Oxonmoot 2024

"Exemplified by the speaker in the poem The Sea Bell, many characters in The Silmarillion exist in states of liminality, forced to the margins of their societies, inhabiting marginal regions, passing physically and emotionally from one condition to another while always linked by allegiance or longing to a previous existence – always on the threshold between places and identities.
This paper explores a small but significant selection of examples of liminality that are focussed on the threshold between land and sea and considers the ways in which Tolkien describes the liminal state in which characters find themselves, depicting these episodes in ways that frequently cross the threshold between linguistic and visual art, while exploring the deeper significance of proximity to the sea in all cases."