The Catholic Imaginations of J.R.R. Tolkien and Oscar Wilde

Authors

Frazier A. Johnson, University of North TexasFollow

Abstract

This paper uses terminology from The Catholic Imagination by Andrew Greeley to explore the influence of Catholicism on the writings of Oscar Wilde and J.R.R. Tolkien. Greeley asserts that Catholics see metaphors for the transcendent in matter, value community within a well-ordered hierarchy, and sanctify suffering—qualities that abound in the writings of Wilde and Tolkien. I begin with short biographical sketches of both authors, paying special attention to Wilde’s and Tolkien’s varied involvement with orthodox Catholicism. I then move into a discussion about both authors’ aesthetic philosophies and the similar value they see in art. Next, I detail the authors’ transubstantiation of matter into the divine and demonic. I then examine various poems, letters, and essays of both authors to determine how the Catholic sense of community informed their political outlooks. Finally, I examine the Catholic insistence on the value of suffering as it appears in the writings of these authors. This study reveals the extent to which the Catholic worldview affected the aesthetic quality of Tolkien’s and Wilde’s works, deepening our understanding of the interplay between religion and fantasy. While the critical conversation surrounding the commonalities between these hitherto incongruous authors is small, recent scholarship is beginning to note the striking connections between these two masters of fantastical literature.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

ORCID ID

0009-0004-0420-0883; https://orcid.org/0009-0004-0420-0883