This is part 3 of a series on Tolkien’s Letter 131, most of which is included in the preface materials of The Silmarillion. Begin reading at Part 1 — or visit the previous post in this series. * * * In Part 2 of this series, we looked at Tolkien’s claim that all his writing... Continue Reading →
The Eucatastrophe of Man’s History
In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien lays out his understanding of how fairytales and all fantasy literature works (or ought to work). There are many ways in which the modern fantasy genre has deviated from this understanding, but then Professor Tolkien was not speaking prescriptively but descriptively. That is to say that while Tolkien does,... Continue Reading →
