R.T. Smith’s new book of poetry The Red Wolf is featured on the Washington and Lee University blog! Click here to read the post! 

RT Smith is the Editor of Shenandoah and is the Writer-in-Residence at Washington and Lee University.  The Red Wolf: A Dream of Flannery O’Connor was published in January 2013 with Louisiana Literature Press. It is Mr. Smith’s twelfth book of poetry.

Do you have a question for RT Smith on The Red Wolf? Post it below!

This term, I am fortunate enough to be in Dean Keen’s Capstone class on ‘Literature in Action’ where, each week, we read a book on the role and power of literature on modern day society. The class is a culmination of the English Major at Washington and Lee University and ends with a 20+ page research paper on a topic of our choice about a book that was published in the United States. In the first week of class, Dean Keen had us explore the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN) and write our own literacy narrative (click here for a link to their website). What is the DALN?

The DALN is a collection of narratives from people of different races, gender, ethnicities, economic backgrounds, life goals etc. (a true melting pot) that is concerned with one thing: the documentation of the experience and importance of books and reading on peoples lives. These narratives serve as a historical documentation of the role of books in every aspect of a person’s life and is available to the public. Each person’s narrative can be in a variety of formats: “music, photos, diaries, blogs, letters, stories, poetry, speeches, sermons, videos, school papers, chat room exchanges, text messages, gaming profiles, zines, sound recordings, ETC!” It represents the culmination of past and present technologies that express the connection of stories to humans and collects them all in one website that serves as a time capsule on the impact of stories on modern human existence.

The book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human  by Jonathan Gottshall tells how the story, the land of “make-believe,” impacts human development and existence. It was a very enlightening read for me to put the narratives in DALN in perspective and see the impact of stories and imagination on humanity. Take the time to go and read a literacy narrative on DALN, click here to get to their website!

I highly recommend that you read the Q&A with a woman named Rhonda to get a feel for the sheer emotion and poignancy of some of these narratives. Rhonda talks about how her dyslexic, high school dropout brother Jeff taught her how to read at a college level by the time she was 10. I put to you the same question that the DALN asked Rhonda: “Just say your name and tell your story… Do you have a story about literacy?”

For centuries, the oral tradition of storytelling has kept myth and legend alive in the hearts  and minds of humans. The story’s cathartic ability to strike a chord in humanity transformed the experience of life onto the page. The rise of popularity of the memoir, part personal history but delivered like fiction, in modern times is no small part due to the audience’s identification with the facts of life melded seamlessly with the captivation of a novel, a story. In her book Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives Louise DeSalvo delves into the emotional and physical health benefits that writing regularly can have on a person. If we write about past traumatic experiences that our subconscious spends energy to suppress, our body’s defenses are improved by removing subconscious stress.

“Creative energy tends to be self-renewing, and to produce its own chain reaction of health, and further effort.” – Colin Wilson

DeSalvo hones in on a study done by James W. Pennebaker’s record of experiments performed while teaching at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas with his associate Sandra Bell. In this study, students who wrote for 20 minutes a day, for only four days, experienced deep rooted negative emotions connected to their past traumatic experiences. However, and here is the remarkable discovery, four months later those same students reported a significant improvement of their emotions toward past traumatic experiences which helped them resolve difficult issues like the death of a loved one, sexual abuse, or a parent’s divorce. Their present discomfort significantly impacted their spirits long term.

Now, back up a second. You might be thinking, “I am not a writer,” or perhaps, “I have no time, no desire to confront my past, no [fill in the blank] to write.” This anxiety for amateur and professional writers is completely natural, especially when writing (not just journaling!) about past traumatic experiences can bring back emotions that have been shut away and effect our immediate state of mind. The more days that people write, the more beneficial the effects from writing are. And here is the great part: these positive effects are not dependent upon sharing your writing with others or getting feedback! To be clear, while writing is cheap and easy, it is no substitute for professional help.

After reading DeSalvo’s Writing as a Way of Healing, I was taken aback. I had always heard that writing, the act of recreating our story, has cathartic value for our hearts. I had never seen any evidence that writing about our experiences could actually improve physical health! Right now, I am sitting in bed with the flu after re-reading parts of DeSalvo’s book and all I can think about is this: “If it has health benefits, I’m up for it!” Are you? Post your thoughts on Pennebaker’s study or on DeSalvo’s take on the emotional and health benefits of writing in her book Writing as a Way of Healing below!

With Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on December 14, 2012, it is time to turn our attention to JRR Tolkien’s perception of The Hobbit as a children’s tale as opposed to the epic high fantasy which his Lord of the Rings trilogy—and their movie adaptations—are iconic of. The question is: how does the change of genre between high fantasy and children’s literature impact Tolkien’s and Jackson’s artistic perception of The Hobbit?

Tolkien developed Middle Earth using pre-Chaucerian sources such as Beowulf, Volsumgasaga and Elder Edda .^[1] Tolkien regretted writing The Hobbit as children’s fantasy because it undermines the mythological and historical back story that he developed because, as he argues in his essay On Fairy Stories, adult readers are unforgiving and critical by terming much of fantasy as children’s literature. In an article in The New York Times Book Review on June 5, 1955, Tolkien stated “The so-called ‘children’s story’ [The Hobbit] was a fragment, torn out of an already existing mythology. In so far as it was dressed up as ‘for children,’ in style or manner, I regret it. So do the children.” (Letters, p. 218). Tolkien clearly resents the negative adult perception of all fantasy as “children’s literature” and regretfully fell into this stereotype with The Hobbit. However, Tolkien is emphatic that “[The Lord of the Rings] was not written ‘for children,’ or for any person in particular, but for itself. (If any parts or elements in it appear ‘childish,’ it is because I am childish, and like that kind of thing myself now” (Letters, p. 310). While Jackson directed The Lord of the Rings to much critical acclaim as a piece of high fantasy with clear dark undertones, what is he going to make of The Hobbit, a piece whose style as a children’s novel, Tolkien ardently is unhappy about? And how will he mold the lighter, humorous material which is particularly prevalent in the first half of The Hobbit?

Do children’s movies have the same negative connotations toward fairy tales as young adult literature? Nowadays, popular culture engages in cult followings of multimillion dollar franchises like Twilight, Game of Thrones, and Harry Potter through movie adaptations. Yet why does fantasy literature have this polarity between lovers of literature who either engage or fail to engage with fantasy as adults–even if as children or teens they loved fantasists like Tolkien and Lewis?

How will Peter Jackson’s adaptation address The Hobbit as an admitted work of children’s literature while still cleaving to the epic, high fantasy die hard fans of The Lord of the Rings trilogy?  While Jackson’s adaptation is admittedly lighter and engages with the more playful aspects in The Hobbit, he is also working in background material from The Silmarillion as well as other works concerning Middle Earth. It is not strictly an adaptation of a children’s book. The movie is not being marketed as a children’s movie, children are not the intended audience. So how is it going to engage with the children’s story premise which Tolkien himself so disliked? In an interview with ‘Total Film,’ Peter Jackson said, “The Hobbit is very much a children’s book and The Lord of the Rings is something else; it’s not really aimed at children at all […] The dwarves give it a kind of childish, comic quality that gives us a very different tone from [the ‘Rings’ trilogy]” (click here for the Screenrant article on The Hobbit as a children’s literature adaptation).

Interested in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey? Click here to visit Peter Jackson’s blog to see production videos, pictures, and trailers! For more books on Tolkien and The Hobbit try reading Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien, On Fairy Tales by JRR Tolkien, The Inklings, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their Friends by Humphrey Carpenter, or J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis The Story of a Friendship by Colin Duriez.