Illuminating the true light of northern courage: Gandalf as J.R.R. Tolkien's revised Odin

In this thesis, I argue that J.R.R. Tolkien was determined to re-write the character of the Norse god Odin as Tolkien thought he ought to have been. I argue that this desire was rooted in Tolkien’s belief of “true light”: a thing’s essential goodness which is often corrupted or disguised by evil perversion. Tolkien wanted to present Northern courage—the Norse view of fighting to the end despite certain doom—in its true light. Odin was the perfect character through which this virtue could be expressed and revised, principally through the character of Gandalf. This project is present in Tolkien’s retelling of the The Saga of the Volsungs in his poem “The New Lay of the Volsungs,” but is more fully realized in his depiction of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Gidney, Matthew

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hampton, Bryan Adams
• Einstein, Sarah; Guy, Matthew W.
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Mythology, Norse, in literature
• Gandalf; Odin (Norse deity); Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973--Criticism and interpretation

Licence

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/706

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1881