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Lisa Coutras, Tolkien's Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth

Lisa Coutras, Tolkien's Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth Journal of Inklings Studies Lisa Coutras, Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 279 pp. ISBN: 978-1-137-55344-7. Following on from the pioneering work of Ralph Wood and Stratford Caldecott, theological interpretation of Tolkien has burgeoned, revealing the Neoplatonic and Thomistic metaphysics which makes his writing so powerful a readerly experience. Now Lisa Coutras attends to his aesthetics, employing the influential Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, whose multivolume Glory of the Lord reads swathes of Western myth and literature through the lens of the beautiful. Central to Balthasar’s concept of the beautiful is the notion of a splendour of being, by which the material form reveals the light of the transcendent and witnesses to the depth and mystery of existence. Jonathan MacIntosh has written at length about the basis of this in Thomas Aquinas in The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faërie, and I approached Tolkien’s Thomism myself through Chesterton and Maritain in Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians. The splendour of being is an important idea because it makes sense of the way Tolkien’s fiction has a strong presence and reality-effect, as well as giving the reader a http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Inklings Studies Edinburgh University Press

Lisa Coutras, Tolkien's Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth

Milbank, Alison
Journal of Inklings Studies , Volume 9 (1): 3 – Apr 1, 2019
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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
2045-8797
eISSN
2045-8800
DOI
10.3366/ink.2019.0030
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Abstract

Journal of Inklings Studies Lisa Coutras, Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 279 pp. ISBN: 978-1-137-55344-7. Following on from the pioneering work of Ralph Wood and Stratford Caldecott, theological interpretation of Tolkien has burgeoned, revealing the Neoplatonic and Thomistic metaphysics which makes his writing so powerful a readerly experience. Now Lisa Coutras attends to his aesthetics, employing the influential Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, whose multivolume Glory of the Lord reads swathes of Western myth and literature through the lens of the beautiful. Central to Balthasar’s concept of the beautiful is the notion of a splendour of being, by which the material form reveals the light of the transcendent and witnesses to the depth and mystery of existence. Jonathan MacIntosh has written at length about the basis of this in Thomas Aquinas in The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faërie, and I approached Tolkien’s Thomism myself through Chesterton and Maritain in Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians. The splendour of being is an important idea because it makes sense of the way Tolkien’s fiction has a strong presence and reality-effect, as well as giving the reader a

Journal

Journal of Inklings Studies – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2019

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