Open AccessMasters of Truth in the Middle-Earth: Perceiving the Worlds of Fantasy through the Lens of Detienne’s Theory
Author(s) -
Joanna Komorowska
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
załącznik kulturoznawczy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2451-4233
pISSN - 2392-2338
DOI - 10.21697/zk.2018.5.10
Subject(s) - fantasy , hesiod , epic , literature , philosophy , value (mathematics) , art , poetry , computer science , machine learning
The essay analyzes the importance of true speech (as described in M. Detienne’s Les Maîtres de Vérité) in epic fantasy. Starting with J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, through Lyndon Hardy’s magical worlds, Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea and AnnMcCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, speech carries an added value of truth, preserving and shaping the universe in turn – such understanding of privileged speech links modern fantasy literature to its ancient models (Homer or Hesiod).