Recovering Consolation (eBook)

Sam’s Enchanted Path in The Lord of the Rings

Greg Maillet (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
154 Seiten
Wipf and Stock Publishers (Verlag)
978-1-6667-8516-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Although Tolkien's letters call Samwise Gamgee the "chief hero" of The Lord of the Rings, Sam is easily underestimated by both readers and critics. Recovering Consolation focuses attention on Sam's point of view throughout the long journey that is the novel. This book responds to Frodo's famous words at the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, imagining a child speaking to a parent: "I want to hear more about Sam, dad; why didn't they put in more of his talk, dad? That's what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam, would he, dad?"
Listening to Sam not only makes us laugh but also shows him to be, like Tolkien himself, a master of mythopoesis; as the novel's narrator puts it, "Sam had more on his mind than gardening." Yet the concrete act of gardening, another passion that Sam shares with Tolkien, should help us to understand how consolation is recovered, as is well explained in Tolkien's great essay, "On Fairy Stories." Both there and in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien offers a "theological aesthetic" that has much to teach us. Although we may not realize it while laughing along with Sam, this humble servant-hobbit is key to this aesthetic.

Autor

Greg Maillet is professor of English at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.9.2024
• Verlagsort: Eugene
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Schlagworte: 1892-1973 • 1892-1973 Lord of the rings • Catholicism • Christianity • Christian theology • English • English literature • Fantasy • Fantasy Fiction • Fantasy Literature • Fiction • Gamgee • Greg Maillet • J R R (John Ronald Reuel) • Literary criticism • Literary studies: fiction • Literature: history and criticism • Middle Earth (Imaginary place) • Myth in literature • novelists and prose writers • Recovering Consolation • Religion • Religion and beliefs • Samwise • Samwise Gamgee • Science Fiction • science fiction and fantasy • subjects and themes • The Lord of the Rings • Theological Aesthetics • Theology • Tolkien
• ISBN-10: 1-6667-8516-4 / 1666785164
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6667-8516-6 / 9781666785166