The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faerie - Hardcover

McIntosh, Jonathan S

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1621383164 ISBN 13: 9781621383161

Publisher: Angelico Press, 2017

Synopsis

---"In a tour de force for religious and non-religious readers alike, McIntosh illuminates Tolkien's metaphysical thought and how it pervades the entire fictive world of his legendarium."--JASON FISHER, editor of Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays 

J. R. R. Tolkien was a profoundly metaphysical thinker, and one of the most formative influences on his imagination, according to this new study of his works, was the great thirteenth-century theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. Structured around Tolkien's Middle-earth creation myth, the Ainulindale, The Flame Imperishable follows the thought of Aquinas as a guide in laying bare the deeper foundations of many of the more familiar themes from Tolkien's legendarium, including such notions as sub-creation, free will, evil, and eucatastrophe. More than merely using Aquinas to illuminate Tolkien, however, this study concludes that, through its appropriation of many of the philosophical and theological insights of Aquinas, what Tolkien's literary opus achieves is an important and unique landmark in the history of Thomism itself, offering an imaginative and powerful contemporary retrieval, interpretation, and application of Thomistic metaphysics for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"McIntosh's comprehension of Tolkien's Legendarium is masterly; his appropriation of Aquinas is superb; his knowledge of the most important works in recent theology is staggering. A first-rate work of scholarship on a rarely explored aspect of Tolkien's work--the metaphysics of Faërie."
--RALPH C. WOOD, author of The Gospel According to Tolkien
 
"The Flame Imperishable is a most valuable addition to Tolkien scholarship. Jonathan McIntosh explores Tolkien's implicit metaphysics of Middle-earth in the light of Thomism with skill and restraint, developing productive lines of argument. His focus on the creation story within the larger Silmarillion, combined with his attention to Tolkien's views on creation and sub-creation, allows him to develop a careful and insightful analysis that will greatly enrich our understanding of Tolkien's work."
--HOLLY ORDWAY, author of Tolkien's Modern Sources: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages (forthcoming from Kent State University Press)
 
"While many scholars have explored Tolkien's literary and philological influences, his philosophical and theological sources have attracted far less scrutiny--apart from general religious motives and themes. Jonathan S. McIntosh shines a brilliant light into this lacuna, revealing Tolkien's debts to St. Thomas Aquinas, and along the way situating Tolkien among the line of theological philosophers extending from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and on into Tolkien's own day. The Flame Imperishable is surely the most thorough study to date of Tolkien's most cosmological works, and especially of his creation myth, the Ainulindalë. In a tour de force for religious and non-religious readers alike, McIntosh illuminates Tolkien's own metaphysical thought and how it pervades the entire fictive world of his legendarium."
--JASON FISHER, editor of Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays 
 
"Breathtakingly original, this book deserves to be a landmark. McIntosh makes a compelling case for the cosmological depth of Tolkien's world, arguing not only that it is a world founded on St. Thomas Aquinas, but that it is also a significant contribution to metaphysics in its own right. With a boldness supported closely by a wealth of reasoned argument, McIntosh highlights the singularity and magnitude of Tolkien's achievement both as an artist and as a speculative thinker."
--MARK SEBANC, co-author of the Legacy of the Stone Harp series
 
"In this scholarly study of the philosophical basis of Tolkien's Middle-earth, Jonathan McIntosh demonstrates that metaphysics can be exciting. Far from detracting from the beauty and originality of Tolkien's writing, approaching it through the thought of Thomas Aquinas serves to all the more fully reveal its power over the reader. We know that, however deeply we engage with these stories, there is always more to discover. This is a trustworthy guide to the radiant sense of being in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, which truly illuminates the realism of Tolkien's project."
--ALISON MILBANK, author of Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians
 
"In this exciting and lucidly written study, Jonathan McIntosh flings open a door that has remained all but sealed, bringing together the doctor of creation, Thomas Aquinas, with the artist of creation, J. R. R. Tolkien. In uncovering the influence of Aquinas on Tolkien's mythmaking, McIntosh lights up Tolkien's major themes--including the relationship between creation and sub-creation, the independence and 'otherness' of created reality, and the unity of world myth and fairy tale. Most importantly, he helps us recover the vision of a world made meaningful and whole by its Creator."
--CRAIG BERNTHAL, author of Tolkien's Sacramental Vision: Discerning the Holy in Middle Earth
 
"There have been many good books on Tolkien. There have even been several very good books on the philosophy of Tolkien. This book, however, is something else, something more, delving deeper. To borrow a phrase from C. S. Lewis, it goes further up and further in. Within these densely packed and brilliant pages, we journey to the core of Tolkien's Thomistic heart and mind. Reading this book engenders an unshakable conviction that one can no more separate Tolkien from Thomas than one can Dante from Thomas. Without Aquinas, there would have been no Divine Comedy. Without Aquinas, there would have been no Middle-earth. In short, and in sum, this book is absolutely essential reading to anyone who takes Tolkien seriously enough to want to understand him more deeply."
--JOSEPH PEARCE, author of Tolkien: Man & Myth and Bilbo's Journey: Discovering the Hidden Meaning of The Hobbit
 
"One does not merely dip into The Flame Imperishable. Rather, one immerses oneself in the very love McIntosh so vividly shares and radiates. Indeed, it is clear that the author holds a special place in his soul for Tolkien and Lewis as well as Sts. Augustine and Aquinas. Gloriously, McIntosh invites us to enter the art as well. The Flame Imperishable is not just another in a long line of books about J.R.R. Tolkien, but a truly seminal book that will be remembered as such long after the ephemera surrounding Peter Jackson's work has come and gone. It will be canon."
--BRADLEY J. BIRZER, author of J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth

About the Author

JONATHAN MCINTOSH is Fellow of Humanities at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho.

Edition details

• Publisher: Angelico Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1621383164
• ISBN 13: 9781621383161
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 306