Today’s post is coming to you through the lens of two illnesses. Mine is the milder one: yesterdat I twisted the wrong way in the bathroom and suddenly found myself on the floor undergoing terrible back spasms. They got worse as the day progressed and I wrote today’s post standing up, my laptop on my […]
Tag Archives: fantasy
Moving Beyond Adolescent Fantasies
Sometimes I will discover that two different works start talking to each other simply because I happen to be teaching them both at the same time. This week Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (from my Jane Austen first year seminar) and John Keats’ Eve of St. Agnes (from my British fantasy course) engaged in one of […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, Eve of St. Agnes, Jane Austen, John Keats, Northanger Abbey Comments closed
The Children’s Books that Shaped Me
The poem I printed by my father in my last post provides a good map of the books and poems that he used to read to me and my brothers. In case there were any works that you do not recognize, here’s a key: –Leerie is “The Lamplighter” in Robert Lewis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden […]
Fantasy As a Roundabout Road to Truth
Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn I didn’t do entire justice in Monday’s post to the Tolkien essay of my son Toby. In correcting that here, I also open up a more complicated vision of fantasy in general, as well as Tolkien’s fantasy specifically. I was wondering if Tolkien had retreated into fantasy as a refuge from […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mists of Avalon, Tobias Bates, war Comments closed
Fantasy: Help or Hindrance?
My friend Alan Paskow, who is struggling with cancer, queried me about my post on Alfred Noyes’ “The Highwayman,” wondering whether the poem wasn’t just an insubstantial fantasy. I’ve been writing about The Lord of the Rings as a fantasy perhaps indulged in by a World War I veteran who wasn’t willing to face up […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, Catcher in the Rye, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, J. D. Salinger, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings Comments closed
A Legendary Elf-Dwarf Friendship
After a year’s sabbatical, I am resuming my duties, one of which includes being the advisor of the Tolkien Society. The group gathers regularly to hear talks, forge chain armor, attend masked balls (not that there are any masked balls in Lord of the Rings), and engage in other Medieval-related activities. I’ll mark the occasion […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings Comments closed
