Faculty Member, Dr. Doyle, Publishes Book on Tolkien

Per its description, the book “explores how Tolkien’s works speak to modern people’s utopian desires despite the recent dominance of dystopian literature. It also examines how Tolkien’s malevolent societies capture many people’s fears about the trajectory of modern society. Tolkien’s works create utopian and dystopian longing while rejecting the stilted conventions of most literary utopias and dystopias. This book traces these utopian and dystopian motifs through Tolkien’s works including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, and Leaf by Niggle. This book analyzes Tolkien’s ideal and evil societies from a variety of angles: his sources, his environmentalism, his relationship with Catholic social doctrine, his use of myth, and finally his politics and theories of leadership. The epilogue compares Tolkien’s works to pop culture adaptations of his legendarium.”

The book can be ordered online directly through the publisher: https://Rowman.com/Lexington

*To get a 30% discount, use code LEX30AUTH20 when ordering in the checkout process. 

REVIEW: “Blending historical analysis of Tolkien’s medieval sourcing with hypercontemporary ecocritical insight, Mark Doyle’s Utopia and Dystopia in Tolkien’s Legendarium inaugurates a new age for the study of Lord of the Rings as it unpacks both the utopian impulses that have led so many readers to wish Middle-earth was their home and the ever-resurgent dystopian tendencies that threaten to conquer both that world and this one.” -Gerry Canavan, Associate Professor, Marquette University