TY - BOOK AU - Giovanni Carmine Costabile PY - 2024 CY - Berlin, Germany PB - Peter Lang Verlag SN - 9783631918586 TI - The Mirror of Desire Unbidden T2 - Retrieving the Imago Dei in Tolkien and Late Medieval English Literature DO - 10.3726/b21804 UR - https://www.peterlang.com/document/1445650 N2 - The Mirror of Desire Unbidden: Retrieving the Imago Dei in Tolkien and Late Medieval English Literature sets Tolkien’s theory of Fantasy against the backdrop of Western history of phantasia, all the way back to the Biblical image of God and the Hellenic concept of phantasm. The historical change into the judgment of the imaginative faculty shaped Christianity in associating fantasy with adultery. The emergence of the fantastic, Arthurian Legend, and Courtly Love in the 12th century might appear a countertendency, but Tolkien rather follows authors like Chaucer and the Gawain-Poet in their refusal of adultery. An investigation into the subject affords to clarify Tolkien’s poetics and his theology, finalized to the retrieval of the female Imago Dei. KW - Gawain-Poet, Chaucer, Fantasy, Adultery, Sir Orfeo, Woman LA - English ER -