Four Sundays: October 29, November 5, 12, 19 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET Online
Lecture and Discussion
J. R. R. Tolkien’s two great essays, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” and “On Fairy-stories” embody the opposing dark and light poles of his worldview. The tension between the “long defeat” that he found in Beowulf” and the “Happy Ending” he praised in “On Fairy-stories” generates the energy that drives his stories, from the light-to-dark, there-and-back-again journey of Frodo to the relentless downward trajectory of Túrin Turambar.
Four Sundays: October 29, November 5, 12, 19 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET Online
Schedule:
Oct. 29. Essay “On Fairy-stories”. 1939/47. The perilous realm, faërie & aventure, language; fantasy; Recovery, Escape, Consolation. eucatastrophe & Happy Ending.
Nov. 5. Essay: “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”. 1936. The tower, the monsters, “life is loaned”, pre Christian myth; last line.
Nov. 12. The Lord of the Rings.
Nov. 19. The Silmarillion.
Required Book:
“Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” and “On Fairy-stories”. Both are in Tolkien’s collected essays The Monsters and the Critics.
Edition is not available in US. See here from UK bookstore Blackwells:
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Monsters-and-the-Critics-by-J-R-R-Tolkien-Christopher-Tolkien/9780261102637
Recommended:
J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.
Verlyn Flieger is Professor Emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, where for 36 years she taught courses in Tolkien, Medieval Literature, and Comparative Mythology. She is the author of five critical books on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, Splintered Light, A Question of Time, Interrupted Music, Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien, and There Would Always Be A Fairy Tale: More Essays on Tolkien. She edited the Extended edition of Tolkien's Smith of Wootton Major. With Carl Hostetter she edited Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth, and with Douglas A. Anderson she edited the Expanded Edition of Tolkien On Fairy-Stories. With Michael Drout and David Bratman she is a co-editor of the yearly journal Tolkien Studies. She has also published two fantasy novels, Pig Tale and The Inn at Corbies’ Caww, an Arthurian novella, Avilion, and the short stories "Green Hill Country" and "Igraine at Tintagel."
REFUND POLICY: Please note that we can issue class refunds up until seven (7) days before the first class session.