Lord of the Rings

Explorations of Tolkien's latent theology abound, but very little focused scholarship proposes to discuss how Tolkien's legendari-um portrays an understanding of the Holy Spirit, especially in light of Tolkien's Roman Catholicism. This essay explores three major features of Tolkien's work that provide insight into this ghostly person of the Trinity. The Silmarillion provides detailed insight as to the exact identity of the " Flame Imperishable, " while its characters demonstrate the indwelling of this Flame. St. Paul explains the gifts of the Holy Spirit in his first letter to the Corinthians and Tolkien seems to mimic many of these gifts in the characters of the nine members of the Fellowship. Lastly, the Great Eagles represent the workings of the Holy Spirit, both as servants of Manwë and as agents of eucatastrophe.

Within the framework of fantasy literature, aspects of magic may take on the garb of science and serve as functional explanations of the principles and laws by which the world is governed. This raises the question of how knowledge about the world and its natural laws is acquired, used, transmitted or hidden. Knowledge, of course, is inevitably connected with language, and the basically creationist origin of Tolkien’s world indicates the existence of a true language with a non-arbitrary form of signification, the knowledge of which equals the knowledge of the world and its underlying principles. The quest for true knowledge then turns into a kind of archaeological endeavour, piecing together the fragments of ancient language and lore, while the search for new knowledge is inevitably destructive and thus linked to evil. This presentation of knowledge unquestionably adds to the internal coherence of the texts, but undermines all claims that Tolkien’s work might offer useful solutions to pressing modern problems, as the premises of his fictional world and ours are ultimately irreconcilable.

This paper examines the possibilities of cultural identity construction in connection with Howard Shore's soundrack to the Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson. By applying Philip Taggs musematic analysis as an analytical tool (as proposed by Mathew Young) it examines notions of Celticness. At the same time it challenges simple attributions by comparing the music with other musical examples typically connected with Englishness and Tolkien's textual source as well as the writer's own intentions regarding his novel.

Throughout the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy written by J.R.R. Tolkein, the reader is tossed back and forth between the company of two hobbits and their fellowship with a wizard, a man, an elf, and a dwarf. While the fellowship is composed of various characters of noble statures who all make moral choices, Samwise Gamgee seems to take on one of the most interesting roles in the narrative. From the very beginning, he is shown as a sidekick character, devout follower, and the best example of what a “Hobbit” should be. But throughout the books, he shows that he is more than just this sidekick. He makes tough decisions during his quest with Frodo Baggins (soon joined by Gollum), and these ultimately affect the outcome of their quest. It is his love, devotion, hope, and loyalty to Frodo that helps get the little company to Mt. Doom to ultimately destroy the ring. All of these traits are extensively exemplified throughout the Bible as basic teachings and moral understandings, and Sam showcases these actions and feelings in a beautiful sense.

The purpose of this research is to show the changing face of cultural participation in hidden sub-cultures of the West. Through repackaging social partnership to adapt to post-modern realities, Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Gamers establish community, identity, and social mobilization through tabletop wargaming. This research is a call for anthropologists to expand their presence on social media as a means of understanding shifting images of culture. It is also a call for Christian participation in all segments of society.

The days of the classical heroes are over, as the days of Romance or Chivalric Romance and Epic that depict the hero in quest of the ideal are. A typical Romance situates the hero in a succession of challenges, each of which is overcome by him, who finally defeats the dark, evil force and brings peace and order to his community, thus offering to it the opportunity of living in a system defined by the norms of universal morality and enlightenment. The hero becomes a model of universal justice and stability, and he towers above all of his fellow men as a symbol of perfection and endurance of will against the powers of darkness. This plot of one-man challenge and task has been much fruitful in the creation of the stories of the pre-Christian times, the times of the foundation and expansion of Christianity, and the Medieval Age. During these eras such legendary figures as Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, Jesus Christ, and King Arthur of England have emerged as representative perfect super heroes and as universal and absolute role models. Known as monomyths, such stories have shown parallelism regarding the character and plot structure, all yielding similarities as dictated by Romance; this is mostly obvious through the continuous clash of good and evil. The clash creates a sustained tension in the reader whose moral understanding and conscience are kept busy in wondering whether the hero will lose the battle of righteousness or win it, announcing that human dignity has once again been victorious over evil forces. As suggested above, the days of such heroes are over, together with their references to super human qualities which have long been referred to as universal symbols that stand for ideal models for humanity. Such symbols, signifiers, refer to a sign both in

All our merely natural activities will be accepted, if they are offered to God, even the humblest: and all of them, even the noblest, will be sinful if they are not.  Christianity does not simply replace our natural life and substitute a new one:  it is rather a new organization which exploits, to its own supernatural ends, these natural materials.’  (Lewis) Tolkien, in his Lord of the Rings trilogy orients the natural towards an ambiguous supernatural culmination.

This paper examines Peter Jackson's re-visioning of J.R.R. Tolkien's Aragorn, using as its departure point Lawrence and Jewett's analysis of the distinguishing features of the American superhero monomyth in The Myth of the American Superhero, and contrasting it with the view of Tolkien's future king as the epic hero set forth in Flieger's classic article "Frodo and Aragorn: The concept of the hero."

The phenomenon of The Lord of the Rings began to be popular in 2002, mainly for its movie version, directed by Peter Jackson. Behind the success, however; is the master of writing, J.R.R Tolkien, who wrote this epic fantasy in 1954. He created the world so monumental, that it can be compared to the epic of Homer´s Iliad and Odyssey with its own mythology and history. It is a separated universe that has its own theology, myths and geography, it is full of mystical creatures, different races, many languages and dynamical creatures. In one of his essays, On the Fairy-Stories, Tolkien stated: “From my childhood, the misery of my own lovely country had always worried me, it didn’t have any fables, not of the quality, which I saw in the legend of other countries. There were the Greek, Celtic, Roman, Finnish, Scandinavian but not the English ones.” In his later writings he extended his words: “Once I had the intention to put together a work with the connected fables, from the cosmological ones to the fairy-tale stories, which I could dedicated to England, my country.” (Tolkien according to Day 1995: 5).  We can assume that The Lord of the Rings is an integral work and it is rich for the symbols that can be interpreted from the religious perspective. In this essay I would like to focus on the character of Gandalf and how he can be viewed from the point of Christianity.

BOOKS Alice in Transmedia Wonderland. Curiouser and Curio ser New Forms of a Children’s Classic. Jefferson: McFarland, 2016. (forthcoming) Body-Texts in the Novels of Angela Carter. Writing from a Corporeagraphic Point of View . Lewiston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2008. ( pp. 372, ISBN10: 0-7734-48926 ISBN13: 978-0-7734-4892-6) EDITORIAL WORK 5. Co-editor of EJES special journal issue Feminist Interventions in Intermedial Studies (forthcoming in 2017) with Dr Catriona McAra 4. Exploring the Cultural History of Continental Europ ean Freak Shows and Enfreakment. Eds. Anna Kérchy and Andrea Zittlau. Newcastle Upon Ty e: Cambridge Scholars Press. 2012. (Isbn13: 978-1-4438-4134-4 Isbn: 1-443 8-4134-X) 3. Postmodern Reinterpretations of Fairy Tales: How Ap plying New Methods Generates New Meanings. Ed. Anna Kérchy. Lewiston, Lampeter: The Edwin Me llen Press, 2011. (pp. 520, ISBN10: 0-7734-1519-X ISBN13: 978-0-7734-151 9-5) 2. The Iconology of Law and Order . Legal and Cosmic . (P...

From Winston Black in The Medieval Review 15.06.24...

'In the concluding essay, "The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination," Lila Yawn clearly takes the most chances and has the most fun in exploring the topic of medieval wounds and wounding. After a review of graphic and supposedly "medieval" dismemberments in modern movies and literature, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, or Pulp Fiction, Yawn poses the simple question of "how medieval cutting up living bodies really was" (218). In response, she gives a whirlwind tour of nearly two millennia of images and descriptions of amputation, dismemberment, fragmentation, and mutilation from Cicero to Thomas Jefferson. In so doing she demonstrates, as many medieval apologists have already noted, that there is no greater amount or degree of dismemberment in the Middle Ages than before or after, but what leads moderns to equate "medieval" with "dismemberment" is the medieval tendency to celebrate dismemberment and put severed body parts on display, be they of the criminal or of the saint.'

The Medieval Review 15.06.24
Kirkham, Anne, and Cordelia Warr, eds. Wounds in the Middle Ages. The History of Medicine in Context. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. pp. xvi, 254. $124.95 (hardback). ISBN: 9781409465690 (hardback).
Reviewed by: Winston Black, Assumption College. black@assumption.edu
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/19219/25339

It is uncommon for a popular work of art to take roots in an academic context. Many popular novels and films, possibly the two most common mediums of art we encounter nowadays, are written by talented creative writers and aim to achieve a high level of realism to help the reader connect with the work. An exception to this came to popularity nearly sixty years ago. J.R.R. Tolkien, then an Anglo-Saxon professor in the University of Oxford, published his second novel, titled The Lord of the Rings, in 1954. It is while being a full-time professor that Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings, an uncommon fact for the third best-selling novel ever written at more than 150 million copies sold. Reading The Lord of the Rings, however, it is clear that the academic context in which the novel was written contributed greatly to the complexity, depth and aesthetic prowess of the novel. Tolkien being an expert in Anglo-Saxon, nearly all of the names employed in the novel share Old English roots. Moreover, perhaps the greatest and best-known work written in Old English was the heroic epic poem Beowulf. Tolkien is often said to ''have helped to rescue the poem for posterity'' 1 by not only writing one of his most important essays on the subject, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, but by basing a lot of The Lord of the Rings on the Anglo-Saxon poem. It is clear then that Old English has had an enormous influence on the novel and greatly provided its verses with an injection of timeless beauty and grace.

Tolkien is not always given due credit for his deep familiarity with Arthurian romances. Yet, in the 1920s, he co-edited and translated the Middle English romantic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Tolkien and Gordon 1925). Around 1930, he tried his own hand at romantic poetry in the incomplete and only recently-published The Fall of Arthur (2013). And of course he taught the genre for many years at Oxford. More than this, however, Tolkien’s epic romance The Lord of the Rings is replete with Arthurian allusions, including (as Veryln Flieger has noted), ‘the withdrawal of a sword, a tutelary wizard, the emergence of a hidden king, [and] a ship departure to a myth-enshrined destination’. Such allusions make it clear that—even as he sought to supplant what he saw as the imperfectly- naturalized myth of Arthur with his own evolving ‘body of more or less connected legend’ dedicated ‘to England’— Tolkien’s great novel also carried on a deft dialogue between modern and premodern views of friendship, love, and romance. Thus, in the sad tale of the Ents and Entwives, Tolkien explored the tragedy of lost love: the ‘old trouble’ of ‘hearts [that] did not go on growing in the same way’. The rich medieval theme of frustrated love comes into his epic in the form of the ‘love triangle’ between Aragorn, Arwen, and Éowyn. Love in the form of mutual respect and sympathy are the focus of several key turning points in the narrative, as we see in the love between Frodo and Sam, Gimli and Galadriel, and Aragorn and Éomer. And the theme of love’s perversion, of ironic, cynical, and sarcastic references to love and to the birth of hate, emerge in several scenes where ‘love’ appears in the mouths of the orcs, and of Gollum. Throughout, Tolkien’s keen philological ear is much in evidence, not only in his careful usage of ‘love’ and its many derivations and inflections—e.g., loved, beloved, lovely, loveliness, lover, etc.— but also in his deliberate development of several nuanced Elvish roots for ‘love’, such as ban-, mel-, and -(n)dil.

A study of Catholic history, prophecies, mysticism and conspiracy theories that may have inspired elements of JRR Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings', in particular, the 'Great Monarch and Angelic Pontiff' prophecies.  100 page document featuring color illustrations.

Availaible as a free PDF file

Author Identification requires an analytical mindset, in order to be able to see past the words and the story and find the author’s fingerprint. This fingerprint is made up of so called characteristics of an author’s style. Each human has a different writing style, which is influenced by dialect and idiolect, language processing and metalinguistic awareness. It has been proven that syntactic punctuation is a valid characteristic because punctuation is often done subconsciously, whereas vocabulary can be “manipulated”.

Statistical and computational methods are used because these allow humans to spot aspects of writing that a human eye would miss. Statistics is a crucial part of making Author Identification scientifically credible. Author identification techniques, such as the Chi-Squared Technique, rely on a statistical fundament to show whether their results are in any way significant and also allow these techniques to be peer-reviewed. A clear example of this is the Cusum Technique. In developing this technique, Jill Farringdon has neglected the statistical basis, which means no significance threshold can be applied. It means you can corrupt your data in every way possible to make it show the result you would like to see, thereby decreasing this techniques credibility

Plato’s moral criticism was at the centre of literary criticism until the 19th century and even continued to be preferred in critical studies since then. Plato has been associated as a philosopher with his severe attack on art and poetry. However, he had put forth that a work of art could be non-objectionable if that work of art functioned to improve society’s values and promote proper modes behaviour.  J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, the Lord of the Rings, published fully first time in 1955 shows conformity with the norms that Plato had set for a work of art to be acceptable and with this trait, the trilogy appears to be a useful guide-book for one to follow to possess values accepted by the society and to promote proper modes of behaviour. This study will profoundly examine the values and behaviour models suggested by the actions of the characters and will evaluate the text according to principles set by Plato in his moral criticism.

Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, to the audience that loved the Lord of the Rings films, is an exciting opportunity to revisit Tolkien’s fantastic world and see favorite characters acting out their earlier adventures. The reader of the books, though, is often likely to find the difference in tone between the children’s book and the vastly expanded films jarring. This talk will explore audience expectations, the difficulties of filming a “prequel” after a “sequel,” and issues of “anticipation” in relation to character development. This paper will be published in the proceedings of the NYC Tolkien Conference, and I will be shortly adding a video from the Marquette Lecture Series when available.

From the soaring castles of Sleeping Beauty to the bloody battles of Game of Thrones, from Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings to mythical beasts in Dungeons & Dragons, and from Medieval Times to the Renaissance Faire, the Middle Ages have inspired artists, playwrights, filmmakers, gamers, and writers for centuries. Indeed, no other historical era has captured the imaginations of so many creators. This volume aims to uncover the many reasons why the Middle Ages have proven so flexible-and applicable-to a variety of modern moments from the eighteenth through the twenty-first century. These "medieval" worlds are often the perfect ground for exploring contemporary cultural concerns and anxieties, saying much more about the time and place in which they were created than they do about the actual conditions of the medieval period. With over 140 color illustrations, from sources ranging from thirteenth-century illuminated manuscripts to contemporary films and video games, and a preface by Game of Thrones costume designer Michele Clapton, The Fantasy of the Middle Ages will surprise and delight both enthusiasts and scholars.

This paper owes its central theme to Tolkien’s statement that “a primary ‘fact’ about my work [is] that it is all ... fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. ... The ‘stories’ were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse” and that “there is a great deal of linguistic matter (other than actually ‘elvish’ names and words) included or mythologically expressed in the book” (Letters 165). Scholarly reactions to these claims have been varied, with some taking them as indicating a general lack of seriousness in Tolkien’s work (Wilson 1956) and others preferring instead to explain them away (Isaacs 1968; Reilly 1968). More recent studies instead demonstrate how deeply Tolkien’s philology has influenced his fiction at all points (Flieger 1983, Ryan 1991, Shippey 1982). This paper builds on these studies by noting Tolkien’s interest in the Proto-Indo-European terms for ‘dawn,’ ‘east,’ and ‘star’, and their influence on his scholarly interpretation and fictional adaptation of the Old English theonym Éarendel. Tolkien’s etymological, esthetic, and mythopoeic considerations of this figure are found to be intertwined in complex and intriguing ways, shedding significant light on the origins of the Eldarin root √EL and its development into distinct terms for ‘behold!,’ ‘star,’ ‘elf,’ and ‘journey(er)’. Further, it will be shown that these philological considerations not only motivate the appearance of stars in The Lord of the Rings, but also emerge explicitly in dialogue, poetry, and song, and, not least, as important structural and compositional elements in several key scenes, such as the ‘chance meeting’ with Gildor near Woodhall, Sam’s vision of a ‘star of hope’ above the Ephel Dúath, and several characters’ inspired, glossolalic invocations of Elbereth in times of dire need.

The nation of course is not a desiring person but a fictive unity imposed on an aggregate of individuals, yet national histories are presented as if they displayed the continuity of the subject-writ-large." (Shohat and Stam 1994: 101) When writing The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien identified his invented histories of Middle-earth as being a lost mythology for England: and he specified "English" over "British," as Britain, in his view, had as its mythology the Celtic-infused Arthurian cycle, while England lacked the specificity of a myth cycle without the Celtic element (Curry 1997: 30). Tolkien's world presents a romanticized, wish-fulfillment view of a history of England that never truly existed. The inclusion of elves, dwarves, Hobbits and other non-human races in The Lord of the Rings removes it even further from a realistic portrait of history.

... 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor' (I.344), Gandalf shouts, blocking the path of the Balrog over the bridge of Khazad-dûm. ... He wanders with Lúthien, as Adam did with Eve, having reached a paradisal reconciliation and restoration. ...

In one of his many letters, Tolkien noted that Elvish was intended to be European in structure, and “specially pleasant”. Whilst the former can be achieved through the study of suitable languages, the likes of which would have been familiar to Tolkien, the latter is not predicated on a similar logic.Tolkien himself acknowledged the inherent ambiguity of his intentions having also stated that “individuals’ personal predilections, especially in the phonetic
structure of languages, varies widely” (letters: 175-76). So in the same way that Marc Okrand intended for Klingon to sound intrinsically extraterrestrial, it was Tolkien’s fundamental interest to make Elvish a beautiful language to speak and to hear. Therefore, despite the intent for creating Elvish being
incorrectly attributed to stories such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, it would appear that Tolkien’s ambition was one rooted purely for his own pleasure...

...But what motivated Tolkien to continue developing Elvish languages over the entirety of his career? How close do they resemble the languages he chose to study? Did he give the same importance to an Elvish orthography as he did the spoken word? These are questions that have intrigued the minds of linguists,
fans and academics alike for over fifty years. It is the intention of this paper to address such questions, with reference to the influences of the Elvish language, evidenced by appropriate phonemic theory.

Como fã das obras de J.R.R. Tolkien, me perguntava de onde vinha sua inspiração para suas criações, claro que o mesmo também se inspirou em eventos em sua própria vida, mas havia algo mais em seu universo fantástico que não provinha somente desses eventos, mas de sua paixão pela filologia, e em compreender histórias tão antigas quanto as suas, tiveram um impacto sem precedentes na vida do professor Tolkien, e é neste trabalho que desvendo o lado mítico nórdico como influência em seus trabalhos.

This paper explores a handful of Leitmotifs used within the Lord of the Rings trilogy, particularly focusing on the themes introduced within The Fellowship of the Ring. Contains an in-depth analysis of the motifs and points at which they're reiterated.

ВВЕДЕНИЕ

Автор цикла романов «Властелин колец» родился в Африке в 1892 году, жил в Великобритании, пережил Первую и Вторую мировые войны, работал профессором англосаксонского языка в Оксфордском университете. За свою жизнь автор увидел немало, выступал против научно-технического прогресса, который уничтожает окружающую среду [18]. Можно смело сказать, что события, очевидцем которых был автор, нашли отражение в его творчестве. К примеру, можно четко проследить схожесть сауроновской армии с фашистами, а объединение королевств Средиземья против общего врага антифашистским союзом европейских государств. Произведения Дж.Толкина имели и имеют большую актуальность. Цикл романов был начат еще в 1937 году, а издан – в 1954 году. То есть это подтверждает факт, что историко-социальный фон событий Второй мировой войны оставил четкий след в произведении.
Дж. Р .Р. Толкин как творец, писатель и филолог оставил заметный след не только в литературе Британии, но и всего мира. Он стал классиком двадцатого века и одним из основателей жанра фэнтези. Артуровский эпос до сих пор имеет сильное культурное влияние в Великобритании и далеко за ее пределами. Именно этот эпос стал одним из основных (наряду со скандинавским) в создании мира «Властелина колец».
Творчество Дж. Р. Р. Толкина вызывает интерес у исследователе й: как отечественных, так и зарубежных. В данной работе использованы материалы тех работ, которые наиболее близко касаются темы. Стоит отметить, что сам автор «Властелина колец» исследовал свое творчество, написав эссе «О волшебных сказках» [18]. М. А. Штейнман посвящает свое исследование «Игра с мифом в трилогии Дж. Р. Р. Толкина „Властелин Колец”» отражению различных эпосов в произведении автора [19]. С проблемой особенности течения времени в трилогии работает С. Л. Кошелев в исследовании «Жанровая природа "Повелителя колец" Дж. Р. Р. Толкина» [8]. С. С. Галиев в «Классификация жанра фэнтези. Произведения Дж. Р. Р. Толкина» [3] изучает фэнтези как жанр и особенности этого жанра в трилогии британского писателя.
Основным источником артуровского эпоса взят цикл романов Томаса Мелори «Смерть Артура».
Актуальность данной работы: В связи с экранизацией и книги, творчество Дж. Р. Р. Толкина исследуют разные ученые. Количество работ, посвященных «Властелину колец» постоянно растет. В них рассматривают жанр фэнтези, особенности мира произведений, мифотворчества, зла и добра и пр. В данной же работе узко исследована трансформация артуровского эпоса в цикле романов Дж. Р. Р. Толкина, которой ученые уделяют не так много внимания.
Цель данной работы: проследить трансформацию артуровского эпоса в цикле романов Дж. Р. Р. Толкина «Властелин колец»
Задачи исследования:
• определить особенности жанра фэнтези;
• выявить основные эпические источники, помимо артуровского эпоса, положенные в основу «Властелина колец»;
• установить общие черты в артуровском эпосе и произведении Дж. Р. Р. Толкина;
Объект исследования: цикл романов Дж. Р. Р. Толкина «Властелин колец».
Предмет исследования: трансформация артуровского эпоса в цикле романов Дж. Р. Р. Толкина «Властелин колец».
 

Artificial Culture is an examination of the articulation, construction, and representation of "the artificial" in contemporary popular cultural texts, especially science fiction films and novels. The book argues that today we live in an artificial culture due to the deep and inextricable relationship between people, our bodies, and technology at large. While the artificial is often imagined as outside of the natural order and thus also beyond the realm of humanity, paradoxically, artificial concepts are simultaneously produced and constructed by human ideas and labor. The artificial can thus act as a boundary point against which we as a culture can measure what it means to be human. Science fiction feature films and novels, and other related media, frequently and provocatively deploy ideas of the artificial in ways which the lines between people, our bodies, spaces and culture more broadly blur and, at times, dissolve.

Building on the rich foundational work on the figures of the cyborg and posthuman, this book situates the artificial in similar terms, but from a nevertheless distinctly different viewpoint. After examining ideas of the artificial as deployed in film, novels and other digital contexts, this study concludes that we are now part of an artificial culture entailing a matrix which, rather than separating minds and bodies, or humanity and the digital, reinforces the symbiotic connection between identities, bodies, and technologies.

The dramatic confrontation which ensues on the bridge of Khazad-dûm between Gandalf and the just-awakened Balrog not only constitutes one of the turning points in the War of the Ring, but it also provides a glimpse of what Tolkien may have envisioned as a Christian reinterpretation of the traditional model of Germanic heroism. The two notions are, of course, at a clearly detectable ethical variance, the former being fundamentally defined by the self-sacrificial dedication to the cause, the latter by the self-centred pursuit of transient glory. Seen in the light of medieval literature, the bridge episode might also be read as a conceptual reimagining of the roughly analogous situation in the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, where the far-too-confident ealdorman Byrhtnoth allows the enemy safe passage across the ford, thus placing himself and his people at a considerable strategic disadvantage. In The Lord of the Rings, the role of Byrhtnoth is obviously assigned (albeit inversely) to the character of Gandalf whose courageous efforts to protect his companions accentuate the wizard's sense of responsibility, upwards (the cause) as well as downwards (his companions).

The production of Khraniteli was a lot like a samizdat translation of early Tolkien fans, a bit rough and sloppy in some aspects; however, it is a work that stands out not for its technique or precision, but for its intention to open the doors of new worlds and forms of life. Perhaps here is the key, because it reflects the spirit of a Soviet Union that was about to disintegrate and give way to something else. Whether in our lives we are going through dangerous and unpredictable lands like Mordor or quiet and joyful places like The Shire, Khraniteli teach us that change is permanent, that there is no single way of doing things, and that the same story can be told in many different and unique ways if you are willing to try.

Life is war. The man who rebels from this maxim is a lunatic. That is, he is a postenlightenment, scientific naturalist, or someone of a like mind. 1 In his attempt to reduce the world to measures and machines, the modern maniac, according to Chesterton, divested the world of its grand drama. But the world cannot be divested of truth, and the modern man's reductionist theorems have rebounded, and man himself has received the reduction: nakedness of mind and a shamefully bare imagination. Chesterton observes:

This article seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the cultural inhabitation of imaginary worlds by examining the role that music and its consumption play in these processes. Focussing largely on Howard Shore's music for Peter Jackson's two film trilogies set in Tolkien's Middle-earth, the article relies on data found through web ethnography and a researcher-designed questionnaire targeted at fans of the franchise. Soundtrack consumption and listening practices are analysed to identify how and why this film music is listened to, as are the ways in which music enables a further sonic level of the inhabitation of Middle-earth. Placing Shore's music alongside other contributions to Tolkien's world poses questions of authority, authenticity and canon, finding that not every person's Middle-earth sounds the same. Results show that, for many, the world built by music functions as an imagined or spiritual home to which they are transported and which provides numerous personal and practical benefits.

The Lord of the Rings is a well-known trilogy of a British writer J. R. R. Tolkien, who dedicated his life in creating the fantasy world of Middle-earth. Later his trilogy has been adapted into movies by a New Zealander director Peter Jackson, who remains famous for his ability to portray the fantasy world of Middle-earth into movie screen with nearly the same amount of detail as found in the books. The world-wide appreciation of the movies followed by many awards including an Oscar for the Best Sound Editing and the Best Visual Effects were achieved with the help of a Canadian composer Howard Shore and an Australian cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, who did the best in portraying the breathtaking fantasy world of Middle-earth. It important to mention, that the movie trilogy has greatly influences tourism in New Zealand and pop-culture media. The second part of the trilogy, The Two Towers, which will be further analyzed, depicts graver and darker atmosphere compared to the first part: The Fellowship of the Ring, resulting in changes especially in lighting, mise-en-scene and sound.