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I believe the below, bolded and italicized, are all five uses of "quest." (Formatting/line breaks aren't entirely intact.) 24. And yet till All Hallows with Arthur he lingered, who furnished on that festival a feast for the knight with much royal revelry of the Round Table. The knights of...

This from the recently published Tolkien's Library. It is interesting, perhaps, to speculate on why Tolkien did not like Dune--though I think that's a slope down which we'd have to tread very carefully, considering he very clearly does not say. I do think it's especially fascinating that Tolkien...

Aragorn, in his response to Boromir, seems to imply that the Rangers must protect certain populations from both physical harm and the knowledge that such threats even exist. However, we have seen an instance in which a group of people not known for martial prowess rise to the occasion when they...

It's been noted before that Aragorn's response to Boromir's skepticism, glossing his time as a Ranger, would have made for quite the classic adventure story. (We'll remember that this was rumored to be Amazon's TV show for a bit.) It might even have fit rather neatly in the sword and sorcery...

The structure of this line in the context of the poem was discussed extensively last night, but I wanted to ask briefly about the literal meaning. (I know that discussion is coming next week, so apologies for jumping the gun.) That is, in what sense shall Isildur's Bane waken? 1) As we sit in...

Why Tolkien depicts Middle Earth as falling and having diminished heroes has been speculated on a great deal, by many people at many times on many forums; but I wanted to take this opportunity to apply this class' filter to that line of questioning. That is, rather than wonder why Tolkien does...

I'd point out that shearing, in the context of hair, has a connotation (to me, at least) of wool, or animals generally, of rough cutting rather than fancy trimming. That is, I don't think we're supposed to assume Boromir found barbers on the road, or that he stopped in with Rivendell's...

Very little, as it happens, but interesting. Consulting my electronic copy, Númenor is spoken once in the text* before Bilbo connects it explicitly to Aragorn--and it's spoken by Aragorn himself, at the end of his verbal lore appendix on Weathertop, post-The Tale of Tinúviel. "There live still...

When Tolkien opts for an elevated register, as he does when describing Glorfindel, it's common to hear readers refer to this as "Biblical" language. Of course, we know the depths of Tolkien's faith; but we also know how he felt about allegorically applying said faith to his stories (or those of...

In the discussion of its simplicity, I'm reminded of the (perhaps apocryphal) Thelonius Monk quote regarding jazz construction: "Simple ain't easy." (It seems like the documented quote is probably "Those simple chords ain't so easy to find now", but as ever, a briefer version that requires less...

In the last Exploring episode, there was discussion about the balance Aragorn strikes between encouraging the hobbits, yet keeping them grounded and aware of the very real danger they're threatened by. So even after he finds the notched white stone sitting on a pile of scorched rock, he does not...