Truths Breathed Through Silver: The Inklings' Moral and Mythopoeic Legacy
Editor: Jonathan B. Himes, with Joe R. Christopher and Salwa Khoddam
Date Of Publication: Feb 2008
Isbn13: 9781847184443
Isbn: 1-84718-444-8
Representing a decade of scholarly activity within the C. S. Lewis & Inklings Society (CSLIS), this book challenges readers to examine the complex factors that shaped the theological perspectives, cultural concerns, and literary conventions in the works of the Oxford Inklings. The mythopoeic fiction that Lewis, Tolkien, Williams, and their associates enjoyed and composed put mortal humanity in contact with the immortal and the divine. The selection of papers in this volume, intended not only for experts but also for undergraduates and general readers, includes keynote presentations by Joe R. Christopher, Rolland Hein, Kerry Dearborn, David Neuhouser, and Thomas Howard that explore the Inklings legacy of moral mythopoeia, as well as essays that analyze works like Screwtape (Tom Shippey), The Magician s Nephew (Salwa Khoddam), The Silmarillion (Jason Fisher), The Lord of the Rings (David Oberhelman) and The Dark Tower (Jonathan B. Himes). The Inklings believed there was still power in the old myths, and ultimately that there was still truth to fortify humanity in them. Their friendship and their fiction provided these men a forum for entertaining speculative and sometimes unorthodox answers to the complex realities of sacred tradition.

Dr. Jonathan B. Himes is Assistant Professor of English at John Brown University. His article “What Tolkien Really Did with the Sampo,” Mythlore (2000), analyzes Tolkien’s adaptation of The Kalevala. Other publications include “World’s End Imagery,” Extrapolation (2003) and a collaborative book on the Anglo-Saxon epic fragment Waldere (Minerva, 2005).

"These ten essays constitute a lively conversation at the intersection of faith, myth, and truth. Each voice is distinct, each topic particular, each approach thought-provoking on its own terms. But the cumulative effect is to remind us just how much mythopoeic writers like J. R. R. Tolkien, H. Rider Haggard, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, and Charles Williams continue to say about things that concern us all."

--Diana Glyer, author of The Company They Keep: C. S.Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, Professor of English, Azusa Pacific University

“In this wide-ranging collection of essays on MacDonald and the Inklings, some shed new light on old topics and others direct our attention to fresh, sometimes surprising themes. Often retaining the personal warmth of their origins in oral presentation, they go beyond traditional literary criticism to point out practical implications for cultural critique, theological understanding, and holy living.”

-- Charles Huttar, Professor of English, Emeritus, Hope College

"This collection of essays is marked by venturesomeness and innovative scholarship. Serious bibliophiles, philologists, lay-theologians and connoisseurs of mythopoesis will all find something here of value, and, with thoughtful essays such as the editor's on the problematic DARK TOWER and a superb reflection by a professional mathematician on the ouevres of George MacDonald in the light of GM's passion for mathematics, there will be something genuinely new in this book for almost everyone."

—David Lyle Jeffrey, Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities, Honors College, Baylor University

“Though long overshadowed by Beowulf, the romantically-discovered fragments of the Old English epic of Waldere give us our earliest vernacular glimpse of the Nibelungs and related legends. Jonathan Himes’s new edition now combines scholarly rigour with reader-accessibility, puts the case for identification of the speakers, and provides welcome expansion on the background of the legend, the problems of the manuscript, and issues both archaeological and literary. It will replace all previous editions and give a new stimulus to study of an often-bypassed poem.”

—Tom A. Shippey, Professor of English and Walter J. Ong Chair of Humanities (Retired), St. Louis University

"Certainly enough of interest to make the book worth reading, with high points being Khoddam's quote from The Quest of Blerheris, Himes's valiant attempt to sort out the mess regarding The Dark Tower, Howard's reminicences, and the essays by Fisher and Shippey."

John D. Rateliff, Mythlore 107/108, Winter 2009

Price Uk Gbp: 29.99
Price Us Usd: 44.99

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