Recovery and Transcendence for the Contemporary Mythmaker: The Spiritual Dimension in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien

ISBN-13: 9783952142486 / Angielski / Miękka / 2004 / 224 str.

C. Garbowski

Opis

[Recovery and Transcendence for the Contemporary Mythmaker] is one ofthe most persuasive and open-minded of the various appropriations ofTolkien to a religious or spiritual meaning. [...] At its heart is the anti-reductionistpsychological/religious theory of the concentration camp survivor,Viktor Frankl. Frankl explains human motivation primarily as a quest formeaning, a response to the pull of discerned values, rather than as whollydetermined by the push of instinctual drives: through this quest, humangrowth is possible even in the most dire circumstances. Such features ofTolkiens work as his theory and practice of eucatastrophe, the morally fittinghappy ending in the face of great adversity which vouchsafes a glimpseof transcendent joy, and his conception of art as a mode of recovery,whereby the too-familiar known world is seen afresh as we were meant tosee it, are assimilated to Frankls view, as is the exploratory, developmental,dialogic quality of Tolkiens myth-making. But Garbowski draws on manysources, from folklore to Hollywood, and ranges widely through Tolkienswriting, alert always to the ethical and spiritual implications of the protagonistspredicaments. The book is of additional interest as an example of thesignificant response to Tolkien in Eastern Europe, a response based on hiscelebration of small, imperilled homelands and his sombre awareness ofcontemporary evil, as well as on his implicitly Christian values.From ABES Annotated Bibliography of English StudiesChristopher Garbowski is Associate Professor at the Institute of English atMaria Curie Sk3odowska University in Lublin, Poland. He is the author ofKrzysztof Kieslowskis Decalogue Series (1996).