SPOTLIGHT: Tolkien, Explore the mind behind The Lord of the Rings

By Daniel Sandiford
Collegian Editor
March 1, 2006

The Lord of the Rings is a book series treasured by many fans. The recent movies based on the trilogy have again raised the popularity of the series. On Thursday, March 16, the Minor in Catholic Studies will host a presentation that may interest you even if you aren’t a Lord of the Rings fan. Dr. Joseph Brogan of the Political Science Department will give a presentation on “Tolkien, Politics and Religion or Onward Christian Hobbits.” The event will take place at 12:30 p.m. in the Union Music room. This week, Spotlight! caught up with Dr. Brogan to find out more about his presentation.

Spotlight: Did Tolkien write these books in an attempt to make a political statement?

Dr. Joseph Brogan: This is a more complicated question than people may suspect. It is certainly true that Tolkien did not write the books as a specific commentary or statement on the contemporary politics of his times. It is not a statement about World War I, World War II or the conflict with fascism and communism. The Lord of the Rings is, however, a book about the relation among God, man, nature and society, and this necessarily means that it is about the perennial questions and issues of political life. For example, what is the standard for justice, what are the qualities of a statesman, are all men created equal? Tolkien, I believe, is trying to help us recover our understanding of the right principles of political order—not by any grand declamations, but by the gentle prodding of holding a mirror before our souls

SP: What groups of people did Tolkien want to portray in these books?

JB: I suppose you don’t mean Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, etc., all of which Tolkien suggested represented aspects of human life. He portrays—with all their virtues and vices—philosophers, scientists, poets, statesmen, tyrants, warriors and gardeners of all types; heroes and heroines; the noble and the base—in short, the human condition.

SP: How did you become interested in this topic?

JB: Depends on what topic you mean. Growing up during the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War naturally awakened an interest in politics, and especially the question of justice. My undergraduate years here at La Salle focused my attention on political philosophy, which became my professional concentration. Tolkien naturally fits within this interest. I became very interested in parallels between Tolkien and Plato’s political thought, and taught my first course on Tolkien in 1980.

SP: Are you a big fan of Tolkien? When did you first start reading his books?

JB: I much prefer to describe myself as a student of Tolkien rather than a fan. I read my first Tolkien book (The Hobbit) in 1967 or 1968—I’m not quite sure which. I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time in either 1970 or 1971.

SP: Do you feel that the film interpretations of Lord of the Rings give the same political messages?

JB: I think the best that can be said about the film interpretations is that they are as naive as the original narratives are subtle.

SP: What do you hope students will get out of your presentation?

JB: More than anything else, the interrelationship of religion and politics will be the dominant political issue for the generation currently enrolled in college. Whether in the form of the current controversy regarding the secularization of American polity, the perennial argument of the moral and spiritual decline of the West, the stresses within a multicultural society or the “clash of civilizations” represented by 9/11, the tensions between religion and politics are not going to go away. I hope to suggest to students that Tolkien’s literary works invite us to think afresh about these issues while suggesting a “natural” basis for politics consistent with Western religious tradition.

SP: Do you have any other suggested reading for students interested in this type of genre?

JB: I read very little, almost nothing, of what is today classified as fantasy, including science fiction. It simply never appealed to me—even when I read a good bit of it as a youth. I would recommend that students read what once were the classics of mythology, Homer or Beowulf for example, but are too little read today. Tolkien also described LOTR as “feigned history” and, himself, praised the work of James Fennimore Cooper and Mary Renault. I highly recommend the latter’s work, especially The King Must Die, The Mask of Apollo, The Last of the Wine and The Praise Singer.

sandifordd1@lasalle.edu