Interdisciplinary in approach, this book provides a fresh perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien's medievalism. Fifteen essays explore how professor Tolkien responded to a modern age of crisis - historical, academic and personal.

The medieval in the modern world is here explored in a variety of media, from film and book to gaming.

Working medievalists are often the only scholar of the Middle Ages in a department, a university, or a hundred-mile radius. While working to build a body of focused scholarly work, the lone medievalist is expected to be a generalist in the classroom and a contributing member of a campus community that rarely offers disciplinary community in return. As a result, overtasked and single medievalists often find it challenging to advocate for their work and field. As other responsibilities and expectations crowd in, we come to feel disconnected from the projects and subjects that sustain our intellectual passion. An insidious isolation even from one another creeps in, and soon, even attending a conference of fellow medievalists can become a lonely experience. Surrounded by scholars with greater institutional support, lower teaching loads, or more robust research agendas, we may feel alienated from our work - the work to which we've dedicated our careers. The Lone Medievalist (the collaborative community and the book) is intended as an antidote to the problem of professional isolation. It is offered in the spirit of common weal that marks the ideals (if not always the realities) of so many of the communities we study - agricultural, professional, national, notional, and of course, monastic. The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist isn't only about scholarship, or teaching, or institutional life, or the pursuit of new learning - it's about all of them. The essays in this volume address all aspects of the professional and intellectual life of medievalists. Though many of us acknowledge and address the challenges in being Lone Medievalists, these essays are not intended as voces clamantium; they are offered to provide strategies, camaraderie, and an occasional bit of inspiration. They are a call to action, a sharing of hard-won wisdom, and a helping hand - and, above all, a reminder that we are not alone.

J.R.R. Tolkien delved into the Middle Ages to create a critique of the modern world in his fantasy, yet did so in a form of modernist literature with postmodern implications and huge commercial success. These essays examine that paradox and its significance in understanding the intersection between traditionalist and counter-culture criticisms of the modern. The approach helps to explain the popularity of his works, the way in which they continue to be brought into dialogue with Twenty-First century issues, and their contested literary significance in the academy.

The definitive Tolkien companion—an indispensable guide to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and more, from the author of The Road to Middle-earth. This “highly erudite celebration and exploration of Tolkien’s works [is] enormous fun,” declared the Houston Chronicle, and Tom Shippey, a prominent medievalist and scholar of fantasy, “deepens your understanding” without “making you forget your initial, purely instinctive response to Middle-earth and hobbits.” In a clear and accessible style, Shippey offers a new approach to Tolkien, to fantasy, and to the importance of language in literature. He breaks down The Lord of the Rings as a linguistic feast for the senses and as a response to the human instinct for myth. Elsewhere, he examines The Hobbit’s counterintuitive relationship to the heroic world of Middle-earth; demonstrates the significance of The Silmarillion to Tolkien’s canon; and takes an illuminating look at lesser-known works in connection with Tolkien’s life. Furthermore, he ties all these strands together in a continuing tradition that traces its roots back through Grimms’ Fairy Tales to Beowulf. “Shippey’s commentary is the best so far in elucidating Tolkien’s lovely myth,” wrote Harper’s Magazine. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is “a triumph” (Chicago Sun-Times) that not only gives readers a deeper understanding of Tolkien and his work, but also serves as an entertaining introduction to some of the most influential novels ever written.

Arnold, Martin. 2018. The Dragon. Fear and Power. London: Reaktion Books. My book is much shorter and focusses on the medieval (European) dragon, while Martin’s book covers all centuries and also the Asian tradition.

This book examines key points of J. R. R. Tolkien’s life and writing career in relation to his views on humanism and feminism, particularly his sympathy for and toleration of those who are different, deemed unimportant, or marginalized—namely, the Other. Jane Chance argues such empathy derived from a variety of causes ranging from the loss of his parents during his early life to a consciousness of the injustice and violence in both World Wars. As a result of his obligation to research and publish in his field and propelled by his sense of abjection and diminution of self, Tolkien concealed aspects of the personal in relatively consistent ways in his medieval adaptations, lectures, essays, and translations, many only recently published. These scholarly writings blend with and relate to his fictional writings in various ways depending on the moment at which he began teaching, translating, or editing a specific medieval work and, simultaneously, composing a specific poem, fantasy, or fairy-story. What Tolkien read and studied from the time before and during his college days at Exeter and continued researching until he died opens a door into understanding how he uniquely interpreted and repurposed the medieval in constructing fantasy.