Search

The powerful and highly informative definitions that Freeman applies to Tolkien’s Middle-earth phenomenon in the title of his book create a productive interpretational framework. Myth and mythology in Inklings’ writing were always understood, in an almost Jungian way, as a cultural paradigm flexible enough to embrace the free creativity of the playful human mind and a philosophical postulate, or credo, of the humanistic religious intuition of Christianity. In Freeman’s interpretation, Tolkien’s literary myth in some ways requires a theological background, which, in its turn, leads to inevitable dogma, a statement that reveals the sensitive mechanics of literary myth as it relates to Tolkien’s religious views. According to Freeman, Tolkien builds his impressive mythological cosmos as a Christian universe, which can be studied scholastically, as it was in previous times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most central of Tolkien’s myths is the creation of the Sun and Moon as the last fruit and flower of the Two Trees of Valinor. The death of the Trees is central in a long chain of events that directly leads to the later battles, kin slayings, and geological upheavals in Middle-earth. It is therefore curious that during the writing of The Lord of the Rings (and continuing into the later 1950s and 1960s), Tolkien began second-guessing himself, and became concerned with what he called “the astronomically absurd business of the making of the Sun and Moon.” Beginning with the experimental 1948 “Round World” cosmology of the Ainulindalë C*, the elder Tolkien explores what his son terms a “radical transformation of the astronomical myth,” changes that appear jarring to his son’s sensibilities concerning what his father came to call a “primitive” mythology but Christopher defends as “in conception beautiful.” As the cosmological writings become further removed from the medievalist geocentric worldview reflected in writings Christopher (himself a medieval scholar) had been carefully collecting and editing for nearly two decades, his commentary seems severely curtailed, mainly limited to philology and drawing a few cursory connections to similar passages within the same volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings accurately portrayed the signs and symptoms of what is currently labeled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Frodo’s condition logically follows his experiences of less than a year in the War of the Ring. Tolkien did not have access to a diagnostic manual but apparently used his keen observations from both World Wars to inform his narrative. No fantasy is employed to describe Frodo condition after the Ring is destroyed. His condition is that of a vet with PTSD. Evidence from the History of Middle-earth demonstrates the deliberate steps taken to show Frodo as broken by his sacrifice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response to Larry Burris’s “Sentience and Sapience in the One Ring,” Mythlore 41.2, #142. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a broad stream of Christian interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fiction, especially The Lord of the Rings, which views it as the intentionally, essentially Christian work of an intentionally, essentially Christian author. This reductive, exclusivist approach does not do justice to the complex, generative interactivity between Tolkien’s faith, the faith of his readers (or lack thereof), and the text itself. Building on work by Veryln Flieger, Michael Drout, and Robin A. Reid, this paper interrogates how Christian Tolkien scholarship drafts Tolkien the human sub-creator to perform Foucault’s author-function by suppressing his contradictions and painting a figure whose life and works speak with a single, authoritative voice. Then, drawing on progressive Christian and Jewish hermeneutics and Tolkien’s own writings on intent and the freedom of the reader, it proposes a hermeneutics of Tolkienian inspiration that honors Tolkien’s Roman Catholic foundations, the sub-creative integrity of his secondary world, and the religious diversity of the readers who draw such deep wells of meaning from it. In so doing, it intervenes in ongoing conflict in the field of Tolkien Studies and Tolkien fandom more broadly over diverse interpretations of his fiction and the control of Tolkienian meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics, and even the general public, have noted the absence of women in The Lord of the Rings, an absence so glaring that it could hardly be overlooked. Many feminist scholars have, as a result of this deficiency, denounced J.R.R. Tolkien, interpreting this lack of female characters as indicative of repressed misogyny. Others, however, have defended the author, pointing out that the female characters that do exist could be considered role models. This essay offers an alternative interpretation and contends that the absence of women in the novel, though potentially reducing its appeal to modern readers, reinforces one of its central motifs: the barrenness and infertility of Middle-earth. Overawed by Tolkien’s landscape descriptions and the extent of his worldbuilding, readers have overlooked just how empty this world is, how rarely the Fellowship encounters settled districts or even lonely habitations. Replacing the farms, villages, and markets a reader would expect to encounter are vast stretches of wilderness and the ruins of forgotten nations. The almost total absence of women, of wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers, reinforces this sense of desolation, suggesting to the reader that Middle-earth has no future. The novel’s few women actually contribute to this impression, for they are all, for different reasons, childless. Compared to the infertile and declining populations of elves, humans, and dwarves, Tolkien’s orcs display a shocking and unnatural fecundity, reproducing—in a manner only hinted at—in enormous numbers. The novel’s conclusion, which begins with Aragorn’s long-desired wedding and ends with Sam’s return to Rosie Cotton, generates a flurry of contented relationships, suggesting not misogyny on the author’s part, but a veneration for sex, romance, and family life. That Frodo is unable to partake in any of these makes his sacrifice all the more poignant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on several books by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the 'Lord of the Rings' series of novels. The author discusses how Tolkien's books are stories of character journeys that revolve around the idea of "home" and "homelessness" as an over arching concept with linguistic characteristics and implications. The author discusses themes of security, comfort and culture in Tolkien's stories. The article also discusses how J. R. R Tolkien's writings are relevant to our current, modern times.

«The Lord of the Rings» is surely the most important and influential epic work of the 20th Century. In addition to its intrinsic value, Tolkien's work set the generic parameters of the fantasy novel, inspiring the subsequent birth of various literary universes. In the Tolkien epic, as it is known, the basilar influence of Christianity is recognized. The recent audiovisual phenomenon «Game of Thrones», deeply rooted in postmodern cultural uses, proposes a radically opposite reading of the fantasy genre, of the axiology of the characters and political morality. However, both bodies converge in the multidimensional use of messianic narrative patterns. In this text, I intend to succinctly identify these guidelines and analyze them from and interdisciplinary perspective. In conclusion, I maintain the nuclear importance of the messianic narrative in the plot and historical-contextual configuration of the works of Tolkien and George R. R. Martin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In keeping with the purpose of the Mythopoeic Society—“promoting the study, discussion, and enjoyment of fantastic and mythic literature”—this selective list examines a few of the authors and works Ursula K. Le Guin acknowledged as being influential or among her favorites, and to which some connections might be traced in her own mythopoeic and cosmopoeic works. The list includes Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, Lord Dunsany’s A Dreamer’s Tales, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the treatment of knighthood and chivalric romance in the novels of author J. R. R Tolkien. Topics discussed are Tolkien's rejection and criticism of the romantic tradition of chivalry, theory of heroism shown by the chivalric characters Faramir and Aragorn in the book "The Lord of the Rings," and Tolkien's replacement of chivalry with a reconstructed model of heroism that is more Christian and based on his experiences of World War I.

The article looks into the friendship and their correspondences of Polish professor Przemyslaw Mroczkowski and "The Lord of the Rings" author J. R. R. Tolkien, focusing on the role of Mroczkowski in the author's making of his book a social phenomenon. Topics discussed are academic works of Mroczkowski, connection between the two as evident with their Catholic faith and passion for medieval culture and literature, and involvement of Mroczkowski in the translations of Tolkien's novels .

The article analyzes the nature and significance of the character of Tom Bombadil in the novel "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien focusing on his embodiment of the spirit of objectivity. Topics discussed are Bombadil as symbolism of free will, fear, jealousy, pride, desire and psychological weaknesses that underlie evil, Tolkien's attribution of Tom as a representation of a natural pacifist view of the rights and wrongs of power and control, and belief of self-mastery.

The article explores the influences of Elisabeth G. Gitter's "The Power of Women's Hair in the Victorian Imagination, Daniel Gabriel Rossetti's painting "Lady Lilith" and Victorian fascination on author J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium and its sequel "The Lord of the Rings." Topic discussed are cultural focus of Elves on hair to rival Victorians, association of weaving with ensnaring in the Victorian mythology of hair, and allusion in the description of Galadriel's hair with the demonic erotic.

This article examines fantasies that imagine and characterize entire cities, arguing that the value and interest of this practice has been neglected due to the contemporary critical focus on oppositional or paranoid views of metropolises articulated through the perspectives of alienated individuals. After using Revelation and M. John Harrison's Viriconium stories to sketch out how evoking whole cities can function, the article analyzes the limits of dominant critical discourses that depicts urban fragmentation through selfconscious metaphors of textuality. It contends that while such discourses can be valuable and legitimate, they can also lead to elitism and narrowmindedness when assumed to constitute the whole picture. By way of contradistinction, the article considers six case studies (Terry Pratchett's Ankh-Morpork, J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, G. K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill, and N. K. Jemisin's The City We Became) to explore how urban totalities can be activated as signifiers, questions, and sites of positive and negative affect. It concludes by arguing that the abstracting powers of text and the fantastic allow the creation of holistic urban imaginaries that avoid domineering totalization through manifesting as both alternatives and shareable common property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism is presented for the book "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien. Topics discussed include Tom Bombadil as an enigmatic character, the legendarium known for its studied use of gaps in the history of Middle-earth and the book Middle-Earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J. R. R. Tolkien by Jenika Kinga. It also discusses supernatural control over nature.

A speech is presented Verlyn Flieger at the Mythcon 50, San Diego, California, 2019. It mentions about the books by J. R. R. Tolkien including "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," "Lord of the Rings," and "Smith of Wootton Major," and "The Peoples of Middle-earth." It also informs on the book "The Golden Key" by George MacDonald.

The harp is a metonym for poetry in many cultures, and Tolkien's Middleearth is no exception. But an inventory of references to harps throughout Tolkien's works reveals a preponderance of elegiac sentiment connected with the harp. In a passage from the Old English Seafarer, recollected in a dream by a character in Tolkien's Notion Club papers (nis me ti hearpun hygi, "for no harp have I heart"), the harp in the poem becomes an emblem of ancient music, and ancient language itself, calling to the modern mind in an inexplicable way. That ancient music provides the "Door to Other Time" Tolkien found in Fairy Story - as does language itself. A study of an Old English translation of Psalm 137 ("By the Waters of Babylon") suggests that the harp already had such associations in Judeo-Christian tradition. Tolkien's philological comments on the word "harp" in an (undated) lecture to the Lincoln Musical Society illuminate the role of the harp image in Tolkien's creative imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a critical analysis on the influence of English poet William Shakespeare on English writer J.R.R. Tolkien. Topics discussed include Tolkien's disliking for drama as a genre, Tolkien's deliberate use of Shakespearean elements, and the motif of the Battle of the Trees and prophecy used by Tolkien in "The Lord of the Rings" from Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

The article presents a critical analysis on the critiques of chivalry by Scottish author Walter Scott and heroic imaginary by English author J.R.R. Tolkien. Topics discussed include Scott’s critique of chivalry in “An Essay on Chivalry," combination of fantasy and historical fiction in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and Scott's negative view of fanaticism in "The Tale of Old Mortality."

The article presents a critical analysis of inns and common people in the works of English authors Geoffrey Chaucer J.R.R. Tolkien. Topics discussed include The Tabard Inn in Chaucer "Canterbury Tales," and visit of Tolkien's protagonist Frodo to the Prancing Pony Inn in "The Lord of the Rings," Chaucer's role in medieval English language, and parallel between the Chaucer figure and the narrator of Tolkien's "The Hobbit."

The article presents a critical analysis of the works by English writer J.R.R. Tolkien and Italian novelist Alessandro Manzoni. Topics discussed include parallels and points of contact between Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and Manzoni's "The Betrothed," comparison of Manzoni’s protagonists Renzo and Lucia and Tolkien’s hobbits Bilbo and Frodo, and Providence in both the novels.

The article presents a critical analysis of the works by Scottish writer Kenneth Grahame and English writer J.R.R. Tolkien. Topics discussed include Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" and Tolkien's "The Hobbit," animal character and fable like characteristics in "The Wind in the Willows," influence of animal stories on had on Tolkien, and the character of Hobbits.

The article presents a critical analysis of tragic characters in the works of Italian author Vittorio Alfieri and English writer J.R.R. Tolkien. Topics discussed include tragic nature of Alfieri's characters, the character of Fëanor the Elf in Tolkien's "The Lord of The Rings," and Alfierian characters like Antigone, Mirra and Saul dedicated to moral freedom.

The article presents a critical analysis of similarities in the works of medieval Italian poet Alighieri Dante and English author J.R.R. Tolkien. Topics discussed include Tolkien’s interest in Dante, narratives in Dante's poem "Divine Comedy" and Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" taking place in imaginary worlds, music in Dante's poem "Inferno" and Tolkien's novel "The Silmarillion," and influence of medieval philosophy and theology on Tolkien’s work.

The article presents a critical discussion on the literary inspiration of English author J.R.R. Tolkien from Roman poet Virgil. Topics discussed include Tolkien's overview of Virgil’s "Aeneid" as a source for lost Roman mythical tales, Virgil's protagonist Aeneas as a character in "Iliad" who fought in the war at Troy, the overlapping of the motif of the return with exile in Tolkien and Virgil, and Elves in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."

The article examines the women who served in the Great War and those who served in healing capacities, and their possible influence on author J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings." Topics discussed include wartime options for nurses and other caregivers, factors which are basis for women's work in France during the Great War, and brief overview of the Battle of the Somme.

The article explores how the context of the wars in which author J.R.R. Tolkien and his sons served underlies a pervasive medieval/modern tension in his depiction of war in the books "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings." Topics discussed include factors that influenced the writing of Tolkien's masterpieces, and examination on the phenomenon of total war and its military and social manifestations in the years that are relevant to Tolkien's writing.

The article examines the character Eowyn in author J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings," and a possible source of her heroic action on the Pelennor Fields. Topics discussed include random examples of ethnic divisions in the novel, brief background of Eowyn, and three feminines in society, according to Eowyn.

The article explores the depiction of masculinity, homoeroticism, class and master/servant relationship in author J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings." Topics discussed include representation of World War I in Tolkien's fiction, purpose of having soldier-servants, and description of the relationship between Frodo and Sam in the novel.

The article examines masculinity and homoeroticism in author J.R.R Tolkien's fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings." Topics discussed include background of political scientist Benedict Anderson's book "Imagined Communities," key factor in the alienating feelings of homosocial intimacy, and representation of women in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."

The article addresses death and the social construction of heroism in author J.R.R. Tolkien's poem "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son" (HBBS). Topics discussed include description of Tolkien's depiction of the Dead Marshes in "The Lord of the Rings," which is a representation of war experience, background of the poem "The Battle of Maldon," and how Tolkien views the Old English poem.

The article examines the way in which author J.R.R. Tolkien explicitly links bodily trauma with the devastated landscape of war. Topics discussed include how Tolkien depicted the loss of a self as constituted by place-attachment in his fiction "The Lord of the Rings" (LotR), how his novel function as testimony to a subjective trauma, and observation on uses of pastoral nature in LotR.

The article explores underground spaces in author J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings." Topics discussed include description of the preferred living arrangements of the hobbits, letter written by Tolkien to his son, Christopher, in June 1944 on the relationship between lived experience, memory and writing, and opportunities for Tolkien to assimilate life underground into his fiction.

The article explores possible resonances of combat-related stress in author J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings." Topics discussed include episodes, passages and images in the works of Tolkien that should reflect his wartime experiences, eyewitness accounts of trench warfare, and factors detrimental to the emotional state of the entrenched combatants of the Great War.

The article compares experiences of author J.R.R. Tolkien in the Great War with those of German poet and essayist Ernst Junger. Topics discussed include wartime experience of both Tolkien and Junger, personal accounts of war from Tolkien's letters to his fiancee Edith Bratt and son Michael, and observation on Tolkien's construction of the hobbit as a warrior in his novels.

The article explores the landscape of author J.R.R. Tolkien's period of recovery after being sent back from the front during the Great War, and investigates traces of this time and place in his fiction. Topics discussed include description of Hornsea, the location at which Tolkien stayed in East Yorkshire, England, evidence of the Roman Catholic faith in Halsham, and information on Kilnsea where Tolkien was sent for treatment.

The article explores author J.R.R. Tolkien's personal experience of the Great War in the context of the overall traumatic arc of his life. Topics discussed include specific vulnerabilities that Tolkien brought into the war, psychological effects of trauma, and examination on Tolkien's pre-war suffering from emotional loss, and his susceptibility to physical ailments particularly at times of stress.

The article explores the Great Battles of the First Age, which is the heroic period in which most of author J.R.R. Tolkien's early legends are set, and the Great Battles in World War I (WWI). Topics discussed include overview of Tolkien's personal experience with World War I, comparison between Beowulf and Aragorn, one of the main protagonists of "The Lord of the Rings," and background on the First Battle and the inadvertent cost of the Battle of Verdun.

The article explores author J.R.R. Tolkien's references to the Great War in his fantasy epic "The Lord of the Rings." Topics discussed include letter of Tolkien wherein he stated his aversion to biographical interpretations of his works, where and how to find the Great War in Middle-earth in "The Lord of the Rings," and comparison between the Great War and the War of the Ring in the fiction.

The article offers on J.R.R. Tolkien, writer, who plays an important role in the narratives of the novels including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It focuses on cleverness, leadership abilities, and historical sense of myth and transcendent goodness. It states that rhetoric reveals crucial details on the philosophies, ethics, and passions.

In his work Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, Gerard Genette defined paratexts as any thing external to the text itself that influences the way a reader interacts with it. Genette called this 'a transaction'. In his monograph Building Imaginary Worlds (2012), Mark J.P. Wolf explored several types of invented paratexts, including maps, timelines, genealogies, invented artifacts and lexicons and grammars of invented languages, which authors utilize in their world-building to both imbue their diegetic world with a greater sense of reality, while also creating a point of interaction and 'transaction' between the author and the reader. This paper will explore these two aspects of paratexts in three related narratives. In the 1930's the American legal author and philosopher Austin Tappan Wright utilized a combination of narrative and paratexts to privately invent a world which, after his tragic death, his wife would publish in the novel Islandia (1940). At roughly the same time, J.R.R. Tolkien was using a similar process to continue building his world of Arda, which readers would first experience in his masterworks The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-55). Then in the 1980's the science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin would build upon both the tradition of Tappan Wright and Tolkien to invent a world for the Kesh people in her unique novel Always Coming Home (1985). This paper will investigate how each of these authors invented and used paratexts as part of the gestalt of their world-building. It will explore how each author used similar paratextual elements, including maps, charts, genealogies and both lexicons and grammars of invented languages, to both construct their diegetic worlds and also encourage Genette's process of interaction and transaction between the author and reader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andrzej Sapkowski's (1948 - ) Witcher fantasy series featuring the adventures of the chemically-modified monster killer for hire (or "Witcher") Geralt, his sorceress lover Yennifer, and Ciri, the eugenically-engineered child of destiny, is an award-winning best seller in his native Poland and has a devoted audience across the globe. Featuring a bestiary of fantastical creatures from classical mythology, and, more importantly, mythological creatures from Polish and Slavic mythology, Sapkowski also interweaves Arthurian legend with Polish folktales, magic with genetic engineering, and environmentalism with court intrigue. The result is a detailed, self-contained Secondary World (to use Tolkien's terminology) crafted especially for the author's Polish audience. But it will be argued that Sapkowski's work nearly succeeds as a subcreated mythology for modern Poland (similar to Tolkien's original desire for his legendarium to serve as a mythology for England). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a preliminary study of worldbuilding theory in the imaginary world of the four Brontë siblings - Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne - and compares it with that of J.R.R. Tolkien. Despite the differences of age and historical period, the delight of these writers for worldbuilding begins in their adolescence and involves play with script and language. Glass Town and Angria share many similarities with Middle-earth as these worldbuilders authenticate their worlds and establish artefacts for it. However, the two worlds have very different ethos, with Tolkien's being theorised by Mark J.P. Wolf as the definitive example of a fully realised world with consistent and plausible verisimitude. In contrast, the Brontës create an imaginary space for literary exploration and apprenticeship which challenges early nineteenth century realism. The paper concludes with a study of how deeply immersive their imaginary worlds became for Tolkien and all the Brontës. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At first glance, the worlds (sub)created by Tolkien and Martin may seem to have a number of crucial features in common. Both are meticulously crafted, with various, often deeply incompatible, layers of cultural identity and ethics (Gondor vs Mordor, Starks vs Lannisters etc.). Likewise, despite sometimes markedly different approaches in their worldbuilding strategies, the writers' indebtedness to medieval literature, history and values has been repeatedly examined by many a scholar, providing fertile grounds for cross-cultural explorations and evaluations. There are, however, certain vital, perhaps even fundamental, issues where the worlds of The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire are as distinct from one another as the proverbial chalk and cheese. One such issue - clearly discernible to every Christian (or, at least, Christian-raised) reader of Tolkien - is the intriguing spiritual disparity between the characters living in Middle-earth and those that inhabit Martin's Westeros. The world of the former is almost practically devoid of any explicit manifestations of the divine (at the time of its first publication the readers were not yet aware of the (pre) existence of Eru Illúvatar), yet, at the same time, it is suffused with numerous Christian values and underpinnings which cannot be ignored if one seeks to get a fuller (and thus more meaningful) picture of Tolkien's fiction. The latter, on the other hand, appears to be resplendent with all sorts of gods - greater and lesser,"real" and imaginary, more or less merciful and forgiving - yet in the long run it fails (in most cases it seems to fail all along the line) to even partly comply with the Christian (or, as for that matter, any religion-based) ethics, perhaps in some ways implying that all religions (or theologically-based systems of beliefs) are equal, and therefore equally false (or, at least, uncertain) in their nature and moral direction. The following paper seeks to examine some of these differences, juxtaposing Tolkien's Catholic worldview with that of evidently agnostic (or even atheist) Martin.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution will examine other writers and philosophers of the latenineteenth and early twentieth-centuries who wrote or discussed various ideas and thoughts around man's role as a sub-creator and inventor. Many of these individuals were Tolkien's contemporaries or were influences on Tolkien: Francis Thompson (1859-1907), James Joyce (1882-1941), Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), and David Jones (1895-1974). All wrote about their views regarding man in relation to God, especially as imitators, artists, writers, and sub-creators. This paper will provide more information on what each of these individuals felt and said, and what influence they may/may not have had on Tolkien and his theory of sub-creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we have a closer look at dialogue in a representative set of texts from the Middle-earth legendarium in order to inspect the functional potential of dialogue and its world-building capacity. We combine corpusanalytical tools from linguistics with a cognitive approach. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of prominent linguistic features of selected examples of dialogic interaction (e.g. the Smaug-Bilbo colloquy from The Hobbit) points to salient differences in the setup and the function of the dialogues. The detected patterns eventually lead to a function-based classification into four main dialogue types in the Tolkien corpus under investigation, namely the bantering, personalising, story-propelling, and historicizing types. These types are modelled to cover the range of styles and topic dimensions from a micro- to a macro-level of systematic foregrounding, thus representing their complementary impact on world-building density and coherence. In this respect, there is a high potential for follow-up studies using eye-tracking methodology. Ultimately, our presented model is meant to offer opportunities for the study of dialogue as a versatile and strategic device in fictional literature beyond Tolkien. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]