Art and Literature News / Movie News

An Eagle’s View of Middle-earth

Eowyn_vs_Nazgul_.AngelaRizzaAngela Rizza does some really beautiful artwork. She has done a number of pieces based on Tolkien’s works which you can find on her deviantArt page, on her Tumblr page, and for purchase in her Etsy shop. This one with Eowyn is a Middle-earth News team favorite! (Myla)

The Texas University Interscholastic League state theatrical design contest asks high school students to develop a costume design for the stage production version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Marble Falls High School theater student Jack Oberle imagined the story as a  political-style thriller in modern London. “I took Smaug the dragon, made him into a woman, and she  heads the cartel in London,” he said. His designs and renderings will compete  against 41 other students from across Texas. (Evie Bowman)

Brendan Connelly from Bleeding Cool describes Joe Letteri of Weta Digital as “one of the true magicians of cinema, able to almost effortlessly convince me that I’m looking at something impossible when I’m not looking at such a thing at all.” He met up with Letteri recently to chat about Weta’s work, using images from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – just arriving on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday April 8th in the UK – as a way to unlock a pretty structured run-down of the newest and best tricks and tactics of digital movie effects. (Evie Bowman)

StingReplicaWoodenSword_ThatFamilyShop

“This is Sting. You’ve seen it before, haven’t you?” In that one movie, with that one ring… This wooden sword from Etsy shop FunnyFarmToyBarn has a wood burned handle, swirl, and tiny elvish lettering, all tediously replicated to Frodo’s sword in the Lord of the Rings! What a cool toy for a child (or, let’s face it, an adult!). They also have Orcist, Gimli’s throwing axe, Legolas’ knives, Aragorn’s dagger, and Arwen’s sword. (Lily Milos)

J.R.R. Tolkien is best known for his novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and although there are many poems included in his novels that add depth to the narrative, Tolkien’s talent as a writer of poetry has scarcely been appreciated and in-depth studies of Tolkien’s verses are rare. Tolkien’s Poetry, a collection edited by Julian Eilmann and Allan Turner, presents ten papers and an introduction by Michael Drout that deal with specific aspects of Tolkien’s poetry. Some papers focus on one particular poem, while others examine a group of poems with a specific thematic approach. Tolkien’s Poetry will be presented at the upcoming DTG conference (26-28 April, Aachen, Germany), but is already available from booksellers. (Lily Milos)

Middle-earth legends dominated his creative life, from their birth in the early Silmarillion tales through their absorption of Bilbo Baggins’s diary and their culmination in the tale of the Great Ring. However, throughout his life, Tolkien wrote many small pieces of prose and verse that were not directly drawn into the great narrative of Middle-earth. Tolkien’s children’s books, his scholarship, his short stories, and his eclectic short poems combine to provide a unique glimpse into Tolkien’s thought and imaginative development over the course of fifty years. This summer, join Mythgard President Corey Olsen and the great Tolkien and Anglo-Saxon scholar Tom Shippey for an in-depth look at a J.R.R. Tolkien you might never have met before. The class starts May 13 – enroll now! (Arwen Kester)

Every week, our Middle-earth News reporters seek out Tolkien/Hobbit/LOTR goodness and tag their finds with their names. If you have something to contribute, please submit it using the Got News Precious link at the bottom of the page.

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