The Portrait of Evil in The Lord of the Rings. Augustine and the Privatio Boni

This lecture explains the realistic way in which we perceive evil, but Tolkien carefully depicts it in keeping with Augustinian theology.

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[crownedwolf]

Informative lecture as always Dr. Masson. It's a shame most modern critics interpret Tolkien's work though a modern lens (WW II analogies) as opposed to primary resources Tolkien actually used and loved.

[mcnallyaar]

I gave this a thumbs up because of the analysis of the nature of Evil. But the whole deal about you getting upset about Edmund Wilson was, frankly, tedious. You could have simply said "Wilson was condescending in his analysis. I assure you that if you wasted your time you would see why." 30 seconds. Done. None of us think Wilson is going to give Tolkien a proper read. Even if you said "these are the bullet points of what Wilson got wrong, " fine. But save us the nervous dramatic spiel. Thx. We get it. You like Tolkien. No one watching this video past the 20 mark thinks Tolkien is worthless, even if we don't necessarily want to commit time to reading him.