by Rahel Orgis

In my previous post, I highlighted that Tolkien introduces the appendices to The Lord of the Rings as based on pseudo-factual records collected by hobbits. The same goes for the main narrative, which, according to the Prologue, “is drawn mainly from the Red Book of Westmarch” (I, 23): that is, the account of the novel’s events “as seen by the Little People” (III, 307), compiled primarily by the hobbit protagonists Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. The Prologue further explains that, being involved in these momentous events, hobbits took “a more widespread interest in their own history,” leading them to compile for the first time “their traditions” (I, 23). Continue reading “Creative Lists in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings – Part III” →

by Rahel Orgis

In last month’s post I argued for the centrality of lists in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, discussing how the lists in the opening poem both encapsulate the narrative’s core interest and call for further narrative development. In this post I turn to the appendices following the third part of the novel, in which Tolkien interweaves prose sections with lists to organize and condense an extensive amount of information. Tolkien’s rich fictional universe, including beings like elves, dwarves, humans and the small human-like hobbits, is arguably one of the reasons for the continuing fascination of his work, which, in the twentieth century, figured among the most-read books worldwide. Continue reading “Creative Lists in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings – Part II” →

by Rahel Orgis

Lists of various types are at the centre of J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings and, tightly bound up with the narrative, they serve as creative tools that both sustain and generate the fictional universe of Middle-earth. While readers might not immediately notice their importance, lists pervade the text, both framing the narrative—in the guise of a motto and in the appendices following the third part of the novel—and occurring within the narrative proper. Tolkien presents readers with a fiction of the novel’s composition that motivates the lists in the appendices and uses them to give substance, historical depth and an impression of authenticity to his fictional universe. Continue reading “Creative Lists in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings – Part I” →

by Amanda Gerber

Eva von Contzen’s previous Listology post about Namwali Serpell’s story “Account” drew our attention to a list whose readers convert it into a narrative by inferring meaning from its items’ juxtaposition and sequencing. This post returns to the idea of the list as a narrative in order to examine the Temple of Glas by John Lydgate, a fifteenth-century poet whom modern scholars often denigrate for being a compiler and list-maker.^[1] Continue reading “A Roll Call of Lovers’ Roles in Lydgate’s Temple of Glas” →

by Eva von Contzen

Can a work of visual art be a list? In The Broad in Los Angeles, there is a painting by the Californian artist John Baldessari (b. 1931) entitled “Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, 1966–68”. On a white canvas, written in black capital letters, he writes: “Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell”, followed by a list of three such tips, each item introduced by a black bullet point: artists are advised to use light rather than dark colours, choose a subject that sells well (such as still lives – but without any disturbing details – or nudes), and pay attention to the subject matter (bulls and roosters are better than cows and hens). Have a look at the picture here: https://www.thebroad.org/art/john-baldessari/tips-artists-who-want-sell Continue reading “Lists as/and Artworks” →