Introduction - Extracts - Contents - Purchase
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy
We
received some preview details concerning the forthcoming book by Gregory
Bassham & Eric Bronson published by Open
Court Publishing Company. Below you will find a short introduction as
well as a contents list. Furthermore they have graciously provided us with
an essay from the book. If you ever wondered about the issues regarding immortality
or why Arwen chose death, then this is a must read article. Check it out below.
Thanks to James (aka Algamesh for sending this to us and to Professor Bassham for allowing us a quick peek)
Note we have increased the text size to make for easier reading :-)
What can the One Ring teach us about power and morality? Is Saruman a symbol of the modern technocrat? Should we fear or rejoice in our mortality? Will emerging technologies lead to a new Mordor? What can we learn from hobbits and elves about the secrets of enduring happiness and fulfillment?
If you think J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is just great escapist literature, think again! Tolkien’s fantasy epic is rich in philosophical ideas and insights, evoking fundamental philosophical questions that have fascinated humans for thousands of years.
In The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy, a Fellowship of young philosophers--many of whom contributed to the best-selling The Simpsons and Philosophy—explore the moral, philosophical, and spiritual underpinnings of Tolkien's invented world.
Here Tolkien fans can learn more about fairy-tales and Quests, moral growth and corruption, environmental stewardship and destruction, providence and free will, possessiveness and “letting go," the nature of evil, and the life of the philosophical wanderer.
The Road goes ever on and on—in philosophy as well as in tales of fantasy and adventure. In these pages you'll find words of wisdom that are "neither the webs of wizards, nor the haste of fools." So don your old weather-stained cloak and grab your favorite walking stick. The true Quest lies within!
Introduction - Extracts
- Contents - Purchase
Choosing to Die: The Gift of Mortality in Middle-earth
Introduction - Death in Middle-earth - Death on Planet Earth -
Immortality in Middle-earth - Immortality on Planet Earth - Why Arwen Chooses Death
Aragorn’s
love for Arwen makes the safety of Frodo and the Ring especially important
to him. He very nearly fails to guide Frodo and the Ring from Bree to the
safety of Elrond’s house. And had he failed, the price would have been
very great. In possession of the Ring, Sauron would have been unstoppable.
All the good in Middle-earth would have been destroyed. Aragorn would never
have been allowed to marry Arwen, Elrond’s daughter, and all his hopes
would have been dashed.
Arwen’s love for Aragorn, however, is even more complicated. The movie
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring shows the two of them discussing
their future during Aragorn’s stay at Rivendell. On a bridge in a lush
garden they speak tenderly of their commitment to each other. She asks if
he remembers her promise. He does, saying, “You said you’d bind
yourself to me, forsaking the immortal life of your people.” Her reply
is unwavering, “And to that I hold. I would rather share one lifetime
with you than face all the ages of this world alone. I choose a mortal life.”
She clearly loves him, but what does death have to do with her choice?
Aragorn’s love will send him on a long and dangerous road to protect
Frodo and the Ring. Arwen’s love demands even more. If he succeeds,
she will marry him and accept his fate as a mortal. How can Aragorn ask this
of Arwen? And why would Arwen choose to pay such a high price?
Questions like these can be answered on two levels that ultimately converge.
On the first level, we might look for answers that would make sense to Tolkien’s
characters inside his story. Tolkien’s world is rich and complex, and
explaining his characters’ choices is challenging. By the end of this
chapter I hope to show why Arwen doesn’t cling to immortality and why
Aragorn accepts death peacefully. Answers on the second level concern death
and immortality in our own lives. The choices made by Arwen and Aragorn raise
important questions about our own death and what will happen to us afterwards.
And thoughtful answers to these questions are all around us in popular culture
and in religious and philosophical writing. On the way to explaining Arwen’s
choice, I will consider some of these responses. Even though we cannot choose
to avoid death, we can learn to face it more thoughtfully by considering Tolkien’s
difficult suggestion that death can be a gift.
Although they are allies in the
struggle against Sauron’s efforts to dominate Middle-earth, elves and
men face very different fates. Like humans in the real world, Tolkien’s
men and hobbits are mortal. Whether from old age, sickness or injury, a time
comes when their bodies are no longer able to support life. And when their
bodies die, their souls leave Arda, the earth. Elves, on the other hand, face
a different fate. Elvish bodies can grow weary or be hurt so that they can’t
sustain life. But when they do, elvish souls remain “within the circles
of the world.” Men aren’t sure what will happen to them after
death. Elves know that no matter what happens to their bodies, their souls
will have an active place in the life of Arda.
Arwen must choose between these two fates because she is half-elven like her
father, Elrond. Half-elves are very rare, but they must choose whether they
will share the fate of men or the fate of elves. Arwen chooses to share Aragorn’s
fate, making her own death inevitable. The process of dying in Middle-earth
is no more pleasant than it is in our world. But even though it involves pain
and separation from loved ones, wise men and most elves refer to mortality
as a “gift” to men (RK, p. 378; S, p. 265; L, p. 285). Elves have
the “gift” of immortality, of lasting as long as the world endures.
Curiously, most elves and men wish they had the other race’s fate. Most
elves envy the ability to die, and most men envy elven deathlessness.
Two groups of mortals, however, do not envy the elves. The first group consists
of the Ringwraiths, the shadowy figures who chase Frodo to Rivendell. In the
first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, scenes flash of black horses being
unleashed, ridden by heavily cloaked shapes also in black. These Nine Riders
pursue Frodo and the Ring, nearly catching them in the Inn at Bree. Halfway
to Rivendell, five of the Riders attack Frodo among the ruins of Weathertop.
Frodo, terror-stricken, reaches for the Ring as they approach him; but when
he slips it on he sees them for what they are, emaciated old men wearing crowns.
These Black Riders are the Nazgûl, or Ringwraiths, the undead human
kings that accepted the nine Rings of Power and became Sauron’s slaves.
When Frodo puts on the Ring, it is as if he enters another reality. But the
reality of the undead Ringwraiths had been there all the time. Putting on
the Ring only made it visible to Frodo. The Ringwraiths are horrific because
they are undead: they are not dead, and for them not dying is a curse. The
kings who accepted the rings from Sauron are men. Because their lust for power
led the Nine to join with Sauron, their existence continues past the time
when they should have received the gift of death. They are thus the “undead,”
specters who should be dead, but who are held in existence by the cruel will
of their master, Sauron, and an undying lust for the Ring. They pursue Frodo
because he possesses the Ring; and their existence is consumed completely
by the desire to get it. At the Ford of Bruinen a watery torrent of horses
washes away the horses they are riding, but the Nine are not drowned. The
horses are lost, but the undead cannot die, and that is part of their punishment
for their greed.
In his treatment of the Ringwraiths, Tolkien assumes that existence isn’t
always better than non-existence. While we are tempted to think that living
is always better than dying, Tolkien follows the philosopher Aristotle in
thinking that only natural existence is a good thing. Continuing to exist
in any other way—any unnatural way—is worse than death. Like every
natural thing, Ringwraiths have a nature, a way that they are supposed to
be. Even though the Ring dominates them, they are still by nature men. The
way a thing is supposed to be—its nature—determines not only the
limits of what it can do, but also how it finds fulfillment. A flower finds
its fulfillment in blossoming and providing the seeds for reproducing itself.
A beaver dams a river, builds a lodge, and mates. Men by nature develop civilizations
and reproduce; and they die when their time is spent.
When any natural thing is prevented from fulfilling its natural purpose, it
is frustrated. If it is conscious, it feels this failure and knows it is incomplete.
A beaver prevented from building and mating would languish, aware that something
was missing. Similarly, for the Ringwraiths, unending existence is a fate
worse than death; it involves the perpetual pain of having their natures frustrated.
A second group of mortals who do not envy elven deathlessness includes noble
men like Aragorn and faithful hobbits like Frodo. They are somehow able to
embrace death without despair. As a reward for his heroism and suffering,
Frodo is permitted to cross the Sea to the Undying Lands. In this land of
peace and deathlessness Frodo recovers from his wounds and sadness. But he
doesn’t remain in Aman forever. Eventually he chooses to give up his
life and pass beyond the circles of this world (L, p. 328). After defeating
Sauron and reigning as King, Aragorn also accepts death freely (RK, p. 378).
So, eventually, does Arwen. Aragorn, Frodo and Arwen all reap the “gift”
of being able to leave Arda when their years are full.
It isn’t hard to see why the Ringwraiths would welcome death as a release
from endless torment. But it is harder to understand why both the men and
elves of Middle-earth would call death a “gift.” Most elves expect
that when men die their souls will be annihilated, ceasing to exist altogether.
Why then would elves envy the ability to die? Elves admit that men have the
“gift” of not being bound to the circles of this world, but they
don’t distinguish between two very different ways this might be true.
An example might help to illustrate the difference.
Suppose an ingenious police officer has put you and a friend under house arrest
in two different houses. Both of the houses are full of things to do, but
if your friend ever attempts to leave, the doors will either be locked or
will lead back into some other part of the same house. Your friend has the
fate of the elves: lots to do, but no way to leave. If instead you had the
fate of men, before long you would be required to leave the house/prison.
Some of the doors would open and lead somewhere other than another part of
your house. In this situation, your friend might well say that you have the
“gift” or “privilege” of being able to leave.
But is this gift a blessing? If at least one of the doors leads away from
the house to somewhere else with things worth doing, then it is a blessing
to be able to leave. In this case being able to leave the confines of the
house—or the circle of the world—is good. But what if every open
door leads to unending pitch-black nothingness, or off the edge of an enormous
cliff onto jagged rocks? In that case is it a blessing to be able to leave?
Feeling trapped in a world with no escape, elves envy even the possibility
of annihilation. In uncertainty and despair, most men in Middle-earth fear
that their fate is the enormous cliff (annihilation). Concerning our own uncertainty
about death, philosophers have had a lot to say.
Because we share with Tolkien’s men and hobbits the “gift”
of death, we don’t find it difficult to understand their fears about
death and what comes after it. Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to
be” speech deals with the problem directly: death is “the undiscovered
country.” It may be sleep; it may bring fantastic dreams; or it may
bring hellish torment. For Hamlet, not knowing what comes next is a good reason
to avoid death. Classical literature like Dante’s Inferno, cartoons
like The Far Side, and even television commercials depict hell as a fiery
land of personalized torment. Similar sources depict heaven as a happy place—angels
lounging on clouds, winged saints with harps and no cares—but one that
might be a bit boring. The standard story is that after death souls continue
to live, but that their quality of life depends upon whether they were good
or evil while on earth. We are fascinated by the afterlife because of the
great difference between torment and bliss. Uncertainty about what we’ll
find can make the subject frightening. It also makes the topic attractive
to philosophers.
The most common conclusion among philosophers is that we shouldn’t be
afraid of death. Their reasons differ, but the earliest Western argument against
fearing death is probably the most famous. In 399 B.C., Plato’s mentor,
Socrates, was convicted of a variety of crimes. The jury that had convicted
him then had to decide whether to have him executed (as the prosecution wanted)
or to impose whatever Socrates offered as a suitable punishment. The jury
expected Socrates to propose exile instead of death, but he surprised them.
At first he asked to be treated as a town hero with the right to free meals
for life, but finally he proposed a small fine. In his Apology, Plato records
Socrates’s reasons for taking such a bold step. Refusing to be ruled
by fear of what he didn’t know, he was confident that after death he
would be better off. He may sleep forever. Or he may end up talking to heroes
who have already died. Neither prospect scared him enough to make him beg
the jury for a lesser punishment than execution. He reasoned his way to accepting
death calmly.
Socrates is famous for accepting death “philosophically,” meaning
that he based his actions on a reasoned argument rather than on his emotions.
For over two thousand years intellectuals have pointed to Socrates as a shining
example of a philosophical approach to death. But part of Socrates’s
reason for accepting death was his confidence that his soul would continue
to exist afterwards. He believed that his soul was immortal.
Not everyone expects death to be followed by a conscious afterlife. Some philosophers
have warned that it is possible that after death we will simply cease to exist
altogether. Like many elves in Tolkien’s world, these philosophers insist
that human death won’t be a transition; it will be the very end. But
many of the same philosophers who expect annihilation refuse to fear death.
In his book, On the Nature of Things, the Epicurean philosopher Lucretius
argued that only the superstitious fear death. He was convinced that we are
only our bodies and that we cease to exist completely when our bodies die.
While this might seem to be a depressing conclusion, he insisted that we should
find it liberating. The process of dying may be unpleasant, but being dead
isn’t scary, because once we’re dead we won’t experience
anything at all. For Lucretius this is good news. It means that we can stop
wasting time trying to please priests or saying useless prayers.
Lucretius is not alone in thinking that impending annihilation can be liberating.
Existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus want us to see that
the inevitability of death can be helpful. Because we know that we are going
to die soon, we are not tempted to take this life for granted. Our impending
death keeps us from forgetting that this life is all there is, and that we
have only a short time to live as richly and meaningfully as we can. It takes
great courage to live with full knowledge that this is all there is, but death
keeps us from thinking that we have forever to get it right. For Sartre and
Camus, dying itself isn’t a blessing, but unflinching awareness that
we will die is a great advantage.
While many philosophers wrestle with the possibility of their own annihilation,
the elves of Middle-earth face the prospect of unending consciousness. Unlike
the Ringwraiths who persist without bodies of their own, elves always have
bodies. Even if their bodies die, their souls do not long remain disembodied;
they get new bodies, and even recover all their past memories (L, p. 286).
The most common afterlife fate depicted in Tolkien’s story is reincarnation
(L, p. 189). The clearest and most spectacular example of reincarnation in
The Lord of the Rings is Gandalf’s return. Passing through the Mines
of Moria, Gandalf enables the other eight members of the Fellowship to escape
by standing alone against the Balrog. He prevents the black menace from passing
the bridge, but Gandalf is dragged into the abyss by a last desperate stroke
from the Balrog’s whip. As far as anyone can tell at the time, the wizard
plummets to his death (FR, p. 371).
It is a crushing blow to the company, and their hopes steadily fade until
a changed Gandalf reveals himself to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli as they search
for Pippin and Merry. The story that Gandalf tells of his long fall into the
pit, his struggle with the Balrog and eventual return is vague, hinting at
both death and victory. But as Tolkien makes clear in his letters, Gandalf
the Grey did die, was given a new body, and was returned by Ilúvatar
to Middle-earth as Gandalf the White (L, pp. 201–03).
In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, reincarnation always involves getting a body
of the same kind as the one lost. Elves that die in battle or from mishap
in Middle-earth are reincarnated as elves in the Blessed Realm. Gandalf returns
as a wizard. He is wiser and more powerful, but that is the result of the
growth of his soul. Gandalf the White doesn’t have the same body as
Gandalf the Grey. If he had, his return would have been a case of resurrection
rather than reincarnation.
But if elves can be sure that death will lead to getting another body, why
would the elves envy the ability men have to die? Even the elves in the Blessed
Realm are jealous of the human ability to die and leave altogether. Why? What
could be missing? One possible explanation is that these elves find unending
delight boring. Even a good thing over and over without end can become dull.
The idea that such a paradise might be undesirable has contributed to philosophical
discussions about the possibility of human immortality.
Only a minority of philosophers today believes in personal immortality. Before
the last century, however, many philosophers expected that their souls would
continue after their bodies died. Usually this expectation arises from a religious
conviction. Socrates’ belief that his soul would live after his body
had died probably rested on a version of a Pythagorean mystery religion. A
number of Eastern philosophical traditions are based on either Hindu or Buddhist
religious commitments. These philosophers expect that we will be reincarnated,
a fate very similar to that of Tolkien’s elves. Human souls, they say,
are clothed in bodies made of flesh. When the body dies, the soul is given
a new body as its house or covering. Some hold that every living thing is
a soul, and at the death of any particular body the soul transmigrates (moves)
into another body. In these traditions it is usual to think that the kind
of body the soul gets next depends upon the actions of the soul in its previous
life. Souls of humans may be reincarnated as lesser beasts if they live wicked
lives as humans.
Religious and philosophical schools that believe in reincarnation are most
common in Eastern cultures. Christian and some Jewish philosophical systems
also hold that humans are immortal. But instead of expecting reincarnation,
these traditions look forward to resurrection in the afterlife. Unlike reincarnated
souls, a resurrected soul gets the very same body back, but with all its diseases
and weaknesses removed. Just how this works is ultimately mysterious, involving
a miracle that God performs to reunite soul and body. For Christians, the
mysteriousness of how resurrection could happen is usually overwhelmed by
the wonder of knowing that it has happened. Jesus Christ was executed on a
cross, his body was sealed in a tomb, and on the third day he rose from the
dead. His body was the same body—the holes left from having nails driven
through his hands were still there—but it was a glorified body, beyond
pain, disease, and death. As a Roman Catholic, Tolkien himself believed this
about Jesus, but none of his characters in Middle-earth experience resurrection.
Philosophical attention to the afterlife reached its high point in the Middle
Ages. Christian philosophers such as Augustine, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas
wrote extensively about the nature of the soul, its connection to the body,
and reasons for thinking that the soul is immortal. Many of these arguments
continue lines of reasoning found in the ancient Greek philosophers Plato
and Aristotle. Similarly detailed discussions of the soul’s immortality
and resurrection can be found in the works of Jewish and Muslim philosophers,
such as Maimonides and Al-Ghazali. And philosophical defenses of resurrection
are not limited to the Middle Ages. Peter van Inwagen and Trenton Merricks
are two leading philosophers today who argue that humans will be resurrected
after they die. In all of these discussions immortality is depicted as one
of eventual and unending bliss. Some believe that purgatory lies between death
and the heavenly paradise. But just as with Tolkien’s character Niggle
(in “Leaf by Niggle”), perfect happiness is the final condition.
Philosophical confidence about human immortality, though, has been under attack
in recent years. And religious pictures of heaven have been subjected to special
scrutiny. Many philosophers still argue that annihilation is all we can expect
after death. Others insist that stories about heaven are just fantasies used
by powerful priests to trick gullible people into obedience. Still other philosophers
contend that even if there were a heaven of endless delight, it wouldn’t
be a blessing to go there. Tolkien’s elves in the Blessed Realm grow
weary of unending life. Why not think that the same would be true in the heaven
expected by many Muslims, Jews, and Christians?
Philosophers who doubt the existence of heaven have drawn attention to this
difficulty. In Greek mythology Sisyphus is cursed in the Underworld with the
task of endlessly rolling a rock to the top of a hill, only to see it immediately
roll back to the bottom. Albert Camus focuses on the hideousness of this fate
in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” Not only must Sisyphus struggle
to raise the rock each time, but his punishment is made infinitely worse by
his awareness that it is all pointless. Every time he walks down the hill
to start again, Sisyphus has time to think about the futility of his existence.
Heaven isn’t supposed to have the painful labor of pushing a rock, but
why not think that it would be nearly as undesirable as Sisyphus’s fate:
endless, pointless, and boring?
The awful tediousness of unending existence has also been a significant theme
in recent popular works. Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged of Douglas Adams’s
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series finds himself sorry that he
is deathless precisely because it is boring. With nothing meaningful to do
and absolutely forever to do it in, he decides to insult everyone in the universe
one at a time, in alphabetical order. Here again, deathlessness looks a lot
more like a curse than it does a blessing. Similar stories of boring immortality
can be found in the Star Trek series and in the LucasArts video game The Dig.
Not everyone, though, is convinced that endless existence must be painfully
dull. Heaven has its philosophical defenders, going back at least to Boethius
(c. 480–525 A.D.). Facing his own execution, Boethius confidently looks
ahead to life after the death of his body. He expects that his heavenly afterlife
won’t be boring because heaven is beyond time. His afterlife won’t
be an endless series of dull or pointless moments. Rather, it will be a completely
full existence where time has no meaning. More recent defenses of heaven have
compared it to the embrace of lovers—where time seems to stand still—or
to the delight children take in doing the same thing over and over.
Boethius’s solution wouldn’t apply to the elves of the Blessed
Realm. Their existence is certainly time-bound. But while a heaven beyond
time avoids the boredom problem, it doesn’t make heaven all that attractive.
We have no way of picturing ourselves as existing outside of time, so we have
no way of thinking about being in heaven at all. The time-stands-still embrace
solution and the child-like delight solution could apply to Tolkien’s
elves and might apply to us. But both of these approaches look more like short-term
evasions than solutions. Eventually the embrace must end; and even children
who are easy to please get tired of the most interesting toys.
At this point it is tempting to conclude that Tolkien calls death a “gift”
simply because it releases men from the wearying tedium of endless existence.
But it is unlikely that Tolkien intends for us to draw this conclusion about
death. Apart from his insistence that the story wasn’t written as an
allegory of any kind, The Lord of the Rings is part of a larger history that
is purposely written from an elvish point of view (L, p. 147). What elves
would value dominates the way the story is told. Release from the burden of
endless existence is a source of eager interest because it is something the
elves cannot have. The fact that they cannot leave the circles of the world
makes them emphasize that life can be wearying, futile and boring. The best
existence elves can hope for (the Blessed Realm) is one where work is rewarded
and pain is rare, but it is still a finite world. Because it is finite, it
is possible for them to know all there is to know about it. For the elves,
immortality is simply living as long as this finite world of limited goods
endures.
Unlike the elvish “immortality” of deathlessness in a finite world,
the Christian heaven that Tolkien looked forward to is an endless afterlife
of fellowship with a limitless good. The most blessed of the elves would at
some point run out of things to learn about the circles of this world. For
theists, on the other hand, heaven involves getting to know God—an infinite
good—better and better. The blessed in this kind of afterlife cannot
exhaust all that can be known about God. Elvish immortality has to be repetitive
eventually, but the immortality Tolkien expected can’t be. It will always
be possible to learn more about God. And since Tolkien believed that what
might be learned about God is always amazingly good, it will never be boring.
But even if heaven won’t be boring, Arwen’s choice still needs
explaining. Although they call death the “gift” of men, elves
do not expect that dead men will enjoy an afterlife where delight increases
forever. And while wise elves simply admit that no one is sure what happens
when men die, most elves believe that dead men cease to exist. Wise men do
not know any more than the wise elves. And most men fear that the common expectation
of annihilation is true. Arwen and Aragorn, however, are not common. They
are uncommonly wise, and they love uncommonly deeply. Arwen’s choice
of Aragorn, and their willing acceptance of death, can both be explained by
focusing on their wisdom and their love.
In her choice of Aragorn and his fate, Arwen prefers a finite life of deep
love to an unending life without that love. In order to marry Aragorn and
enjoy that relationship, she would have to take on his mortal nature. It wasn’t
possible to have the great joy of his love and be deathless. Had she chosen
elvish immortality instead, endless life without love would not give as much
joy as sharing a brief life with Aragorn. Arwen does not choose death for
its own sake. She chooses life with Aragorn for its own sake and accepts eventual
death as a price she is willing to pay to get it.
But that was not her only choice. In the end, like Aragorn and Frodo, she
also chooses to accept death before it is forced upon her. Although Arwen,
Aragorn, and Frodo know very little about what comes after death, they know
two crucial things. First, they know that those with the “gift”
do not remain within the circles of this world. Second, they know that death
is a gift from Ilúvatar, the creator-God of Tolkien’s world.
They are Ilúvatar’s children, special objects of a love more
profound than the love between Aragorn and Arwen. In the end they accept death
both because it releases them and because they expect that what comes next
will also be a blessing.
What kind of blessing it will be hasn’t been revealed. The oldest among
the elves look forward to a “last battle” and the destruction
of this world. But their stories don’t end there. They go on to tell
of this world being “remade” without the presence of evil. The
souls of the elves (and in some stories the souls of men) return to this world
and enjoy unending bliss. The origin of these stories is unclear, but they
are consistent with what they know about their creator’s love for them.
Aragorn’s last words to Arwen before he gives up his life speak of this
hope: “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! We are not
bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.
Farewell!” (RK, p. 378) Death delivers them from the pains and frustrations
of life in this world. And as beloved children of their creator, Arwen, Aragorn,
and Frodo look forward to an even better life in a world remade. We should
be so blessed.
Introduction - Extracts - Contents - Purchase
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All
AcknowledgementsAbbreviations
Introduction: The Wisdom of Middle-earth
Part I: The Ring1. The Rings of Tolkien and Plato: Lessons in Power, Choice, and Morality
ERIC KATZ2. The Cracks of Doom: The Threat of Emerging Technologies and Tolkien's Rings of Power
THEODORE SCHICK3. "My Precious:" Tolkien's Fetishized Ring
ALISON MILBANK
Part II: The Quest for Happiness4. Tolkien’s Six Keys to Happiness
GREGORY BASSHAM5. The Quests of Sam and Gollum for the Happy Life
JORGE J. E. GRACIA6. "Farewell to Lórien:" The Bounded Joy of Existentialists and Elves
ERIC BRONSON
Part III: Good and Evil in Middle-earth7. Überhobbits: Tolkien, Nietzsche, and the Will to Power
DOUGLAS K. BLOUNT8. Tolkien and the Nature of Evil
SCOTT A. DAVISON9. Virtue and Vice in The Lord of the Rings
AEON J. SKOBLE
Part IV: Time and Mortality10. Choosing to Die: The Gift of Mortality in Middle-earth
BILL DAVIS11. Tolkien, Modernism, and the Importance of Tradition
JOE KRAUS12. Tolkien's Green Time: Environmental Themes in The Lord of the Rings
ANDREW LIGHT
Part V: Ends and Endings13. Providence and the Dramatic Unity of The Lord of the Rings
THOMAS HIBBS14. Talking Trees and Walking Mountains: Buddhist and Taoist Themes in The Lord of the Rings
JENNIFER L. MCMAHON and B. STEVE CSAKI15. Sam and Frodo’s Excellent Adventure: Tolkien’s Journey Motif
J. LENORE WRIGHT16. Happy Endings and Religious Hope: The Lord of the Rings as an Epic Fairy Tale
JOHN J. DAVENPORTThe Fellowship of the Book
The Wisdom of the Philosophers
The Wizard’s Index
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Introduction - Extracts - Contents - Purchase