All Program Dates
8/13, 8/27, 9/10, 9/24, 10/8, 10/22, 11/5, 11/19
August 13, 2025 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
August 27, 2025 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
September 10, 2025 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
September 24, 2025 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
October 8, 2025 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
October 22, 2025 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
November 5, 2025 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
November 19, 2025 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
Registration
Tuition for this course is $400. Members receive exclusive discounts on our programs and courses. Not a member? Learn more.
Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email rsvp@rosenbach.org.
A welcome email from the instructor three weeks before the course begins. Zoom links will be sent for the course one week before the first meeting.
This program is for those 18 and older.
Registration opens for Delancey Society members on Friday, June 13, for Rosenbach members on Friday, June 20, and for the general public on Friday, June 27. Registration opens at 12:00 p.m. ET.
Description
Quite possibly the most popular literary work of the 20th century, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy continues to be massively influential seven decades after its publication. But this masterwork, which established and still defines the genre of fantasy literature, is far more than just a mass-culture phenomenon. The Lord of the Rings is a sophisticated—and successful—experiment in narrative, language, history, and myth-making that both runs against the grain of mainstream literary Modernism and actualizes its highest ideals of originality and aesthetic achievement.
In this eight-session course we will try to identify the qualities that make Tolkien’s works emotionally and intellectually engaging while seeking to better understand their significance. In exploring the rich complexity of Middle-earth, the phonesthetic beauty of Tolkien’s languages, the intricacy of the narrative, and the sophistication of the moral vision, we will seek to understand not merely his works’ popularity, cultural influence, and artistic success, but the personal significance they hold for many readers.
Instructor
Michael D.C. Drout is the Frances A. Shirley Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Study of the Medieval at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts, where he teaches classes in Old and Middle English, Writing, Linguistics, Science Fiction, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
One of the founders of the journal Tolkien Studies, Drout is the author of How Tradition Works, Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Saxon Literature, Drout’s Quick and Easy Old English, and How to Think: the Liberal Arts and their Enduring Value, and he is co-author of Beowulf Unlocked: New Evidence from Lexomic Analysis. He edited J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf and the Critics and the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia and co-edited Transitional States: Cultural Change, Tradition and Memory in Medieval England. As a consultant for The Lord of the Rings On-line MMPORG, Drout has appeared in two History Channel mini-series: Clash of the Gods and True Monsters, and in National Geographic’s Beyond the Movie: The Return of the King. He has also recorded 13 audio courses for Recorded Books.
His new book, The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation, will be published by W.W. Norton in December 2025.
Drout lives in Dedham, Massachusetts with his family and their two corgis, Lancelot and Percival.