License

I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
Creative Commons License
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Eucatastrophe: Tolkien meets video talking heads

Eucatastrophe is a word invented by J. R. R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and other works. Tolkien was a professor of philology, so it is not surprising that he invented a word. Because he was Tolkien, and because it's a good word, it has been used by others.

To demonstrate its acceptance, I cite this: there is a one minute, forty-four second video on YouTube, featuring three talking heads (all white males, well-dressed) explaining Tolkien's word, eucatastrophe, with that title. A dictionary definition, and a little of the Peter Jackson movies, is included. As talking head explanations go, it's pretty good. I didn't see any credits. I don't know who produced it, or who the talking heads are.

See my previous post, including a paragraph on the subject. Quoting me:
". . . even though many 21st century English-speakers don't believe in miracles, they wish that they could, and are thrilled when miracles happen [in fiction]."

Here's the Wikipedia article on eucatastrophe. Here's Time magazine's obituary for Tolkien, from September 17, 1973, with the title "Eucatastrophe."

Back to self-promotion: Here's an essay, a few paragraphs long, on eucatastrophes in Tolkien's work, by me.

As the final link, here is a web page that includes two quotes from Tolkien on the word.

Thanks for reading.

No comments: