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Reflection in Rivendell: Tolkien’s Great Pattern and Hidden Imagery

This is Tolkien’s drawing Rivendell which features in The Hobbit. Can you see the man with the crown on his head hidden in the image? The man is the “King Under the Mountain” who has his sights set on Erebor in the distance.

 

 

Tolkien hid many things in his drawings as we’ll see next.

Contents.
1. Contents.
2. Introduction.
3. PART I. Tolkien and his Critics.
4. PART II. The World Soul and the Great Pattern.
5. Rivendell: The King Under the Mountain.
6. Rivendell: Gandalf.
7. Rivendell: Stone-Giant.
8. Dagaz the Door.
9. The Dialectic.
10. Tolkien’s Dialectic Elsewhere.
11. The Turn.
12. Gandalf, Mithras and the Stair of Enlightenment.
13. Conclusion.
14. Appendix I. The Two Spirals in Tolkien’s Works.
15. Appendix II. Tolkien’s Dialectic in Ancrene Wisse.
16. Bibliography.