The Tree of Woe contemplates some heavy Tolkienisms of late.

Is Tolkien our Goethe?

To claim J.R.R. Tolkien is a figure comparable to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is to claim that Tolkien is a world-historical figure whose work is emblematic of an entire civilization. It is, as the kids say, “kind of a big deal.” Indeed, such a weighty claim would take a book to fully demonstrate. Here I can only sketch the outline of why Tolkien might be worthy of such regard.

As luck or Ordination would have it, Princess Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca of Sicily, the Lady who as a young woman translated The Lord of the Rings into Italian, just did an interview, mostly in English, about Sicily, Russia, multipolarity, and, or course, Tolkien. Give that a whirl HERE.