Oxonmoot 2024

Autumn marks the publication of the new Walking Tree Publishers edited volume by Will Sherwood and Dr Julian Eilmann: 'The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien'. To celebrate this new step in Tolkien scholarship, this 'paper' will address the questions 'Why was Romanticism central to Tolkien's creativity?', 'What does this volume add to Tolkien research?', and 'How does Tolkien’s Romanticism speak to present-day audiences?' It will be a brief overview but cultivates a new avenue of Tolkien scholarship. It will achieve this by providing insights into several groundbreaking chapters from the book, situating Tolkien's Romanticism within the Romanticist criticism of the early twentieth century, and considering how Romanticism and Tolkien's legacies are inextricably interlaced. The latter generating a secondary world that is imbued with Romantic aesthetics and ideals that speaks to modern audiences during political, national, and ecological crises.