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Prof. Kathleen Kelly

Office: 425 Holmes M, T, Th 4:05-5:10

Office hours: Th 1:30-2:50 and by app't Voice: 617-373-3683 Email: k.kelly@neu.edu

 

Tolkien and Lewis were friends, colleagues, and sometimes rivals. Both were distinguished scholars of medieval and early modern literature, both chose fantasy as their primary genre, and both left an indelible mark on every author who attempted to write fantasy and science fiction after them. We will read Tolkien's The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (seven books written for children; short, easy reads). As we go, we will consider what constitutes the genres of fantasy and science fiction; the literary influences on both writers (for example, Norse sagas and Anglo-Saxon poetry for Tolkien, medieval travel literature, Milton, and 19th-century fantasy and fairy tales for Lewis); Tolkien's and Lewis' scholarly work, and how it intersects with their fantasy and science fiction; and, finally, their biographies, with emphasis on how the two writers influenced each other. We will also consider how it is that Tolkien (especially) and Lewis have earned a place in the mainstream literary canon and in popular culture, and what it means to study books that so many of us have read for pleasure and on our own for so many years.

 

 

 

Team teaching 30%
1st Paper, 5-6 pages 30%
2nd Paper, 7-8 pages 40%

 

Attendance is required. You are allowed three unexcused absences.

 

(in order of reading) at NU Bookstore (in boxed sets) OR wherever you may find them

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (1937) Moot 1 (KK)

Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) Moot 2
The Two Towers (1954) Moot 3
Return of the King (1955) Moot 4

Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis [chronology of events in parens after pub. date]
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950--2) Moot 5
Prince Caspian (1951--4) Moot 6
The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" (1952--5) Moot 7
The Silver Chair (1953--6) Moot 8
The Horse and His Boy (1954--3) Moot 9
The Magician's Nephew [optional] (1955--1)
The Last Battle [optional] (1956--7)

 

Students will make up nine moots (an obsolete Anglo-Saxon word meaning "assembly" or "group"-both Tolkien and Lewis could have done the etymology, given below; the Ents have a moot in The Two Towers) responsible for introducing the assigned novel and contextualizing the work. This should work out to two or three students per group.

Early ME. m t, im t, repr. OE. mót neut. (before 12th c. found only in compounds) and emót neut. (with prefix e-, Y-; the prefix in ns. disappeared early in ME., so that the two forms became coincident); an adoption of the equivalent ON. mót neut., encounter, meeting, public assembly, may prob. have coalesced with the native word. The n., OTeut. *(ga)m tom, is found in OLow Frankish (Hildebrandsl.) muot encounter, MDu. moet neut., masc., gemoet neut. (mod.Du. gemoet), MHG. muo , mô (and in LG. form muot), gemôt fem.; the derivative MEET v. appears in all branches of Teut. The ultimate etymology of OTeut. *m tom is unknown. OED

Here's what needs to be covered:
· biography
· oeuvre
· critical assessment of the assigned text
· key issues and themes
· canonical context

To teach successfully with one or two other people, one must be very adept at reading other people's signals and identifying their interactive styles. More important, one needs to know one's own personality and style: Shy? Likes to do background work? Assertive? Likes to perform in public? Perhaps the learning comes from watching other people work together so that one can think about what one would do/would have done in that position.

Presenting material to a group and leading discussions are valuable skills to develop. But what is teaching? At one end of the definition continuum, teaching is lecturing; at the other end, teaching is facilitating. The subject often determines whether one does more lecturing or more facilitating. Good teachers do both.

In asking you to present on our authors, I'm mainly asking you to perform as a facilitator-to get the class involved in the discussion. You can do this in a number of ways:
· Jot notes to yourself on the topics you want to cover.
· Prepare a list of questions to draw from.
· Identify quotations and passages that are worth reading in class or drawing attention to. (Some of you do this for yourself already by using post-its or by folding over the pages or by highlighting or underlining or annotating.)
· Optional: show film clips, if your text has been cinematized

The trick is to avoid leading questions or to have "right" answers in mind. The classroom is a dynamic place, and a teacher needs to go with the flow. And one does not have to have all the answers, either.

When working with one or two other people, decide how to divide up the work evenly-but keep in mind that I think it's important that all the teachers-of-the-moment direct the discussion.

Handouts are required: a chronology, some useful passages from the novel or secondary materials, questions for discussion, visuals, your bibliography (including Internet sources). I recommend that you use Critical Terms for Literary Study and look at materials on reserve. You will also find a number of useful encyclopedia-like books that will help, such as Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, A Tolkien Thesaurus, C. S. Lewis: A Companion & Guide, A Companion to Narnia (all at NU).

I will also suggest texts at various points: at one point, one group may want to give us a taste of the National Lampoon parody, Bored of the Rings; another may want to report on the tale of Aragorn and Arwen in the Appendix to LOR. Check out this site for Tolkien fonts and a guide to Tolkien's languages: http://home.earthlink.net/~darrenv/tolkein.html (also see http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/9902/langinfo.html for Elvish in the films) see if your name has been translated into Elvish by the indefatigable Helge Fauskanger at http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/elfnam.htm. Also, the letters of both Tolkien and Lewis have been collected, and are full of quotable bits.

 

I expect students to do research for both papers. I don't expect an exhaustive survey of the available literature; in fact, I don't expect you to do a lot of research directly on Tolkien and Lewis. I do, however, expect you to support your arguments with reading in a general way: interested in myth? Narrative? Gender? Reception? Then read generally and extrapolate. I've put Critical Terms for Literary Study on reserve for just this purpose. (See below for other readings on reserve.)

A caveat: most of the criticism on Tolkien and Lewis is awful. Many critics either think it's not worth the effort to take Tolkien's and Lewis' work seriously, or, at the other end of the spectrum, that it is a sacrilege to apply contemporary literary theories to Tolkien's and Lewis' work. Thus criticism tends to be of the "pointing" kind or the summarizing and listing kind. Such criticism will help you find things and clarify plot lines, but it won't help you think critically about the novels.

By all means consult the biographies of Tolkien and Lewis, but keep in mind that biography, or autobiography (Lewis wrote one: Surprised by Joy), does not necessarily represent the truth about the writers or their work.

.
Plagiarism
Northeastern University is committed to the principles of intellectual honesty and integrity. All members of the Northeastern community are expected to maintain complete honesty in all academic work, presenting only that which is their own work in tests and assignments. In English classes, this definition of plagiarism applies not only to borrowing whole documents (other students' papers, internet articles, published articles) but also to borrowing parts of another's work without proper acknowledgment and proper paraphrasing or quotation. The penalty for plagiarism ranges from a grade of "F" on the paper on which the violation occurs to an expulsion from the class and, possibly, from the university.

Note on assigned pages: take the number of pages of whatever book we are reading and divide by number of days we are reading it to determine how many pages per class. Read to the next chapter end. For example, The Hobbit has 317 pages; it is assigned over three class meetings, so read to 121 for the first class, to 223 for the second, and to the end for the third. Note: Read to 107 for the first class on The Fellowship of the Ring, to 227 for the second, but read to the end for the third class-MLK Day falls in the middle. You can do the math on the others.

 

Week 1
Friday 3 January

 

Week 2
Monday 6 January
Introduction
Begin "Value/Evaluation," Barbara Herrnstein Smith

Tuesday 7 January
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien Moot 1

Thursday 9 January
The Hobbit

 

Week 3
Monday 13 January
The Hobbit

Tuesday 14 January
The Fellowship of the Ring Moot 2

Thursday 16 January
The Fellowship of the Ring

 

Week 4
Monday 20 January MLK Day; no class

Tuesday 21 January proposal due, paper 1
The Fellowship of the Ring

Thursday 23 January
The Two Towers Moot 3

 

Week 5
Monday 27 January
The Two Towers

Tuesday 28 January
The Two Towers

Thursday 30 January in-class draft workshop, paper 1
The Two Towers

 

Week 6
Monday 3 February
Return of the King Moot 4

Tuesday 4 February paper 1 due
Return of the King

Thursday 5 February
Return of the King

 

Week 7
Monday 10 February
Return of the King

Tuesday 11 February
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis Moot 5

Thursday 13 February
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

 

Week 8
Monday 17 February
Prince Caspian Moot 6

Tuesday 18 February
Prince Caspian

Thursday 20 February
The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" Moot 7

 

Week 9
Monday 24 February
The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader"

Tuesday 25 February
The Silver Chair Moot 8

Thursday 27 February proposal due, paper 2
The Silver Chair

 

Week 10
Monday 3 March
The Horse and His Boy Moot 9

Tuesday 4 March
The Horse and His Boy

Thursday 6 March in-class draft workshop, paper 2
The Magician's Nephew [optional]
The Last Battle [optional]

 

paper 2 due on Wednesday, 12 March, 12:00

Get Fuzzy, by Darby Conley
(One might have to know this comic already to find it funny; Bucky is the Siamese, and Satchel is the dog.)

 

 

(* = on Reserve)

Amon Hen, the bulletin of The Tolkien Society. See the Society's website for bibliography: http://www.tolkiensociety.org/ts_info/amon_hen.html.

Mythlore: A journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams Studies, at BC, 1990+ only, so do your research early enough to use ILL or to make a visit.

Literary Theory
*Critical Terms for Literary Study. 2nd ed. Ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. PN81 .C84
*A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. M.H. Abrams. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. PN44.5 .A2 1999

Myth, Fantasy, Fairy Tales/Stories
*Auden, W. H. "The Quest Hero." [1962] Tolkien and the Critics. Ed. Neil Isaacs and Rose Zimbardo. Notre Dame and London: U of Notre Dame P, 1968. [Tolkien]
PR6039.032. L634
*Tolkien, J.R.R. "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." The Beowulf Poet. Ed. Donald Fry. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1968. PR1585.
*Lewis, C. S. "On Stories." Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. Ed. Walter Hooper. New York: H, B & W, 1967. PR6023.E926 O3
*Reilly, Robert J. "Tolkien and the Fairy Story." Tolkien and the Critics. Ed. Neil Isaacs and Rose Zimbardo. Notre Dame and London: U of Notre Dame P, 1968.
PR6039.032. L634.

Narrative, Genre
*Piehler, Paul. "Myth or Allegory? Archetype and Transcendence in the Fiction of C. S. Lewis." Word and Story in C.S. Lewis. Ed. Peter J. Schakel and Charles A. Huttar. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991. PR6023.E926 Z98
*Haigh, John D. "C.S. Lewis and the Tradition of Visionary Romance." Word and Story in C.S. Lewis. Ed. Peter J. Schakel and Charles A. Huttar. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991. PR6023.E926 Z98
*West, Richard. "The Interlace Structure of The Lord of the Rings." A Tolkien Compass: Including J. R. R. Tolkien's Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Jared Lobdell. LaSalle IL: Open Court, 1975. PR6039.O32 Z69.

 

Women, Gender, Masculinity (ð = especially recommended)
Filmer, Kath. The Fiction of C.S. Lewis: Mask and Mirror. New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1993. Chapters 6 and 7. PR6023.E926 Z6466.
ð Partridge, Barbara. "No Sex, Please-We're Hobbits."

Leverenz, David. Manhood and the American Renaissance. Cornell U P 1989.
Brittan, Arthur. Masculinity and Power. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
Hearn, Jeff and David Morgan, ed. Men, Masculinities and Social Theory. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.
ð Brod, Harry, ed. The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's Studies. Boston and London: Allen & Unwin, 1987.
ð Doty, William G. Myths of Masculinity. New York: Crossroad, 1993.
Weeks, Jeffrey. Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 1986.
ð van Alphen, Ernst. "Strategies of Identification." Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations. Ed. Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey. Hanover and London: Wesleyan U P/U P of New England, 1994. 260-71.
Bryson, Norman. "Géricault and 'Masculinity.'" Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations. Ed. Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey. Hanover NH and London: Wesleyan U P/U P of New England, 1994. 228-59.
ð --- and Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey. Introduction. Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations. Ed. Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey. Hanover NH and London: Wesleyan U P/U P of New England, 1994.
Coleman, Wil. "Doing Masculinity/Doing Theory." Men, Masculinities and Social Theory. Ed. Jeff Hearn and David Morgan. London and Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990. 186-99.
ð Schwenger, Pete. "The Masculine Mode." Speaking of Gender. Ed. Elaine Showalter. New York: Routledge, 1989.
ð Silverman, Kaja. Male Subjectivity at the Margins. London: Routledge, 1992.

History
*Plank, Robert. "'The Scouring of the Shire': Tolkien's View of Fascism." A Tolkien Compass: Including J. R. R. Tolkien's Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Jared Lobdell. LaSalle IL: Open Court, 1975. PR6039.O32 Z69.

Reception
Anon. Times Literary Supplement (TLS). 25 November 1955.
Anon. Punch. 16 November 1966.
Muir, Edwin. "Strange Epic." Observer. 22 August 1954. 7.
--. "The Ring." Observer. 21 November 1954. 9.
--. "A Boy's World." Observer. 27 November 1955. 11.
Roberts. Mark. Review in Essays in Criticism 6 (1956).
*Raffel, Burton. "The Lord of the Rings as Literature." Issacs
Issacs, Neil D. "On the Possibilities of Writing Tolkien Criticism."

Sources
* J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Ed. T. A. Shippey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. See Appendix A: Sources. PR6039.032.
*Tinkler, John. "Old English in Rohan." Tolkien and the Critics. Ed. Neil Isaacs and Rose Zimbardo. Notre Dame and London: U of Notre Dame P, 1968.
PR6039.032. L634.