The current volume, being the second of two dedicated to ‘Tolkien and Modernity’, grew out of the wish to further the exploration of Tolkien as a ‘contemporary writer’, i.e. an author whose literary creations can be seen as a response to the challenges of the modern world. It comprises papers that focus on four broad themes: love, time, heroism, and style. Although one could argue that these topics have been present since the beginning of literature, though sometimes temporarily submerged, it is with the cataclysm of World War I and the entry of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity into the public consciousness – two events that shook the very foundations of pre-modern society – that they gained a new and immediate relevance.
