Tree and Leaf: Including MYTHOPOEIA
Описание книги
Repackaged to feature Tolkien’s own painting of the Tree of Amalion, this collection includes his famous essay, ‘On Fairy-stories’ and the story that exemplifies this, ‘Leaf by Niggle’, together with the poem ‘Mythopoeia’ and the verse drama, ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth’, which tells of the events following the disastrous Battle of Maldon.Fairy-stories are not just for children, as anyone who has read Tolkien will know. In his essay On Fairy-Stories, Tolkien discusses the nature of fairy-tales and fantasy and rescues the genre from those who would relegate it to juvenilia. The haunting short story, Leaf by Niggle, recounts the story of the artist, Niggle, who has ‘a long journey to make’ and is seen as an allegory of Tolkien’s life.The poem Mythopoeia relates an argument between two unforgettable characters as they discuss the making of myths. Lastly, and published for the very first time, we are treated to the translation of Tolkien’s account of the Battle of Maldon, known as The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth.Tree and Leaf is an eclectic, amusing, provocative and entertaining collection of works which reveals the diversity of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imagination, the depth of his knowledge of English history, and the breadth of his talent as a creator of fantastic fiction.
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Литагент HarperCollins USD. Tree and Leaf: Including MYTHOPOEIA
Tree and Leaf
Mythopoeia
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son
J.R.R. TOLKIEN. TREE AND LEAF
THE HOMECOMING OF BEORHTNOTH BEORHTHELM’S SON
PREFACE
ON FAIRY-STORIES
FAIRY-STORY
ORIGINS
CHILDREN
FANTASY
RECOVERY, ESCAPE, CONSOLATION
EPILOGUE
NOTES
MYTHOPOEIA
LEAF BY NIGGLE
THE HOMECOMING OF BEORHTNOTH BEORHTHELM’S SON (I) BEORHTNOTH’S DEATH
(II) THE HOMECOMING OF BEORHTNOTH BEORHTHELM’S SON
(III) OFERMOD
Footnotes
WORKS BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN
WORKS PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY
THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH. BY CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN
Copyright
About the Publisher
Отрывок из книги
Fairy-stories are not just for children, as anyone who has read Tolkien will know. In his essay On Fairy-Stories, Professor Tolkien discusses the nature of fairy-tales and fantasy and rescues the genre, on one hand, from the academics, and, on the other, from those who would relegate it to ‘juvenilia’. The third part of the book contains, as an apt and elegant illustration, one of Tolkien’s earlier short stories, Leaf by Niggle. Written in the same period (1938–9), when The Lord of the Rings was beginning to unfold itself to Tolkien, these two works show his mastery and understanding of the art of ‘sub-creation’, the power to give to fantasy ‘the inner consistency of reality’.
The poem Mythopoeia (the making of myths) is additionally published, in which the author Philomythus, ‘Lover of Myth’, confounds the opinion of Misomythus, ‘Hater of Myth’.
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He scheweth him tofore here yhe.7
This is a young man of mortal blood and bone; but he gives a much better picture of the inhabitants of Elfland than the definition of a ‘fairy’ under which he is, by a double error, placed. For the trouble with the real folk of Faërie is that they do not always look like what they are; and they put on the pride and beauty that we would fain wear ourselves. At least part of the magic that they wield for the good or evil of man is power to play on the desires of his body and his heart. The Queen of Elfland, who carried off Thomas the Rhymer upon her milk-white steed swifter than the wind, came riding by the Eildon Tree as a lady, if one of enchanting beauty. So that Spenser was in the true tradition when he called the knights of his Faërie by the name of Elfe. It belonged to such knights as Sir Guyon rather than to Pigwiggen armed with a hornet’s sting.
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