Utopian and Dystopian Themes in Tolkien’s Legendarium

Mark G. Doyle is professor of English and chair of the Humanities Department at Marion Military Institute.

• Introduction: Tolkien’s Popularity and Its Relationship with His Utopian and Dystopian ThemesChapter 1: Tolkien and Traditional Utopias and DystopiasChapter 2: The Sources of Tolkien’s Utopian and Dystopian VisionChapter 3: How the Environment Becomes Creation in Tolkien’s SocietiesChapter 4: Tolkien’s Utopian and Dystopian MythologyChapter 5: Tolkien’s Utopian and Dystopian PoliticsEpilogue: The Struggle for Tolkien’s Utopian and Dystopian Legacy

Like his religious thought, Tolkien’s sophisticated political ideas on the organization and governance of society are nuanced, rarely plainly stated, and best discovered through a close reading of his fictional texts. In this book, Mark Doyle demonstrates that while Tolkien was not writing explicitly in the utopian mode, many societies in Middle-earth and his other writings may be usefully read as utopian or dystopian, complicated at all times by the frailties and free will of the individuals constituting them. Utopias and Dystopias traces influences on Tolkien’s political systems primarily from medieval and Victorian-medievalist sources, pre- and post-WWI modernity, environmental stewardship, his Catholic faith, and his strong sense of the fallenness of man and the dangerous temptations of the desire for power.