News from the Shire and Beyond — Studies on Tolkien

Peter Buchs and Thomas Honegger (editors)

Cormarë Series No. 1

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News from the Shire and Beyond — Studies on Tolkien
Papers of the Cormarë conference 1996.

Tolkien Studies: News from the Shire and Beyond Indeed.

Peter Buchs and Thomas Honegger

The Speech of the Individual and of the Community in The Lord of the Rings

Nils-Lennart Johanneson.

Non-standard English forms and constructions, drawn from the rural dialects of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, function as very versatile tools in the characterisation of speaker groups and individual speakers in The Lord of the Rings. In the speech of working-class Shire hobbits and Breelanders, the use of these non-standard features suggests group solidarity and linguistic insecurity as well as regional dialect differences within the Shire and accomodation to other people's speech.

From Bag End to Lórien: the Creation of a Literary World.

Thomas Honegger.

Tolkien's fictional world is not merely the backdrop for the unfolding plot, but rather a 'protagonist' in its own right. The analysis of the places visited by the Fellowship in the first part of the narrative (from Bag End to Lothlórien) will illustrate the function of places in Tolkien's work. Their function is threefold. First, they primarily constitute his narrative universe; second, the description of the habitat of a people is an important instrument to characterise its inhabitants and supplements or even replaces a straightforward characterisation. And third, the assignment of a 'homeland' to a people implies a tacit approval. In a sense, the lack of a place of origin, of a 'home', points to a moral deficiency.

Middle Earth: The Collectible Card Game — Powerplay in the World of Tolkien.

Patrick Näf.

What are collectible card games and what do they have to do with the work of J.R.R. Tolkien? This essay is an attempt to answer these questions - notably by looking at the newest product of the game company Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE). MECCG - in full Middle Earth: The Collectible Card Game - is but a fresh example of the 'excesses' eager Tolkien fandom can generate. However, as this essay contains few critical elements I am not going to discuss whether this specific 'excess' is a negative or a positive one. I neither want to write a review nor deal with - admittedly interesting - topics such as whether the Collectible Card Game will outlive its commercial roots. Rather, I would like to tempt the interested reader with a short introduction to MECCG.

Middle-earth: the Wizards - the Representation of Tolkien's World in Game

Peter Buchs.

J.R.R. Tolkien's imaginary world, Middle-earth, found such a huge and eager following, that his books alone could not quench the thirst for more. As a result, a wide variety of films, radio adaptations and games were made to satisfy this demand. The quality of these representations have to be judged by two criteria. The first one is concerned with their quality as examples of their genus, the second one with their quality as representations of Tolkien's world. This paper sets out to describe the various features of the collectible card game Middle-earth: the Wizards, notably its cards and some of its rules, and look at them from the point of view of the latter.

Information on the first edition of this book (out of print) can be found here.

 
163 pages, Walking Tree Publishers 1997, second edition 2006, Cormarë Series No. 1, Editors: Peter Buchs and Thomas Honegger , ISBN: 978-3-9521424-5-5.
 


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