What Story Are We In? The Use of Tolkien in John Dunne's Recent Works

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the use of themes from J.R.R. Tolkien in the work of John Dunne, C.S.C. of the past two decades, but especially The Mystic Road of Love (1999) and Reading the Gospel (2000). Dunne has “culled” four sentences from Tolkien that express Dunne's own sense of being on a journey with God: “Things are meant. There are signs. The heart speaks. There is a way.” These sentences not only express Dunne's personal journey but also indicate where, according to Dunne, humanity is going in its collective journey with God. The paper concludes by shifting the focus from Dunne to Tolkien and asking how, if Dunne is close to right about Tolkien's significance, the conventional view of twentieth-century English literature and Tolkien's place in it would have to change.