Home > MYTHSOC > Mythlore > Vol. 42 (2023) > No. 1 (2023)
Article Title
Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology through Mythology with the Maker of Middle-earth by Austin M. Freeman
Abstract
The powerful and highly informative definitions that Freeman applies to Tolkien’s Middle-earth phenomenon in the title of his book create a productive interpretational framework. Myth and mythology in Inklings’ writing were always understood, in an almost Jungian way, as a cultural paradigm flexible enough to embrace the free creativity of the playful human mind and a philosophical postulate, or credo, of the humanistic religious intuition of Christianity. In Freeman’s interpretation, Tolkien’s literary myth in some ways requires a theological background, which, in its turn, leads to inevitable dogma, a statement that reveals the sensitive mechanics of literary myth as it relates to Tolkien’s religious views. According to Freeman, Tolkien builds his impressive mythological cosmos as a Christian universe, which can be studied scholastically, as it was in previous times.
ORCID ID
0000-0002-9722-2333
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