Patrick Curry
Patrick Curry | |
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Born | 1951 Winnipeg, Canada |
Alma mater | University of California, Santa Cruz, London School of Economics, University College London |
Occupation(s) | Scholar, author |
Notable work | Defending Middle-earth |
Patrick Curry (born 1951) is an independent Canadian-born British scholar who has worked and taught on a variety of subjects from cultural astronomy to divination, the ecology movement, and the nature of enchantment. He is known for his studies of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Biography
Patrick Curry was born in Winnipeg, Canada. He took his B.A. in psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1978. He gained his M.Sc. in logic and scientific method at the London School of Economics in 1980, and his Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science at University College London in 1987.[1]
He lectured on cultural astronomy and on astronomy at Bath Spa University from 2002, and on cosmology and divination at the University of Kent at Canterbury from 2006. He is the editor-in-chief of The Ecological Citizen. He writes book reviews for British national newspapers, essays, and non-fiction books. He appeared in interviews on two of the extended DVDs on Peter Jackson's film trilogy of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He is a contributor to Blackwell's 2014 A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien.[1] He has written two books of poetry, Lockdown and Desire Lines.[2]
Curry is divorced and has two children. He states that he has had "a long relationship with Buddhism (Sōtō Zen)", taught by Kōbun Chino Otogawa.[1]
Writing
Defending Middle-Earth
Juliette Wood, reviewing the 1997 work Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity for Gale Academic, calls Curry's use of Tolkien's fantasy in the debate about the ecology movement "with its resacralisation of the environment and its neo-pagan overtones" both interesting and wide-ranging. She notes that Curry provides examples on both sides of the debate, but calls it unfortunate that Curry then takes a side and launches "a diatribe" against Tolkien's critics.[3] Stratford Caldecott, reviewing the same book for The Chesterton Review, wrote that Curry had at least one essential qualification for writing about The Lord of the Rings: he loved it. Caldecott states that Curry both does an excellent job of rebutting "accusations of right-wing or authoritarian conservatism" against Tolkien, and instead "paints him as more of a Green subversive", opposing the global "monoculture" which makes everywhere the same.[4] Adam Schwartz, reviewing the book for VII, writes that while Curry is "insightful" in identifying Tolkien's subversion of "prevailing modern norms", his "ideological commitments cloud his comprehension of Tolkien's radicalism". In Schwarz's view, "scholarly analysis and political advocacy are distinct discourses", and blending them is unsatisfactory.[5]
Enchantment
Bernice Martin, reviewing Curry's 2019 book Enchantment for The Times Literary Supplement, states that Curry came to Buddhism via the New Age movement from seemingly a Christian background, and that in the book he indicts the reductive "modern secular and technocratic culture". Martin admires the way that Curry handles the subject, using his personal experience, collective examples like Princess Diana's funeral, and Tolkien's writings to build a picture of what is wrong with modern society.[6]
Deep Roots in a Time of Frost
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey, in the Journal of Tolkien Research, reviews Curry's 2014 essay collection Deep Roots in a Time of Frost. He lists the main themes as "the nature of 'enchantment' and the need for re-enchantment"; "opposition to 'modernism' and the hopes for post-modernism"; and "the strange nature of critical responses to Tolkien". He endorses the last of these as clearly true, if remarkable. Shippey states that he entirely agrees with Curry about the early literary modernists like T. S. Eliot and James Joyce, but not that modernism remains "as a major and continuing threat" as Curry argues in the book, complete with "the co-dependent power of corporate and finance capital, the modern political state and modern science"; Shippey writes that he is "not happy with this". He notes that Curry is most passionate about the first theme, enchantment. Shippey states that while he cannot always follow Curry or see what he means, he also agrees with him. They agree that enchantment is not the same as magic, but Shippey finds "wonder" in early science fiction, something that Curry would (he writes) link with modernity; and he disagrees that the world has been disenchanted (in Max Weber's phrase). All the same, he suggests that if Tolkien were alive, he would endorse Curry as the critic "closest to the secret of enchantment".[7]
Books
Written
- 1989 Astrology, Science and Society. Boydell & Brewer.
- 1989 Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England. Polity Press, Princeton University Press.
- 1992 A Confusion of Prophets: Victorian and Edwardian Astrology. Collins & Brown.
- 1995 Introducing Machiavelli. Icon.
- 2004 Astrology, Science and Culture: Pulling Down the Moon (with Roy Willis). Berg Publishers.
- 2004 Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien: myth and modernity (reissued with new Afterword). Houghton Mifflin. First published by Floris, 1997.
- 2010 Divination. Ashgate Publishing.
- 2014 Deep Roots in a Time of Frost: Essays on Tolkien. Walking Tree Books.
- 2017 Defending the Humanities: Metaphor, Science and Nature. Rounded Globe.
- 2017 Ecological Ethics: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Polity Press.
- 2019 Enchantment: Wonder in Modern Life. Floris Books.
Edited
- 2006 Sky and Psyche: The Relationship between Cosmos and Consciousness (with Nicholas Campion). Floris Books.
- 2008 Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays on Astrology and Divination (with Angela Voss). Cambridge Scholars Press.
References
- ^ a b c Curry, Patrick. "Background". Patrick Curry. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
- ^ "The Books". Brook Green Books. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
- ^ Wood, Juliette (1998). "[Review:] Defending Middle-Earth. Tolkien: Myth and Modernity". Gale Academic Onefile. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
- ^ Caldecott, Stratford (1998). "Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity, by Patrick Curry". The Chesterton Review. 24 (1). Philosophy Documentation Center: 110–112. doi:10.5840/chesterton1998241/212. ISSN 0317-0500.
- ^ Schwartz, Adam (1999). "[Review:] Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity by Patrick Curry". VII. 16: 112–115. JSTOR 45296757.
- ^ Martin, Bernice (29 May 2020). "Awesome". The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
- ^ Shippey, Tom (2014). "[Review:] Deep Roots in a Time of Frost (2014) by Patrick Curry". Journal of Tolkien Research. 1 (1). Article 7.
External links
- Official website
- v
- t
- e
and songs
- Songs for the Philologists (1936)
- The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (1953)
- "A Walking Song" (1954)
- The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962)
- "Errantry"
- "Fastitocalon"
- "The Sea-Bell"
- "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late"
- The Road Goes Ever On (1967)
- Bilbo's Last Song (1974)
- List of Tolkien's alliterative verse
- The Hobbit (1937)
- "Leaf by Niggle" (1947)
- The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945)
- Farmer Giles of Ham (1949)
- The Lord of the Rings:
- The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
- The Two Towers (1954)
- The Return of the King (1955)
- Tree and Leaf (1964)
- The Tolkien Reader (1966)
- Smith of Wootton Major (1967)
fiction
- The Father Christmas Letters (1976)
- The Silmarillion (1977)
- Unfinished Tales (1980)
- Mr. Bliss (1982)
- The History of Middle-earth (1983–1996)
- Roverandom (1998)
- The Children of Húrin (2007)
- The History of The Hobbit (2007)
- The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009)
- The Fall of Arthur (2013)
- The Story of Kullervo (2015)
- Beren and Lúthien (2017)
- The Fall of Gondolin (2018)
- The Nature of Middle-earth (2021)
- The Fall of Númenor (2022)
works
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English text, 1925)
- "The Devil's Coach Horses" (1925)
- "Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad" (1929)
- "Sigelwara Land" (1932–34)
- "Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale" (1934)
- "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936)
- "On Fairy-Stories" (1939)
- "On Translating Beowulf" (1940)
- Sir Orfeo (1944)
- Ancrene Wisse (1962)
- "English and Welsh" (1963)
- Jerusalem Bible (as translator and lexicographer, 1966)
academic
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (translations, 1975)
- Exodus (1981)
- Finn and Hengest (1982)
- The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays (1983)
- Beowulf and the Critics (2002)
- Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary with "Sellic Spell" (2014)
- A Secret Vice (2016)
Writers |
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Christian | |
Literary critics |
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Linguists | |
Medievalists |
- A Tolkien Compass
- Family
- Influences
- Artwork
- J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator
- Languages constructed by Tolkien
- The Inklings
- The Keys of Middle-earth
- Mythlore
- Mythopoeic Society
- Picturing Tolkien
- Tolkien and the Classical World
- Tolkien's impact on fantasy
- Tolkien and the modernists
- Tolkien Estate
- Tolkien fandom
- The Tolkien Society
- Tolkien Studies
- Memorials
- Reception
- Tolkien research
- Works inspired by Tolkien
- J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977, authorized biography)
- The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide
- Master of Middle-Earth
- Perilous Realms
- Tolkien and the Great War
- The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien
- Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth
- Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon
- Tolkien, Race and Cultural History
- Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England'
- Tolkien (biographical film)
- Poems and Songs of Middle Earth (album)
- Language and Human Nature
- The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary
- Understanding The Lord of the Rings