The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy One Book to Rule Them All

by Bassham, Gregory; Bronson, Eric

• ISBN13: 9780812695458
• ISBN10: 0812695453
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-04
• Publisher: Open Court

Summary

Culls dozens of life lessons from the pages of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic tale,xamining the author's treatment of such issues as happiness, morality, andhe search for ultimate truth.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. x
Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction: The Wisdom of Middle-earth	p. 1
The Ring	p. 3
The Rings of Tolkien and Plato: Lessons in Power, Choice, and Morality	p. 5
The Cracks of Doom: The Threat of Emerging Technologies and Tolkien's Rings of Power	p. 21
"My Precious": Tolkien's Fetishized Ring	p. 33
The Quest for Happiness	p. 47
Tolkien's Six Keys to Happiness	p. 49
The Quests of Sam and Gollum for the Happy Life	p. 61
"Farewell to Lorien": The Bounded Joy of Existentialists and Elves	p. 72
Good and Evil in Middle-Earth	p. 85
Uberhobbits: Tolkien, Nietzsche, and the Will to Power	p. 87
Tolkien and the Nature of Evil	p. 99
Virtue and Vice in The Lord of the Rings	p. 110
Time and Mortality	p. 121
Choosing to Die: The Gift of Mortality in Middle-earth	p. 123
Tolkien, Modernism, and the Importance of Tradition	p. 137
Tolkien's Green Time: Environmental Themes in The Lord of the Rings	p. 150
Ends and Endings	p. 165
Providence and the Dramatic Unity of The Lord of the Rings	p. 167
Talking Trees and Walking Mountains: Buddhist and Taoist Themes in The Lord of the Rings	p. 179
Sam and Frodo's Excellent Adventure: Tolkien's Journey Motif	p. 192
Happy Endings and Religious Hope: The Lord of the Rings as an Epic Fairy Tale	p. 204
The Wisdom of the Philosophers	p. 219
The Fellowship of the Book	p. 225
The Wizard's Index	p. 229
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