SWG News

A Sense of History: 1936

Posted by SWG Moderators on 11 August 2023. Last updated on 8 September 2023.

How do you make sense of the future? In 1936, Tolkien delivered his pivotal address "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," and there would have been much thinking—and worrying—about the future.

In this month's column for A Sense of History, Simon J. Cook goes back to 1936, when Tolkien delivered "Monsters" (and was in the midst of significant work on the "Silmarillion" materials), to consider how he used imagination to plumb the past for clues to the courage that would allow him to face the future. From our vantage point in 1936, we see World War II looming large on the horizon—and also know that this war will end victoriously, on the side of right, although at great cost.

But from Tolkien's vantage point within 1936, there were stirrings of war but no certainty of victory. Simon makes the case that "Monsters and the Critics" describes looking to the past to answer the question of not how to win the coming fight but: How does a person bear up when the metaphorical dragon comes?

You can read Simon's article "1936" here.

Character of Month: Húrin, Part Two

Posted by SWG Moderators on 5 August 2023. Last updated on 2 September 2023.

In June, Melesta shared the first half of Húrin's biography, where they make the case that he is a prototypical hero within the legendarium, a character who possibly inspired Third Age heroes like Aragorn. This month, in the biography's second half, Húrin's life takes a turn for the tragic. (But of course! It is The Silmarillion!)

Húrin might have one of the rawest deals in a book of raw deals. After sacrificing himself so that Gondolin could survive, he experiences physical and psychological torment in Morgoth's hands, helplessly watches the tragic demise of his family, and once freed, goes forth not to a hero's welcome but to mistrust and a series of betrayals. Melesta teases out the elements of this part of the story that have deeper historical and literary resonances, including what Húrin's story tells us of heroism.

You can read Part 2 of Húrin's biography here.

Tolkien Fanartics: Interview with Ismene

Posted by SWG Moderators on 29 July 2023. Last updated on 2 September 2023.

Tolkien artist Ismene's illustrations and character portraits fairly leap off of the screen ... or now the page. Ismene's artwork was recently featured on the cover of the Tolkien Society Seminar proceedings for Tolkien and Diversity. Since Shadow recently reviewed this volume, we hoped that Ismene would chat with us about what it's like to be a self-taught Tolkien fan artist whose work was chosen for the proceedings of the best-attended Tolkien Society Seminar, and she kindly obliged.

In this month's Tolkien Fanartics, Anérea spoke with Ismene about the draw (pardon the pun!) of The Silmarillion as an inspiration of fan art, her creative process, and of course the Tolkien character she would meet in person if given the chance. You can read Anérea's interview with Ismene here.

Volunteer Wanted: Assistant Art Editor

Posted by SWG Moderators on 14 July 2023. Last updated on 21 July 2023.

Do you love Tolkien fan art? Do you want to help artists get more recognition for their work? Would you like to get more involved with the SWG as one of our volunteers?

Since rebuilding our site two years ago, one of our primary aims has been to give more focus to the many talented artists found in the Tolkien fandom. With each of our newsletter articles, a work of art is selected to accompany the article, with preference given to fan artists whenever possible, a task that is currently managed by Aneréa, our art editor.

We are looking for an assistant art editor to help Aneréa manage this growing area of our site. As an assistant editor, you will help Aneréa communicate with newsletter writers to generate ideas for artwork, source the art that appears alongside newsletter articles, contact artists for permission, and feature that art on Tumblr. The role will require up to a few hours per week.

If you're interested in helping out with art for our newsletter, contact our moderator team.

A Sense of History: Beleriand in Beowulf

Posted by SWG Moderators on 14 July 2023. Last updated on 12 August 2023.

Back in 2009, Angelica considered the Anglo-Saxon influences in The Silmarillion in her article Beowulf in Beleriand. In this month's A Sense of History column, Simon J. Cook turns that concept on its head, considering in what ways Tolkien saw Beleriand in Beowulf, namely the "northern feeling" described by so many readers of Tolkien's First Age work, where history grinds toward a seemingly inevitable decline and loss. Simon considers specifically the metaphor of the tower, present in Tolkien's influential 1936 lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where a man uses old stones to build a tower to gaze upon the sea. The sea, Simon argues, is the unknown that has been forgotten by the Anglo-Saxons in Beowulf—or the "wise talkers" of Middle-earth who look back in nostalgic half-remembrance to a drowned world.

You can read Simon's article, "Beleriand in Beowulf," here.

New Challenge: Dip the Ladle

Posted by SWG Moderators on 14 July 2023. Last updated on 19 August 2023.

But if we speak of a Cauldron, we must not wholly forget the Cooks. There are many things in the Cauldron, but the Cooks do not dip in the ladle quite blindly. Their selection is important. The gods are after all gods, and it is a matter of some moment what stories are told of them. … Small wonder that spell means both a story told, and a formula of power over living men.

~ Tolkien, On Fairy-stories

Tolkien is often credited with establishing the modern fantasy genre as it is known today. Certainly, his work has inspired authors, artists, filmmakers, and other creatives for decades. However, as his 1938 lecture On Fairy-stories attests, he saw his own work as a "cauldron of story," drawing with skill from centuries of myth, legend, and tales to come before him.

This month's challenge considers Tolkien's many inspirations, from the books and poems he read, to the illustrations they contained, to the places important in his life. If you wish to participate this month, you will be assigned a prompt by a moderator that you can use to create a fanwork. As always, you can interpret your prompt however you want and use any part or parts you want—we encourage creative uses of our prompts! If a prompt doesn't speak to you, let one of our moderators know, and we'll dip the ladle again.

To receive a prompt, comment on our Dreamwidth, send us an ask on Tumblr, post in the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord, or message us through the SWG site. If you have a preference for the type of prompt we send you, please specify if you would like an image of a location, an image of a book cover/illustration, or a quote.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 August 2023. As July is Disability Pride Month, we also offer a stamp for any fanworks featuring a character with a disability. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Many thanks to Oxbridge for this month's stamps!

Read & Review: "Tolkien and Diversity"

Posted by SWG Moderators on 8 July 2023. Last updated on 8 September 2023.

Diversity in the works and fandom of J.R.R. Tolkien has been a topic of much discussion in recent years as recognition grows that Tolkien's "mythology for England" is read by far more than the English ... or English speakers even. The Tolkien fan community is an international one, with fans from every inhabited continent on the globe bringing their perspectives to bear on the legendarium. Within this international community, Tolkien fans belong to myriad identity groups, some of them marginalized in both Tolkien's and the real world. Significant media coverage devoted to the diverse casting of Amazon's Rings of Power series rocketed these discussions—once limited to some fannish and scholarly enclaves—into the realm of popular discourse.

The 2021 Tolkien Society Seminar on the theme "Tolkien and Diversity" was therefore timely. The best-attended seminar to date, Tolkien and Diversity has now been published as a book containing some of the papers delivered at the seminar. In our latest Read & Review column, Shadow takes a look at the proceedings and what they have to offer to the Tolkien fan who is interested in the topic. They conclude that the proceedings balance discussion of the international fan community with papers about marginalized identities and provide a summary of each paper before offering advice to potential buyers about whether the book is a good addition to their Tolkien collection.

You can read Shadow's review of Tolkien and Diversity here.

Character of the Month: Draugluin

Posted by SWG Moderators on 1 July 2023. Last updated on 19 August 2023.

Wolves populate the shadows of much of Western folklore, and Tolkien's legendarium—ladling as it does from that Cauldron of Story—is no exception. Draugluin is one of several wolves or wolfish beings who appear in Tolkien's stories: the lord of the werewolves. Although only briefly appearing, his presence in the story is a memorable one, as he challenges (and is slain by) Huan, and his skin is used by Beren to sneak into Angband.

In this month's biography of Draugluin, Narya explores not only the evolution of his character in the legendarium (hint: he was early-appearing but in very different form) but the folkloric roots that Tolkien may have drawn from ... and those he definitely did not. As is often the case with Tolkien, Narya finds deep roots in language and lore that helped inform the character of Draugluin.

You can read the biography of Draugluin here.

Read & Review: "The Battle of Maldon"

Posted by SWG Moderators on 23 June 2023. Last updated on 29 July 2023.

Although we know Tolkien as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century, the progenitor of the modern fantasy genre, he would have likely defined himself by his academic work, as a professor and scholar of Old English. The recent posthumous volume The Battle of Maldon includes his prose translation of that text, a fanfiction (yes, really!) based on it, and a lecture on Old English poetry.

In the latest article in our occasional Read & Review column, Narya reviews The Battle of Maldon. What can you expect to find in its pages? And as a non-Middle-earth book by Tolkien, is it a book you should consider adding to your collection?

You can read Narya's review of "The Battle of Maldon" here.

Cultus Dispatches: Affirmational Fandom, Transformational Fandom, and Two Old Tolkien Fanfics

Posted by SWG Moderators on 17 June 2023. Last updated on 19 August 2023.

Although Star Trek and media fandom are often credited as the beginning of fanfiction, the first fanfiction texts are much older than that and oriented in book fandoms. (The first fanfics are older even than the term fanfiction!) The first two known Tolkien fanfics appeared in the 1960 fanzine I Palantir, and they couldn't be more different.

This month's Cultus Dispatches column analyzes these two old fics, in particular how they illustrate the fan studies concept of affirmational and transformational fandom. Transformational fandom is often depicted as the fertile field where fanworks grow, but Tolkien fanworks (and probably many other fandoms' fanworks as well) defy this, drawing on affirmational elements oriented in mastery of canon and consideration of Tolkien's authority. The earliest Tolkien fanfics not only show how both "types of fandom" can give rise to fanworks but how, even in fanworks that clearly belong to one or the other, elements of the other fandom approach are essential to making a particular story work.

You can read the article "Affirmational Fandom, Transformational Fandom, and Two Old Tolkien Fanfics" here.