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Several of us had a side-conversation going on during class, so I figure I'd bring it to the fore here. My basic point: The dread Frodo feels is a self-preservation reaction to the self-sacrificial summons of Iluvatar/the Valar. Looking at the moments before Frodo volunteers to take the Ring...

Hello Professor! I was struck by Tolkien's continued avoidance of physical descriptions of characters, and I thought it felt familiar. Do you think it fair to say that Tolkien is describing "essential matters" of which physical appearance does not account for much? Here is what I mean... In...

Note 1: Professor, I apologize for the length, but I dutifully answered your question without skimping. Feel free to skip to "Answering the Professor" or the “take-away” section I provided at the end for quick reference. Note 2: Before reading the results at the bottom of this post (covered by...

A tangent from our class discussion, based off of Gandalf's line: "Still, we must keep us our courage." During class, our discussion touched upon Gandalf's use of "we" as indicative of his mission to inspire others to courage as well as identifying himself as one who will participate in the...

So, I'm not sure if there is any extravagant insight in this post, but it is a curiosity that I thought I'd share. So far Tolkien has used four onomatopoeic words to describe the sound of horses on the road: clip-clop (used twice), clippety-clip, clippety-clippety-clip, and clop-clop (used...

Does Tolkien differentiate between "lord" and "king" and any other titles for nobility? Reason I ask is that, way back in Chapter 2, Gandalf cites the Rings of Power verses and uses the terms "Elven-kings" and "Dwarf-lords." Then, on the next page, in regular conversation he switches to...

I apologize for the long post. If you read, I would appreciate feedback. I tried to break it up into sections. And yes, I know we've already asked this question in session 75 and received an answer in session 76. However, I am not satisfied with the "it all happened too quick" answer. (I hope...

Sorry to jump back (I've only just caught up with the class), but I wanted to spend a bit more time on this cryptic passage and hear some other opinions. The passage, briefly: "[Bombadil] chose for himself from the pile a brooch . . . He looked long at it, as if stirred by some memory, shaking...