Humble Heroism: Frodo Baggins as Christian Hero in The Lord of the Rings

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Notes
1Shippey calls this a “distinctively modern” idea, but in fact Tolkien would have been able to trace it back to the Bible and its pattern of rulers who became too powerful, forgot God, and became corrupt. See 1 Kings 10 and 11, Daniel 4.28–37, and Acts 12.20–23 for examples.

2This is based on the traditional Christian analysis of Isaiah 53, among other biblical passages.

3Schlobin uses a different edition of Return of the King, but the same edition of the Letters as this author.

4See for example Matthew 5.5 and Luke 1.51-2.

5Of interest here is an analysis by academic Barry Gordon that portrays Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn in the biblical roles of priest, prophet, and king. “Tolkien admitted . . . that the Gordon thesis was true, but that such a scheme had been unconscious on Tolkien’s part” (Sanctifying Myth 69-70).

Works Cited and Consulted
Note: Tolkien envisioned The Lord of the Rings as six books, even though it was published in three volumes. Thus, each volume contains two books. To make the paper easier to follow, however, I have ignored the “books” and referred only to the three volumes.

Belz, Aaron. “Tolkien Canonized.” Books & Culture 8.1 (2002): 27.

Birzer, Bradley J. J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth. Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2002.

_____________. “The Christian Gifts of J. R. R. Tolkien.” The New Oxford Review 68.10 (2001): 25-28.

Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Modern Critical Interpretations: J. R. R. Tolkien. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. 1-2.

____________. Introduction. Modern Critical Interpretations: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. 1-2.

Caldecott, Stratford. “Over the Chasm of Fire: Christian Heroism in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien: A Celebration. Ed. Joseph Pearce. London: Fount-HarperCollins, 1999. 17-33.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1949. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1972.

Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Their Friends. London: Allen & Unwin, 1978. Quoted in Gunton, Colin. “A Far-off Gleam of the Gospel: Salvation in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien: A Celebration. 124-140.

Chesterton, G. K. The Everlasting Man. 1925. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993.

Clark, George. “Tolkien and the True Hero.” J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth. Ed. George Clark and Daniel Timmons. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. 39-51.

Cox, John. “Tolkien’s Platonic Fantasy.” SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review 5 (1984). 53-69.

Egan, Thomas M. “Chesterton and Tolkien: The Road to Middle-Earth.” SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review 4 (1983). 45-53.

Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough. 1922. New York: Collier, 1950.

Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. 1948. New York: The Noonday Press, 1995.

Gunton, Colin. “A Far-off Gleam of the Gospel: Salvation in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien: A Celebration. Ed. Joseph Pearce. London: Fount-HarperCollins, 1999. 124-140.

Helms, Randel. “Frodo Anti-Faust: The Lord of the Rings as Contemporary Mythology.” Modern Critical Interpretations: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. 37-49.

Hooper, Walter. “The Other Oxford Movement: Tolkien and the Inklings.” Tolkien: A Celebration. Ed. Joseph Pearce. London: Fount-HarperCollins, 1999.

Lewis, C. S. Letters of C. S. Lewis. Ed. W. H. Lewis and Walter Hooper. 2nd ed. San Diego: Harvest, 1988.

_________. Surprised by Joy. 1952. The Inspirational Writings of C. S. Lewis. New York: Inspirational Press, 1994.

_________. “Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.” On Stories, and Other Essays on Literature. Ed. Walter Hooper. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. 83-90. Rpt. of “The Gods Return to Earth,” Time and Tide, 14 August 1952, and “The Dethronement of Power,” Time and Tide, 22 October 1955.

McGrath, Sean. “The Passion According to Tolkien.” Tolkien: A Celebration. Ed. Joseph Pearce. London: Fount-HarperCollins, 1999. 172-182.

Nitzsche, Jane Chance. “The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s Epic.” Modern Critical Interpretations: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. 79-106.

O’Hehir, Andrew. “The book of the century.” Salon.com 4 June 2001. 8 September 2002 <http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/04/tolkien/index.html>. Part 1 of a series.

______________. “A curiously very great book.” Salon.com 5 June 2001. 8 September 2002 <http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/05/tolkien2/index1.html>. Part 2 of a series.

Pearce, Joseph. Tolkien: Man and Myth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998.

Schlobin, Roger. “The Monsters Are Talismans and Transgressions: Tolkien and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth. Ed. George Clark and Daniel Timmons. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. 71-81.

Senior, W. A. “Loss Eternal in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.” J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth. Ed. George Clark and Daniel Timmons. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. 173-182.

Shippey, Tom. J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

__________. The Road to Middle-Earth. 2nd ed. London: Grafton, 1992.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

_____________. The Lord of the Rings. 1954-55. 3 vols.: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.

_____________. “On Fairy-stories.” Tree and Leaf. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965.

Zimbardo, Rose A. “The Medieval-Renaissance Vision of The Lord of the Rings.” Modern Critical Interpretations: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. 133-139.

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