Tolkien and Philosophy (20.06.14 by Pieter Collier) - Comments

Walking Tree Publishers are proud to announce a new publication, the 32nd of the Cormarë Series, Tolkien and Philosophy, edited by Roberto Arduini & Claudio A. Testi.

"Tolkien and Philosophy" is a theme that has not yet been studied with the "philological" accuracy and the textual knowledge that are required to avoid squeezing the Professor's works inside conceptual frameworks that, rather than exposing their intrinsic value, risk losing both their profound meaning and their inherent beauty.

What is the relationship between tolkien's work and Philosophy?

The question, if taken seriously, is by no means trivial. For these reasons we wish this book to become, in both method and content, an essential point of reference for anyone interested in better understanding the significant elements that sometimes link, sometimes divide, the "philologist" Tolkien from proper speculative philosophy.

If it is well known that Tolkien is essentially a philologist, in fact, it is also true that inside his works, both literary and philological, there are plenty of truly authentic philosophical themes to be found, such as Power, Evil, Death and Deathlessness, Paganism, Christianity, and the relationship of the latter to the former themes, Time and Memory, Technology and Nature, the origin of Myth and Language, and many more.

Moreover the authors of this book have read almost all books on the subject, and even as far as meetings and conventions are concerned, we can say that this book is the very first to be entirely dedicated to the theme of Tolkien and Philosophy.

The book is the result of the congress on Tolkien and Philosophy, held in Modena in May 2010, thanks the joined effort of Istituto Filosofico di Studi Tomistici and Associazione Romana di Studi Tolkieniani.

This book has the same level of quality that you can expect of all editions released by Walking Tree Publishers and as usual the cover illustration, "The Phial of Galadriel", is by Anke Eißmann. It is a very interesting read and together with the amazing bibliography the first source when it goes about Tolkien and Philosophy.

Table of contents

Roberto Arduini & Claudio A. Testi
Introduction

Franco Manni & Tom Shippey
Tolkien between Philosophy and Philology

Verlyn Flieger
Tolkien and the Philosophy of Language

Andrea Monda & Wu Ming 4
Tolkien the Catholic Philosopher?

Christopher Garbowski
tolkien's Philosophy and Theology of Death

Giampaolo Canzonieri
Tolkien at King Edward's School

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