The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power (Twayne's Masterwork Studies) (No. 99) [Hardcover]

Jane Chance (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1992 | ISBN-10: 0805794417 | ISBN-13: 978-0805794410

" With New Line Cinema's production of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the popularity of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien is unparalleled. Tolkien’s books continue to be bestsellers decades after their original publication. An epic in league with those of Spenser and Malory, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, begun during Hitler’s rise to power, celebrates the insignificant individual as hero in the modern world. Jane Chance’s critical appraisal of Tolkien’s heroic masterwork is the first to explore its “mythology of power”–that is, how power, politics, and language interact. Chance looks beyond the fantastic, self-contained world of Middle-earth to the twentieth-century parallels presented in the trilogy.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An interesting examination of themes like the value of language and the corrupting effects of a will to power." -- (Oshawa, Ont.) Artsforum

"Chance's companion volumes on Tolkien are brilliantly written and critically significant. Her understanding of his works is profound, and she convincingly confirms him as a major writer of the 20th century." -- Kritikon Litterarum

"Both provocative and stimulating... provides a rewarding exploration of that web of relationships which defines Middle-earth." -- Robert A. Collins, Florida Atlantic University

"The author has taken a complex and convoluted masterpiece and dissected it in a clear and concise style. Fans of Tolkien's classic will welcome it." -- School Library Journal

"Presents a strong case for Tolkien as a mainstream contemporary writer." -- Seven

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

“The author has taken a complex and convoluted masterpiece and dissected it in a clear and concise style. Fans of Tolkien’s classic will welcome it.” —School Library Journal --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 130 pages
• Publisher: Twayne Publishers (July 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805794417
• ISBN-13: 978-0805794410
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,603,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jane Chance, the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Chair in English at Rice University, has taught medieval literature for forty years, first, at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, after receiving her Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois in 1971, and then at Rice University, beginning in 1973. Former first President and founder of the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, Inc., Chance has published twenty-one books and nearly a hundred articles and book reviews, on mythography and the Latin influence on medieval literary culture, Old and Middle English literature, Chaucer, medieval women, and modern medievalism (Tolkien in particular). Winner of many awards and national fellowships, she has edited three book series, most recently the Praeger Series on the Middle Ages, and served as Vice President of the Texas Faculty Association. She serves on several editorial boards, including those for PMLA and postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies.

Jane Chance lives in Galveston and pursues her interests in photography and historic architecture. She lives in a house built by Sam Houston's great nephew, Major Samuel Moore Penfield, which has been awarded Landmark status by the city of Galveston and the Texas Historic Commission. She won the Galveston Historic Foundation award for historical preservation in the construction of her new garage.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Mythology of Power, January 11, 2002

By 

"cynthano" (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power (Paperback)

Not really much insight here. Noteworthy and interesting points are scattered throughout, however they are certainly not helped by the general skimpiness of developed argument or sustained elaboration for a convincing case. All in all, the ideas are never explored to their fullest extent, and the general tone is that of a graduate student's thesis. In part this may be due to the decision to retrace the entire plot-line, rather than to develop particular themes in depth. Also, the academic liberal arts jargon is just bad.
Prof. Chance approaches LOTR and its mythology of power by way of a purely political hermeneutics, applying the theories of (mostly) Foucault to mythopoetic material that rises beyond explanation via mere politics. This Foucault influence is central, but at no point is it seriously questioned or demonstrated how it is even relevant or useful to the topic at hand - rather than, say, the concepts Tolkien drank in from epic poetry, fairy stories, world mythology, the Bible, or a thousand different philosophers (for example, how is Foucault more revealing here than Augustine, or Hobbes, or Rousseau?).
Somehow, it all fails to grasp the very personal, psychological, and metaphysical aspects of Tolkien's masterpiece, which speaks to us not primarily through the rationalism of politics but via the art of wonder: the magic of the journey, the crucible of morality and fellowship, innocence and experience, and the passages of life in relation to its underpinning wholeness.
It's disappointing and at times hilarious, though, when Prof. Chance sees LOTR as rather more concerned with "the political problem of the intellectual (22)" and "liberation from hegemony... A novel that mythologizes power and the problem of individual difference... the problem of individual and class difference within the social body or construct, the heroic power of knowledge and language in the political power struggle, and the ideal of kingship as healing and service, in a unique inversion of master-servant roles (23)". One gets the sense that it all boils down to "the role of understanding and tolerating differences within the community (24)", to "giving voice to the dispossessed of the twentieth century (25)". But interpreted this way, squintingly, the tale only seems to diminish into triviality. It becomes merely "a drama of the symbolic value of language (45)", wherein the Ring is a "challenge to [Frodo's] civic and political education (48)", and where "name-calling and hostile language...wound more than the...voice of an enemy like the Black Riders or Sauron (58)".
Admittedly, such platitudes are more than the pure baloney evoked here, and may well contain very important ideas, but they are, in the end, only tangents to the tale that Tolkien set down.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Power has many facets, January 21, 2002

By 

ghostcat - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power (Paperback)

Jane Chance's discussion includes some valuable insights and a useful review of research, however it suffers from three main problems:

a. The discussion of power is one-sided and focuses too much on the power of language, while neglecting issues such as the power of vision and the gaze, which are just as prominent. This makes the application of Foucault's theories - a good idea in itself -superficial (The author refers to one book of his out of a vast corpus).
b. Any discussion of the structure of The Lord of the Rings cannot disregard the vast work that Christopher Tolkein has done on the various layers and stages of the volumes of the book.
c. Chance's book is marred by many errors: for example, how can Germany have blockaded England in 1946, a year after the end of the war? In this context, the author should have mentioned Tolkein's own discussion of the relationship between his work and the Second World War.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Don't take a Chance on this book, November 20, 2002

By 

Diana Poskrop - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power (Paperback)

I'm very disappointed in this book. The author is wrong about basic facts on which she bases her theories. To wit:

Frodo does not, as the author claims, use the Ring "to test resistance to institutionalized power and the power of others within the community." He doesn't "use" the Ring at all; if anything, it uses him. Gandalf's Elven ring does not save Frodo from the Nazgul at the Ford on the way to Rivendell; at that point in the story, we don't know that Gandalf has one of the Elven rings. "Mordor" may mean"murder" in Anglo-Saxon, and that may have been in the back of Tolkien's mind; but "Mordor" mean "black-land" in Sindarin, and that's the meaning Tolkien wanted for the land. Durin's Bane is not mithril or greed (though that is an issue), but the Balrog.

Dr. Chance does makes several interesting points, and for that reason I might, albeit with much hesitation, recommend this book to those who are familiar enough with LotR to avoid the pitfalls.