Redness in the eyes of the dark Lord

Abstract

This paper discusses continuous influence of the Romanticism' ideas all until the present time. The ideas about the golden age in the past, on an ideal society based on class, gender, and generational hierarchy were dominant in the children' education until the second part of the 20th century. This was influenced, in turn, by fairy tales created in the 19th century, which are taken even today, to be the most appropriate children' literature. The flow-literary production of novels with fairy tales content, where the plot is taken place in some fictional, fairy-like world during the second part of the 20th century, corresponds hence to the need of adult audience/readers: a basic need for dream fulfillment about the roles of romantic heroes who do not exist in a real life. At the same time, the existing negation of modernization and introduction of new technologies corresponds nicely with the fears generated by accelerated changes, as one of the key attributes of the contemporary world. Deconstruction of the romanticized narratives begins in the framework of the postmodern fantasy literature, since the 1980's. This perspective reflects new possibilities for perceiving and estimation of the objective social reality of the Western civilization.

Keywords

• Tolkien
• The Lord of the Rings
• fantasy
• fairy tale
• The Enlightenment
• modernization
• technology