The Bright Sword and Its Sharpness: Swords, Symbolism, and Medievalism in The Lord of the Rings.

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11320%2F26%3AZW2FBHFQ" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11320/26:ZW2FBHFQ - isvavai.cz</a>

Výsledek na webu

<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48820336" target="_blank" >https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48820336</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

The Bright Sword and Its Sharpness: Swords, Symbolism, and Medievalism in The Lord of the Rings.

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

Swords are paradoxical objects that hold in tension both aesthetic beauty and repulsion, and how one goes about resolving this paradox has much to say about one’s personal ideology. This paper investigates Tolkien’s representation of swords in The Lord of the Rings as ideologically loaded objects with shifting symbolic significance between the cultures of Rohan, Gondor, and Hobbits. These changes in significance produce three kinds of medievalism, shaped by differences in their interaction the cultural imagination of the medieval sword. Through the Rohirrim, Tolkien provides a medievalism of spectacle—an idealized world of valor to be marveled at from the safe distance that separates the Secondary World of fantasy from our own. With Gondor, Tolkien offers a medievalism that critiques the shortsightedness of a culture that prioritizes the weaponness of a sword over the values that would characterize its symbolism and govern its justified use. Finally, Hobbits offer a third kind of interaction with medievalism, since their characteristic unfamiliarity with swords connects their experience with that of the reader who also comes from a largely swordless society. By filtering the warrior-cultures of Middle-earth through the experiences of Hobbits, The Lord of the Rings closes the space between the Secondary World of fantasy and the Primary World of reality, turning the reader’s attention to their own experience of the medieval imaginary. Throughout, Tolkien’s treatment of swords as complex signifiers creates an ideologically robust medievalism that offers profoundly sophisticated structures for appreciating the dangerous beauty of an enduring symbol of the medieval past.

Název v anglickém jazyce

The Bright Sword and Its Sharpness: Swords, Symbolism, and Medievalism in The Lord of the Rings.

Popis výsledku anglicky

Swords are paradoxical objects that hold in tension both aesthetic beauty and repulsion, and how one goes about resolving this paradox has much to say about one’s personal ideology. This paper investigates Tolkien’s representation of swords in The Lord of the Rings as ideologically loaded objects with shifting symbolic significance between the cultures of Rohan, Gondor, and Hobbits. These changes in significance produce three kinds of medievalism, shaped by differences in their interaction the cultural imagination of the medieval sword. Through the Rohirrim, Tolkien provides a medievalism of spectacle—an idealized world of valor to be marveled at from the safe distance that separates the Secondary World of fantasy from our own. With Gondor, Tolkien offers a medievalism that critiques the shortsightedness of a culture that prioritizes the weaponness of a sword over the values that would characterize its symbolism and govern its justified use. Finally, Hobbits offer a third kind of interaction with medievalism, since their characteristic unfamiliarity with swords connects their experience with that of the reader who also comes from a largely swordless society. By filtering the warrior-cultures of Middle-earth through the experiences of Hobbits, The Lord of the Rings closes the space between the Secondary World of fantasy and the Primary World of reality, turning the reader’s attention to their own experience of the medieval imaginary. Throughout, Tolkien’s treatment of swords as complex signifiers creates an ideologically robust medievalism that offers profoundly sophisticated structures for appreciating the dangerous beauty of an enduring symbol of the medieval past.

Druh

J_ost - Ostatní články v recenzovaných periodicích

CEP obor

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OECD FORD obor

10201 - Computer sciences, information science, bioinformathics (hardware development to be 2.2, social aspect to be 5.8)

Projekt

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Návaznosti

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Rok uplatnění

2025

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

ISSN

0146-9339

e-ISSN

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Svazek periodika

43

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

2

Stát vydavatele periodika

US - Spojené státy americké

Počet stran výsledku

18

Strana od-do

183-200

Kód UT WoS článku

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EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

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