(10-AUDIO CD DISC SET) JRR Tolkien ~ The Storyteller's Story ~ History Winter Lecture Series 2008

Recorded January and February, 2008 ~ Best known for his Lord of the Rings series, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was also a highly regarded poet and scholar. In the 2008 History Lecture Series, Professor Robin Chapman Stacey will illuminate the fluency and fascination with language, mythology and religion that permeates Tolkien's work. Join us for an exploration of JRR Tolkien beyond Middle Earth - the man, the myths, and the meaning. Audio CD #1 & #2 ~ "He Had Been Inside Language" ~ Tolkien's mother instilled in him a love for languages that would shape his entire life. As a youth, he spent hours inventing the "nonsense languages" that formed the basis for his later fiction. As an adult, he became a professor of medieval languages and literatures at Oxford University. Join us as we probe the connection between language and creativity and examine the nineteenth-century debates over language, folklore and myth that were the intellectual foundations for Tolkien's greatest works.