Table of Contents

Foreword by Alison Milbank | xi
Author's Preface | xv
Acknowledgments | xvii
List of Abbreviations | xix
Chapter 1
Prolegomenon to the Sub-Creative Genius of Tolkien amongst His Contemporaries | 3
Chapter 2
Creation and the Metaphysics of Music: Tolkien's Philosophy
Chapter 3
The Concept of Life as 'Being and Gift' in Tolkien's Literary Corpus | 105
Chapter 4
Tolkien, Eriugena, and the Conjoining of Borrowed Traditions | 167
Chapter 5
A Diversion towards Mutability and the Possibility of Evil | 213
Chapter 6
Concluding Comments: There and Back Again | 235
Appendix C: Three Crosses in the Churchyard of Whalley Abbey,
Lancashire | 254
Appendix D: The Standard of the King of Gondor | 258
Appendix E: Iconography in the Book of Kells | 259
Bibliography | 263

About the Author

Michael Halsall is a Catholic priest and teaches philosophy at Allen Hall, London.

Reviews

"This is a rich engagement at all levels with Tolkien, full of suggestive comparisons with the tradition of the music of the spheres and with the modernist music of his own time. It is deeply scholarly but clear and accessible. And it is both Catholic in relating Tolkien to Catholic theology, including Maritain, and the Thomism of the early twentieth century, but also in its range of reference, which does full justice to Tolkien's intellectual background and his generosity of spirit, which had room for wild-men and oliphants, wereworms and Barliman's best bitter, all with the mark of createdness upon them, gifted to his readers."

-From the Foreword by Alison Milbank, University of Nottingham