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Pity, power, and Tolkien's ring : to rule the fate of many

"In this remarkable work of close reading and analysis, Thomas P. Hillman gets to the heart of the tension between pity and the desire for power in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. As the book traces the entangled story of the One Ring and its effects, we come to understand Tolkien's central paradox: while pity is necessary for destroying the Ring, it cannot save the Ring-bearer from the Ring's lies and corruption. In composing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien explored the power of the Ring and the seeming powerlessness of pity. All the themes his mythology had come to encompass-death and immortality, fate and free will, divine justice and the problem of evil, power and war-took on a new dimension in the journey of Frodo Baggins. Hillman's attention to specific etymologies and patterns of words used in the text, complemented by his judicious use of Tolkien's letters, earlier drafts of the novels, and Tolkien's essays, leads to illuminating and original insights. Instead of turning his interpretation to allegory or apologetics, Hillman demonstrates how the story works metaphorically, allowing Tolkien to embrace both Catholic views and pagan mythology. With this fresh understanding of familiar material, Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring will ignite new discussions and deeper appreciation among Tolkien readers and scholars alike"--

Empathie, Mitleid, Sympathie : rezeptionslenkende Strukturen mittelalterlicher Texte in Bearbeitungen des Willehalm-Stoffs

Wolfram von Eschenbach's Willehalm is one of the most-discussed German poetic texts from the High Middle Ages. To date, researchers have been unable to agree how to read this text - as a plea for the ideology of the Crusades, for tolerance or even for humanity. The present study seeks new answers to these important questions by evaluating the text structures predestined to influence the medieval reader or listener in their experience and judgement - when and for whom does the text evoke their empathy, their compassion or even their sympathy?

Online EBSCO Academic Comprehensive Collection

The virtue of sympathy : magic, philosophy, and literature in seventeenth-century England

"Beginning with an analysis of Shakespeare's The Tempest and building to a new reading of Milton's Paradise Lost, author Seth Lobis charts a profound change in the cultural meaning of sympathy during the seventeenth century. Having long referred to magical affinities in the universe, sympathy was increasingly understood to be a force of connection between people. By examining sympathy in literary and philosophical writing of the period, Lobis illuminates an extraordinary shift in human understanding"--Beginning with an analysis of Shakespeare's The Tempest and building to a new reading of Milton's Paradise Lost, author Seth Lobis charts a profound change in the cultural meaning of sympathy during the seventeenth century. Having long referred to magical affinities in the universe, sympathy was increasingly understood to be a force of connection between people. By examining sympathy in literary and philosophical writing of the period, Lobis illuminates an extraordinary shift in human understanding.

Online EBSCO Academic Comprehensive Collection