The Wisdom of Beasts: Animal Studies and the World of Tolkien
Document Type
Presentation
Date of Original Version
3-27-2026
Abstract
This presentation conducts an interdisciplinary approach to the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien, especially The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, to fill a gap in the academic literature in the field of Tolkien Studies. This presentation proposes that Tolkien’s works can be analyzed through anthrozoology. An analysis of human-animal relations in Tolkien’s literary universe has not only been relatively unaddressed, but widens the breadth of recognizing the importance, relevance, and necessity of fairy stories to understand and comprehend a quotidian constant within the human experience. This presentation aims to qualify and substantiate Patrick Curry’s 2004 Defending Middle-Earth through the methodology outlined in Paul Waldau’s 2013 Animal Studies: An Introduction. Curry’s monograph is a literary criticism that pushes against the standardized view of Tolkien and fantasy literature as a reactive, escapist, and immature sphere of existence. Instead, Curry argues that Tolkien’s world provides an in-depth and profound expedition into faith and spirituality, community and kinship, and ecology and ethics at a time when “modernity” equates to the destruction of childlike wonder, hope without guarantee, and the natural world. Curry’s Defending Middle-Earth analyzes varying aspects of Middle-Earth’s ecology, and proves that Tolkien’s mythopoeia can be used as inspiration to re-enchant oneself from contemporary issue such as climate change, environmental degradation, and human abuses of the planet. Yet, applying Waldau’s framework expands this analysis. Waldau defined “anthrozoology” as an interdisciplinary approach to a larger lived experience focusing on how humans and their cultures intersected with nonhuman animals. Waldau tied history, ethics, religion, culture, biology, and philosophy to create a wider story of the anthropocentric world that is amalgamated with other-than-human species. His method promotes investigating how humanity currently interacts with animal-kind in an industrialized society, how human civilizations connected with living beings beyond our own species across history, and how possible futures might unfold based upon the evolution of how humans live in a shared world. Anthrozoology aims to answer who and what are considered “animals,” and what explains the evident personal connections that humans have with their nonhuman counterparts. This presentation will use Waldau’s argument to approach Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, which brims with vast stories involving animals. By analyzing the role of varying creatures — Bill the Pony, Beorn the Skin-Changer, the rabbits and fish hunted by Gollum, the Bats of Dol Guldur, and Smaug the Dragon, to name a few — this presentation will demonstrate the importance of interspecies connectivity, reciprocity, and involvement to prove that the fantasy genre is not just escapist, but holds a deeper meaning that comments on real aspects of the human condition.
Recommended Citation
McGee, Richard M., "The Wisdom of Beasts: Animal Studies and the World of Tolkien" (2026). Oral Presentations. Paper 3.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gradcon2026-presentations/3