The Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien: Mythopoeia and the Recovery of Creation

At the heart of Tolkienian fantasy is "recovery," a "cleaning of the windows" of our perception that we may learn to see the world again in all its strange beauty. And, for Tolkien, to recover the world anew is to recover a sense of the world as a meaningful act of creation by a living and loving Creator. How does Tolkien accomplish this? Through "sub-creation" or mythopoeia, the "fashioning of myth." For it is in creating an imaginary world ourselves through poetry, fairy-story, and myth that we come to "see" our "primary world" as itself an act of creation. In short, mythopoetic creation, far from being "lies breathed through silver," uncovers for us the truth of our world as a story of creation.

This book demonstrates not only the centrality of recovery to Tolkien's fantasy but the way in which his fantasy affects that primal recovery in every reader. It reveals the marvelous philosophical and theological riches that underlie Tolkien's fantasy and shows how his mythopoetic fiction allows the recovery and enactment of these riches in our own lives. The book shows how for Tolkien fantasy has within itself a healing power through which intellectual, moral, and existential paradoxes are resolved and our intellectual and perceptual faculties are made whole again so that they may participate with renewed vigor in the life-giving work of creation of every sort.

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Release date

Audiobook: October 7, 2025