Magic in Fantasy Literature: Definitions, Manifestations, Functions]. Eds. Tetiana Riazantseva and Yevheniia Kanchura, 2024
Responding to a query about Sauron’s power, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote: “You
cannot press the One Rin... more Responding to a query about Sauron’s power, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote: “You cannot press the One Ring too hard,” explaining that it is a “mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one’s direct control.” For all the influence he has had over the fantasy genre, especially its “sword-and-sorcery” variety, Tolkien was always somewhat leery of magic, and even his wizards perform very little of what we would call “magic.” Elsewhere Tolkien likens magic to “the Machine,” thus preemptively dismissing the magic-vs.-technology divide. This essay examines Tolkien’s ambivalence toward the ethics of the magical in his writings.
As Karl Marx said in the eleventh of his “Theses on Feuerbach”, “Philosophers have hitherto only ... more As Karl Marx said in the eleventh of his “Theses on Feuerbach”, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. The urgency, as well as the truth of this statement, is undoubtedly as powerful today as when Marx first wrote it. However, as a popular catchphrase frequently cited by radical thinkers and activists, Thesis 11 has unfortunately become a relatively simplistic rejection of the theory in favor of a somewhat anti-intellectual view of praxis. Such is the danger of a wisdom expressed in a way that it can fit on a bumper sticker, a fate that Marx himself probably never imagined for this scathing remark. Marxism, after all, implies the dialectical unity of theory and practice, and Marx himself, of course, spent his life engaged in critical analysis or interpretation of modern capitalist societies, while remaining committed to the movement dedicated to changing the world. The essence of Thesis 11, in fact, lies not so much in the...
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is perhaps the most famous, most beloved, and most controversial n... more Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is perhaps the most famous, most beloved, and most controversial novel featuring a prominent black character and written by a white author. Extremely popular in its own day and in the decades that followed, Mark Twain’s novel became one of the most holy of the canonical texts of American literature once midtwentiethcentury critics discovered in it the key to the American experience and an uplifting illustration of the American spirit. The influential critic Lionel Trilling, in The Liberal Imagination, asserted that Huck Finn and Jim formed a “community of saints,” and Trilling effectively established the novel as national monument (104, 106). However, the eupeptic effect of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on the body politic is not as indisputable as many of its apologists would have it, and during the last thirty years, controversies have arisen over use of the novel in the classroom, particularly given the frequent appearance in the book of a wellknow...
Project Summary: This project contributed to a book-length, interdisciplinary study of the relati... more Project Summary: This project contributed to a book-length, interdisciplinary study of the relations between narrative and mapping, specifically as figured forth in the narrative writings of Herman Melville. The Research Enhancement Program grant allowed me, inter alia, to research in the Henry Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography and examine a number of early editions of Melville work in the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL. It also afforded me the opportunity to write throughout the summer 2008. The research undertaken with the help of the REP has been (or will be) presented in numerous works in progress or works forthcoming, most notably my book "Melville, Mapping and Globalization" (Continuum, 2009), two conference papers, one scheduled panel on "geocriticism" (at this December's MLA convention), and a proposed book-manuscript (tentatively titled, "Literary Cartography: Space, Narrative, and Representation," invited by the Ohio Stat...
Although time traditionally dominated the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences, spa... more Although time traditionally dominated the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences, space has reasserted itself in the contexts of postmodernity, postcolonialism, and globalization. Today, a number of emerging critical discourses connect geography, architecture, and environmental studies, among others to literature, film, and the mimetic arts. Bertrand Westphal'sGeocriticism explores these diverse fields, examines various theories of space and place, and proposes a new critical practice suitable for understanding our spatial condition today. Drawing on a wide array of theoretical and literary resources from around the globe and from antiquity to the present, Westphal argues for a geocritical approach to literary and cultural studies. This volume is an indispensible touchstone for those interested in the interactions between literature and space.
Discusses the division of works meant to be whole into trilogies; primarily Tolkien’s lengthy nov... more Discusses the division of works meant to be whole into trilogies; primarily Tolkien’s lengthy novel, split into two volumes due to printing considerations, and Peter Jackson’s film trilogies of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Additional
A seemingly inescapable feature of war is the demonization of the enemy, who becomes somehow less... more A seemingly inescapable feature of war is the demonization of the enemy, who becomes somehow less human and more deserving of death in times of military strife, which unsurprisingly helps to justify the violence against them. This article looks at the development, character, and role of the orcs—creatures that are in some senses, literally demonized—in J. R. R. Tolkien’s writings in connection with the ideological need to demonize the enemy in World Wars I and II. Yet, in creating an enemy whom the heroes could kill without compunction, Tolkien also betrayed his own sympathy for the devils, perhaps owing to his own experiences as a soldier. This ambiguity pervades Tolkien’s writings, even as his demonized orcs are dispatched by the thousands, thus shaping the sense of warfare and our experience of it according to the desire to simplify, and make more comprehensible, the martial narrative.
It sometimes seems that the perennial task of laborers in the vineyard of the liberal arts is to ... more It sometimes seems that the perennial task of laborers in the vineyard of the liberal arts is to defend that labor, that vineyard, and those arts. That liberal education is under attack on various fronts is as indubitable as it is now tiresome, and in the media covering the state of higher education we see almost daily apologias, jeremiads, and polemics aimed at sounding the increasingly apocalyptic alarm. English majors hear it a lot, of course, as they frequently deal with jokes or jibes, or sometimes earnest warnings, about the uselessness or impracticality of their field of study. Even within universities, we sometimes find ourselves on the defensive from those that the British literary critic Terry Eagleton recently referred to as “hard-faced philistines and crass purveyors of utility.” Under such circumstances, the idea of the critical genius seems utterly foreign or laughably nostalgic, and yet, the need for this sort of genius—here understood as a guide or spirit of inspiration—has perhaps never been greater. As a scholar in the literary humanities, I do not think we need to adopt a defensive posture against such threats; nor do we need to argue for the usefulness of literature, at least not in any instrumental form. That all too easily plays into the enemies’ hands, inviting us to use “metrics” and “data” to characterize our “outcomes” and demonstrate our “productivity.” This is, in more ways than one, quite literally beneath us as critics. I want to speak of the vocation of the critic, which is the fundamental role of literary scholars, at least for the last hundred years or so. I am aware that we do much more in our English departments today: rhetoric and composition, technical communication, creative writing, film and media studies, to name a few, and—even within literary studies—the activities include literary history, biography, and theory, along with analysis and evaluation. And yet criticism remains the cornerstone, and all students of literature are, in one way or another, guided by a spirit of critical genius. In speaking of the “vocation” of criticism, I’m well aware of the religious connotations of a “calling,” even if I must emphatically emphasize criticism’s worldly value. In many of its most powerful forms, literary criticism draws upon foundations in what we tend to think of as religious studies, whether understood as textual exegesis, hermeneutics, ethics, or more speculative, theoretical visions. That is, the analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of literary and other texts, even in a purely secular context, may partake of aspects of religious scholarship. Indeed, the vocation of criticism (in the good old Weberian sense) involves a similar project of demystification, while also respecting the wealth of spiritual substance proper to literature, as may be seen in critics as different as Northrop Frye, Fredric Jameson, and Paul de Man. Drawing on the medieval conception of anagoge, I want to argue that the vocation of criticism today involves the patient, meticulous engagement with a given text that we know as “close reading,” yes, but with the view toward a certain ascent that is the aim and effect of literary studies, or, more generally, a liberal arts education. This ascent is not that of the pilgrim’s progress into the celestial spheres or the bold careerist’s climb up some corporate ladder. Rather, it is elevation of a mind now equipped to apprehend, interpret, and perhaps even transform the worldly world today. In a well-known formulation, Dante distinguishes between the four levels of meaning in his letter to Can Grande della Scalla, which Dante wrote partly in order to explain what is going on in his Commedia (1472). As Dante explains:
... Robert T. Tally Jr. Department of English Texas State University San Marcos, TX 78666 (512) 2... more ... Robert T. Tally Jr. Department of English Texas State University San Marcos, TX 78666 (512) 245-3016 robert.tally@txstate.edu Please note: This is a late draft of an essay to be included in a collection of essays on the Harry Potter series, currently in progress. ...
At a Modern Language Association convention several years ago, following a session we had organiz... more At a Modern Language Association convention several years ago, following a session we had organized on geocriticism, a group of us discussed the possibility of continuing what we took to be a crucial conversation on the relations between space, place, mapping, and literature.1 While we all agreed that the topic was both timely and necessary, some wondered if the ostensible, if misleading, neutrality of space or spatiality worked against the project. That is, one could not necessarily be an advocate for space or spatiality, as opposed to advocating for a distinctive political policy or social cause, and expect others to rally around that banner. As one colleague put it, naming ecocriticism as the specific counter-example, geocriticism does not have a clearly visible political constituency or program. Whereas ecocritics, along with virtually all scholars associated with environmental literary studies, are generally understood to be advocates for the environment, often serving as activists with respect to alltoo-salient matters of environmentalism, conservation, preservation, sustainability, climate change, and naturalism, geocritics presumably had no particular position with respect to the use and abuse of space or place, apart from the fact the geocritics insisted that such uses were themselves meaningful.
Magic in Fantasy Literature: Definitions, Manifestations, Functions]. Eds. Tetiana Riazantseva and Yevheniia Kanchura, 2024
Responding to a query about Sauron’s power, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote: “You
cannot press the One Rin... more Responding to a query about Sauron’s power, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote: “You cannot press the One Ring too hard,” explaining that it is a “mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one’s direct control.” For all the influence he has had over the fantasy genre, especially its “sword-and-sorcery” variety, Tolkien was always somewhat leery of magic, and even his wizards perform very little of what we would call “magic.” Elsewhere Tolkien likens magic to “the Machine,” thus preemptively dismissing the magic-vs.-technology divide. This essay examines Tolkien’s ambivalence toward the ethics of the magical in his writings.
As Karl Marx said in the eleventh of his “Theses on Feuerbach”, “Philosophers have hitherto only ... more As Karl Marx said in the eleventh of his “Theses on Feuerbach”, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. The urgency, as well as the truth of this statement, is undoubtedly as powerful today as when Marx first wrote it. However, as a popular catchphrase frequently cited by radical thinkers and activists, Thesis 11 has unfortunately become a relatively simplistic rejection of the theory in favor of a somewhat anti-intellectual view of praxis. Such is the danger of a wisdom expressed in a way that it can fit on a bumper sticker, a fate that Marx himself probably never imagined for this scathing remark. Marxism, after all, implies the dialectical unity of theory and practice, and Marx himself, of course, spent his life engaged in critical analysis or interpretation of modern capitalist societies, while remaining committed to the movement dedicated to changing the world. The essence of Thesis 11, in fact, lies not so much in the...
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is perhaps the most famous, most beloved, and most controversial n... more Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is perhaps the most famous, most beloved, and most controversial novel featuring a prominent black character and written by a white author. Extremely popular in its own day and in the decades that followed, Mark Twain’s novel became one of the most holy of the canonical texts of American literature once midtwentiethcentury critics discovered in it the key to the American experience and an uplifting illustration of the American spirit. The influential critic Lionel Trilling, in The Liberal Imagination, asserted that Huck Finn and Jim formed a “community of saints,” and Trilling effectively established the novel as national monument (104, 106). However, the eupeptic effect of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on the body politic is not as indisputable as many of its apologists would have it, and during the last thirty years, controversies have arisen over use of the novel in the classroom, particularly given the frequent appearance in the book of a wellknow...
Project Summary: This project contributed to a book-length, interdisciplinary study of the relati... more Project Summary: This project contributed to a book-length, interdisciplinary study of the relations between narrative and mapping, specifically as figured forth in the narrative writings of Herman Melville. The Research Enhancement Program grant allowed me, inter alia, to research in the Henry Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography and examine a number of early editions of Melville work in the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL. It also afforded me the opportunity to write throughout the summer 2008. The research undertaken with the help of the REP has been (or will be) presented in numerous works in progress or works forthcoming, most notably my book "Melville, Mapping and Globalization" (Continuum, 2009), two conference papers, one scheduled panel on "geocriticism" (at this December's MLA convention), and a proposed book-manuscript (tentatively titled, "Literary Cartography: Space, Narrative, and Representation," invited by the Ohio Stat...
Although time traditionally dominated the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences, spa... more Although time traditionally dominated the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences, space has reasserted itself in the contexts of postmodernity, postcolonialism, and globalization. Today, a number of emerging critical discourses connect geography, architecture, and environmental studies, among others to literature, film, and the mimetic arts. Bertrand Westphal'sGeocriticism explores these diverse fields, examines various theories of space and place, and proposes a new critical practice suitable for understanding our spatial condition today. Drawing on a wide array of theoretical and literary resources from around the globe and from antiquity to the present, Westphal argues for a geocritical approach to literary and cultural studies. This volume is an indispensible touchstone for those interested in the interactions between literature and space.
Discusses the division of works meant to be whole into trilogies; primarily Tolkien’s lengthy nov... more Discusses the division of works meant to be whole into trilogies; primarily Tolkien’s lengthy novel, split into two volumes due to printing considerations, and Peter Jackson’s film trilogies of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Additional
A seemingly inescapable feature of war is the demonization of the enemy, who becomes somehow less... more A seemingly inescapable feature of war is the demonization of the enemy, who becomes somehow less human and more deserving of death in times of military strife, which unsurprisingly helps to justify the violence against them. This article looks at the development, character, and role of the orcs—creatures that are in some senses, literally demonized—in J. R. R. Tolkien’s writings in connection with the ideological need to demonize the enemy in World Wars I and II. Yet, in creating an enemy whom the heroes could kill without compunction, Tolkien also betrayed his own sympathy for the devils, perhaps owing to his own experiences as a soldier. This ambiguity pervades Tolkien’s writings, even as his demonized orcs are dispatched by the thousands, thus shaping the sense of warfare and our experience of it according to the desire to simplify, and make more comprehensible, the martial narrative.
It sometimes seems that the perennial task of laborers in the vineyard of the liberal arts is to ... more It sometimes seems that the perennial task of laborers in the vineyard of the liberal arts is to defend that labor, that vineyard, and those arts. That liberal education is under attack on various fronts is as indubitable as it is now tiresome, and in the media covering the state of higher education we see almost daily apologias, jeremiads, and polemics aimed at sounding the increasingly apocalyptic alarm. English majors hear it a lot, of course, as they frequently deal with jokes or jibes, or sometimes earnest warnings, about the uselessness or impracticality of their field of study. Even within universities, we sometimes find ourselves on the defensive from those that the British literary critic Terry Eagleton recently referred to as “hard-faced philistines and crass purveyors of utility.” Under such circumstances, the idea of the critical genius seems utterly foreign or laughably nostalgic, and yet, the need for this sort of genius—here understood as a guide or spirit of inspiration—has perhaps never been greater. As a scholar in the literary humanities, I do not think we need to adopt a defensive posture against such threats; nor do we need to argue for the usefulness of literature, at least not in any instrumental form. That all too easily plays into the enemies’ hands, inviting us to use “metrics” and “data” to characterize our “outcomes” and demonstrate our “productivity.” This is, in more ways than one, quite literally beneath us as critics. I want to speak of the vocation of the critic, which is the fundamental role of literary scholars, at least for the last hundred years or so. I am aware that we do much more in our English departments today: rhetoric and composition, technical communication, creative writing, film and media studies, to name a few, and—even within literary studies—the activities include literary history, biography, and theory, along with analysis and evaluation. And yet criticism remains the cornerstone, and all students of literature are, in one way or another, guided by a spirit of critical genius. In speaking of the “vocation” of criticism, I’m well aware of the religious connotations of a “calling,” even if I must emphatically emphasize criticism’s worldly value. In many of its most powerful forms, literary criticism draws upon foundations in what we tend to think of as religious studies, whether understood as textual exegesis, hermeneutics, ethics, or more speculative, theoretical visions. That is, the analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of literary and other texts, even in a purely secular context, may partake of aspects of religious scholarship. Indeed, the vocation of criticism (in the good old Weberian sense) involves a similar project of demystification, while also respecting the wealth of spiritual substance proper to literature, as may be seen in critics as different as Northrop Frye, Fredric Jameson, and Paul de Man. Drawing on the medieval conception of anagoge, I want to argue that the vocation of criticism today involves the patient, meticulous engagement with a given text that we know as “close reading,” yes, but with the view toward a certain ascent that is the aim and effect of literary studies, or, more generally, a liberal arts education. This ascent is not that of the pilgrim’s progress into the celestial spheres or the bold careerist’s climb up some corporate ladder. Rather, it is elevation of a mind now equipped to apprehend, interpret, and perhaps even transform the worldly world today. In a well-known formulation, Dante distinguishes between the four levels of meaning in his letter to Can Grande della Scalla, which Dante wrote partly in order to explain what is going on in his Commedia (1472). As Dante explains:
... Robert T. Tally Jr. Department of English Texas State University San Marcos, TX 78666 (512) 2... more ... Robert T. Tally Jr. Department of English Texas State University San Marcos, TX 78666 (512) 245-3016 robert.tally@txstate.edu Please note: This is a late draft of an essay to be included in a collection of essays on the Harry Potter series, currently in progress. ...
At a Modern Language Association convention several years ago, following a session we had organiz... more At a Modern Language Association convention several years ago, following a session we had organized on geocriticism, a group of us discussed the possibility of continuing what we took to be a crucial conversation on the relations between space, place, mapping, and literature.1 While we all agreed that the topic was both timely and necessary, some wondered if the ostensible, if misleading, neutrality of space or spatiality worked against the project. That is, one could not necessarily be an advocate for space or spatiality, as opposed to advocating for a distinctive political policy or social cause, and expect others to rally around that banner. As one colleague put it, naming ecocriticism as the specific counter-example, geocriticism does not have a clearly visible political constituency or program. Whereas ecocritics, along with virtually all scholars associated with environmental literary studies, are generally understood to be advocates for the environment, often serving as activists with respect to alltoo-salient matters of environmentalism, conservation, preservation, sustainability, climate change, and naturalism, geocritics presumably had no particular position with respect to the use and abuse of space or place, apart from the fact the geocritics insisted that such uses were themselves meaningful.
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Papers by Robert Tally
cannot press the One Ring too hard,” explaining that it is a “mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one’s direct control.” For all the influence he has had over the fantasy genre, especially its “sword-and-sorcery” variety, Tolkien was always somewhat leery of magic, and even his wizards perform very little of what we would call “magic.” Elsewhere Tolkien likens magic to “the Machine,” thus preemptively dismissing the magic-vs.-technology divide. This essay examines Tolkien’s ambivalence toward the ethics of the magical in his writings.
cannot press the One Ring too hard,” explaining that it is a “mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one’s direct control.” For all the influence he has had over the fantasy genre, especially its “sword-and-sorcery” variety, Tolkien was always somewhat leery of magic, and even his wizards perform very little of what we would call “magic.” Elsewhere Tolkien likens magic to “the Machine,” thus preemptively dismissing the magic-vs.-technology divide. This essay examines Tolkien’s ambivalence toward the ethics of the magical in his writings.