Edward James, Professor of Medieval History at Universty College, Dublin, is presenting two lectures at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

The first of the lectures, and the most interesting for the Bard's purposes, is titled "J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: Friendship, Religion, and Fantasy."  Professor James plans to discuss the shared Christian values of Tolkien and Lewis and how those values found their way into their writing, as well as the marked differences between the authors' work.

James had some interesting things to say about the different, but equally Christian, themes of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia:

He says Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a more subtle expression of Christianity than Lewis' Narnia series, in which Christian allegory is clearly portrayed through the Christ-like Aslan the Lion.

"Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings as a 'Catholic epic', but the author was more interested in representing Christian values than Christian allegory," says Professor James, who notes Tolkien was instrumental in converting Lewis to Christianity. "Of course, there are Christ-like figures in the trilogy-- most notably, Gandalf and Frodo. And it's no accident that the Ring is destroyed on 25 March, the traditional medieval date for the original crucifixion. But Tolkien and Lewis approached Christianity very differently in their fantasy works," he says.

I had never heard (or noticed, I should say) the bit about the March 25th date and its Christian significance before reading this article.  It's probably not news to CJ, who has a background in medieval history.

The Catholic/Christian symbolism is, superficially, fairly obvious: Frodo sacrifices (or intends to) his life (for all intents and purposes -- he's never the same afterward) on the same date medieval scholars associated with Christ's messianic crucifixion.

The fact that Frodo actually becomes consumed by the Ring's power and is only able to get the job done with Gollum's help makes the interpretation more interesting, of course.  The fact that Tolkien sometimes referred to Middle-Earth as a primeval age of our old world also portends a larger picture -- are such sacrificial events merely history repeating itself? 

Professor James's other lecture concerns the differences in perception of barbarians between the Roman Empire and modern society and is titled "How to Recognize a Barbarian."

I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we wish our own respective colleges had seminars like this.  Go Auckland!

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past four days, you've probably heard that Guillermo del Toro, long rumored to be helming the two-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic novel The Hobbit, has been officially announced as Director by New Line Cinema. 

TheOneRing.net, Moste Ancient and Magisterial of All LOTR News Sites, also posted an interview with Del Toro concerning his plans for the films.  Particularly interesting are Del Toro's comments regarding the second film, which is intended to cover the events that occur between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring:

Fans are all abuzz about 'The Second Film', can you tell some of your plans for it?

GDT: You know, I traveled to New Zealand just a little while ago, and one of the main reasons for going was to sit down and talk about the second film. 'The Hobbit', the book, is really one self-contained film, so for the second movie we sat down and worked it out. When we did this we got really excited because this second film is not a 'tag on', it's not 'filler', it's an integral part of telling the story of those 50 years of history lost in the narrative. There will be certain things that we will see from the first movie but from a different point of view, but it will feel like a volume, in the 5 volumes of the entire story. It will not feel like a bridge, I've been hearing it called 'a bridge film', it's not, it's an integral chapter of the story, and I think we're all on the same page.