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Online Course: Tolkien and his Medieval Sources

Tolkien and his Medieval Sources is a six-week online course starting on February 6th, with live sessions each Thursday from 2:00 to 4:00pm EST.

For more than half a century J.R.R. Tolkien has gripped the public imagination with his tales of wizards, hobbits, orcs, and elves. But Tolkien took his inspiration from a far older body of literature, the epics, poems, lais and sagas of the Middle Ages. As one of the premier medievalists of his time, Tolkien edited texts like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and wrote extensively on Old English and Middle English, weaving the essence of these works into his own. This course studies of a selection of Tolkien’s works in concert with his earlier medieval sources in order to trace the transformation of medieval texts in the popular modern imagination and emphasize their relevance to modern audiences.

Weekly Sessions are on:

  • Week 1: Tolkien: Medievalist, author, father of fantasy
  • Week 2: Building Middle Earth: Norse influence
  • Week 3: The realm of Rohan: Early Medieval England
  • Week 4: Rivendell, Lothlorien, and Elves: Irish and Welsh influences
  • Week 5: Crafting Gondor: Chivalry and Conquest
  • Week 6: Middle Earth in popular culture

To learn more and sign up, please visit our Thinkific page