Where the shadows lie: Nature, modernity and the audience of Middle-earth.

The following thesis examines the relevance of J. R. R. Tolkien's ' The Lord of the Rings' in relation to its audience and the social conditions of its completion and reception. This relevance is best described as an imaginary process by which the reader vicariously experiences a millenarian religious movement that attempts to reject modernity. The argument is divided into four main sections, each building upon the preceding concepts. The first is a discussion of audience and fan culture which uses semiotics as the basis by which readers understand the novel. The second examines the way in which the semiotic nature of the imaginary world of Middle-earth codifies the meaning of the text. Third, the relationship between the reader, author and modernity is defined. Finally, in the fourth chapter, the millennial process is defined in detail and its relationship to the reader and the text.