ENGL 15
Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and Oxford Winter 2019

This is not the current course catalog

In this class we’ll read and discuss in depth the literary and imaginative richness of J. R. R. Tolkien’s beloved fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as well as the aspects of his biography and the scholarly works he wrote while an Oxford professor that most illuminate his fantastical writings: “On Fairy-Stories,” “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” and “On Translating Beowulf.” By combining the fantastical and the academic in Tolkien, we’ll get a better view of his imagined fortresses, castles, strongholds, of his elves, dragons and shires, as well as a better view of “the city of dreaming spires,” his beloved Oxford nestled in the green hills of its own Oxfordshire. Students are asked to participate in all class discussions, and, at the end of the class, students will be asked to submit a 10-page research paper. Class will meet three times a week for two hours each session, and your work outside the class will average around twenty hours a week and involve reading and film viewing. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Ryan Riley earned a master’s degrees in literature from both Oxford and Yale, and a bachelor’s in literature from Harvard, where he was a humor writer for The Harvard Lampoon and started a literary discussion and writing group inspired by Tolkien’s Inklings.