how grown up you are, if you haven't already read LOTR, it's never too late to make this classic part of your family heritage.
This morning I came across an interview with Bradley Birzer - author of J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth
Something to pique your interest:
Q: How does Tolkien's Catholicism impregnate his worldview and his fiction?Birzer: Tolkien wrote in an oft-quoted letter to a close friend in 1953 that "The Lord of the Rings" is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. And Tolkien was a devout and practicing Catholic throughout most of his life. According to his son Michael, Roman Catholicism "pervaded all his thinking, beliefs and everything else."
Indeed, Tolkien was very public about his faith. He once told an audience of Oxford dons, when it was rather unpopular to be open about one's religious beliefs, that as much as he loved his academic specialty, philology, it was unnecessary for salvation. Tolkien, though, was much more cautious in his expression of his faith than was his closest friend, C.S. Lewis.
Tolkien believed that the true Christian should be an artist, not a propagandist. In other words, Tolkien rather strongly argued in his academic as well as mythological works that one should use what T.S. Eliot called the "moral imagination." He should seek the higher, timeless truths, but put them in a new light.
The artist becomes a "sub-creator," made in the image of God, the Creator. But, the human idea of sub-creation is to glorify Creation, never to mock or pervert it.
Tolkien rejected the idea of art for art's sake, or innovation for innovation's sake. There was a truth, and the artist was especially gifted to tap into that truth. To abuse the gift of artistry for one's own glorification is to turn enchantment to power and domination.
Read more at Zenit.
And note: books like this - which explore the intense struggle between good and evil - can be very encouraging in troubled political times.
Posted in Books, Catholicism, Choosing Children's Literature series | Permalink
Comments
My FAVORITE movie.....haven't got around to read it yet, but it is next in my list.
I love the poetry of it all. And I'm looking forward to The hobbit too.
(there's a very important message I sent you and I hope you get a chance to read it soon....)
Posted by: LadyLovas | January 15, 2010 10:57 AM
Tolkien's trilogy is an indescribable literary treasure to me. I often wonder how self-proclaimed intellectuals, pagans, nonbelieving sci-fi and fantasy nuts, and agnostics can be so in love with the trilogy and still not see deeper into it. Wow, what they are missing out on. . . Thank you for the link.
As a person with a artistic background (not literary, visual instead), it certainly does remind me that culture's artistic products say alot about the state of the human heart and our values.
Posted by: Emily | January 15, 2010 12:39 PM
this taps into something i've been contemplating - about art as truth, about art NOT as propaganda (re: our government), and about art as beauty. and my role in all of this. thanks.
Posted by: christine | January 15, 2010 1:28 PM
Hi there Barbara,
Doug just started reading this aloud in the evenings, it has been so fun to see the way it varies so wildly in some ways from the movie... as I (like probably so many of my generation) saw the movie first.
Anyway, I'm loving how the extra read aloud time is giving me a chance to catch up on mending, crocheting, and other by-hand projects.
Hope you're doing well...
blessings,
Jess
Posted by: Jess @ Making Home | January 16, 2010 5:55 AM
