ENG 446: Fiction of Lewis & Tolkien

In C. S. Lewis and the Middle Ages, medievalist Robert Boenig explores Lewis's personal and professional engagement with medieval literature and culture and argues convincingly that medieval modes of creativity had a profound impact on Lewis's imaginative fiction. Using Lewis's private correspondence, scholarly books and articles, and creative writing, Boenig charts Lewis's involvement with all things medieval, demonstrating the importance of the Middle Ages in any assessment of Lewis's literary achievements.

In Interrupted Music Flieger attempts to illuminate the structure of Tolkien's work, allowing the reader to appreciate its broad, overarching design and its careful, painstaking construction. In addition, Flieger reviews attempts at mythmaking in the history of English literature by Spenser, Milton, and Blake as well as by Joyce and Yeats. She reflects on the important differences between Tolkien and his predecessors and even more between Tolkien and his contemporaries.

In 1962, The Christian Century published C. S. Lewis's answer to the question, "What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?" Lewis responded with ten titles, ranging from Virgil's Aeneid to James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson and from George Herbert's The Temple to Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy. C. S. Lewis's List brings together experts on each of the ten books to discuss their significance for Lewis's life and work, illuminating his own writing through those he most admired.

Includes relevant chapter: "The Northern Nobility: Tolkien and Beowulf"

Includes two relevant chapters: "Rhetoric, Doctrine, and the Ethics of Language : C.S. Lewis on Paradise Lost" and "C.S. Lewis as Medievalist"

J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth explains the religious symbolism and significance of Tolkien's Middle-earth stories and situation of Tolkien within the Christian humanist tradition represented by Thomas More and T.S. Eliot, Dante and C.S. Lewis.

Shadows and Chivalry studies the influence of George MacDonald, a nineteenth-century Scottish novelist and fantasy writer, upon one of the most influential writers of modern times, C. S. Lewis. This study attempts to trace the overall effect of MacDonald's work on Lewis's thought and imagination.

This book corrects a striking imbalance in Tolkien scholarship by placing his works within a larger literary context. The volume ranges over the entire history of English literature, including oral narrative tradition, Anglo-Saxon poetry, medieval romance, Renaissance poetics, 19th-century adventure stories, modern art, and contemporary fantasy. Each chapter is written by an expert contributor who demonstrates Tolkien's relation to an earlier literary movement and examines the literary resonances of his works.