I wanted to provide a quick update on the blog. Due to winter weather, my professor cancelled our Tolkien course for today. While I am not providing a summary of what took place in the class each week as part of this blog, I was hoping to attend class in order to better organize my thoughts regarding the readings, especially the ones we had to complete for this week. Our readings for today's class discussion were; On Fairy Stories, Leaf by Niggle, Mythopoeia, and 6 different scholarly journal articles on a variety of the readings.
While I could easily attempt to explain my thoughts and feelings on these works, I would rather wait until next Friday to do so. On Fairy Stories is an extremely dense work and takes a lot of critical thinking to help process and understand what it says. The poem, Mythopoeia, is my favorite of the readings for this week. It was like nothing I have ever read before, and I found myself captivated by it.
My favorite lines go as follows:
"The heart of man is not compound of lies,I highly recommend this poem to everyone, it doesn't take long to read and it is a beautiful piece.
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still reclass him. Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed."
--Mythopoeia by J.R.R Tolkien
That is all I have for today. I will add my discussion about the other readings next Friday, so stay tuned.
Until Friday.
XOXO,
Julia
I only read this once and that's long ago. It really sums up my views about how much fulfillment can be got from appreciating myth, and it works so long as you retain a sense of what's real. You haven't come to it yet, and it may be the age gap but "I sit beside the fire and think" hits me really hard now whereas it used be that way with "The Road goes ever on". Similarly, I get misty reading "The Wanderer" (anglo-saxon anon). As I said, its an Age Thing...
ReplyDeleteIan: we will be reading "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer" very soon. I believe they are on the schedule for next Friday now, along with Beowulf. (I have now read Beowulf multiple times, but I love it more each time I read it.) I am looking forward to reading these. =)
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