A Sauron Bibliography (Part 1)
Part 1 of an ongoing list of Tolkien scholarship addressing or related to Sauron
Sauron Scholarship
There has been a significant amount of scholarship focused on the representation of evil in Tolkien’s work as well as scholarship on the nature and function of the Ring, both of which necessarily concern Sauron. The volume of work specifically focused on Sauron is rather smaller. I have collated the work I am familiar with below and will be updating the list as I find additional sources. Sources are grouped by author and listed by date of publication. For those without a date I will approximate based on temporal context clues.
Paul Kocher
Kocher’s chapter on Sauron contrasts Sauron’s apparent bodily absence from the narrative with the apparent effective use of his bodily form for the purposes of seduction in the Second Age. It notes Sauron’s tendency towards self-centered obsession, metaphorical blindness, lack of imagination, desire for Godhood, and apparent capacity for experiencing despair. Kocher identifies the Ring as an extension of Sauron’s power as well as his personality.
‘Sauron and the Nature of Evil,’ Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien, (New York: Del Rey, 1972), pp. 52–74
Gwenyth E. Hood
Hood’s work notes parallels between Sauron in The Lord of the Rings and the figures of Dracula, the gorgon, and the basilisk; Hood focuses on the twin literal and metaphoric uses of “vision” as they surround these beings. ‘Sauron and Dracula’ notes the parallels between Sauron and Dracula through Dracula’s use of his eyes and his will to circumscribe the metaphorical “vision” of his victims and to force upon them his own as means of domination. ‘Gorgon and Basilisk’ notes similar parallels, while highlighting an additional layer to the threats relating to vision in The Lord of the Rings: the fear of seeing the Eye of Sauron and of being seen by the Eye of Sauron.
‘Sauron and Dracula,’ Mythlore, 14.2 (1987), article 2. https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol14/iss2/2/
‘Sauron as Gorgon and Basilisk,’ VII: An Anglo-American Literary Review, 8 (1987), 59–71 https://mds.marshall.edu/english_faculty/30/
Leslie Stratyner
Stratyner identifies Sauron the Ring-giver as modelling a perversion of the role of the Anglo-Saxon lord who would offer rings to their thanes as a token of a reciprocal relationship of service (loyalty of the thane in exchange for the rewards and protection of the lord). Sauron’s Rings are binding, but the bond is not reciprocal and represents no sense of community.
“Ðe us ðas beagas geaf (He Who Gave Us These Rings): Sauron and the Perversion of Anglo-Saxon Ethos,” Mythlore, 16.1 (1989), article 2, 5-8. https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss1/2/
Joe Abbott
Abbott’s paper offers an analysis of Sauron’s evolution from Tevildo into Thû the Necromancer who, he argues, is in essence Sauron fully-formed. He also compares the nature of Thû’s (and hence Sauron’s) threat to that of Grendel in Beowulf, noting that the purely physical threat of Grendel has been transformed into Thû’s spiritual threat.
Abbott, Joe, ‘Tolkien's Monsters: Concept and Function in The Lord of the Rings (Part III): Sauron,’ Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, 16.3.8 (1990) https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss3/8/
Jane Chance
Chance’s analysis of Sauron is embedded in a broader analysis of power structures formed or exhibited through language and the gaze (per Foucault) in The Lord of the Rings. This analysis includes what is, to my knowledge, the earliest reference to the similarity between the power conferred by Sauron’s Eye and that of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon.1
The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power, Revised Edition, (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001).
Jared C. Lobdell
Lobdell suggests that Sauron in the form of the Necromancer was influenced by Tolkien’s early-in-life enjoyment of Samuel Rutherford Crockett’s The Black Douglas and its inclusion of a fictionalized representation of Gilles de Rais as a Satanist.2
‘Defining The Lord of the Rings: An Adventure Story in the Edwardian Mode,’ The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien, (Chicago: Open Court, 2004) pp 1—24.
Helge Fauskanger
Fauskanger’s essay analyses the name “Mairon” (appearing in Parma Eldalamberon vol. 17). The essay synthesizes and consolidates the linguistic information contained in PE17 and points out the conundrum of why and when a pre-corrupted Sauron might have been given a name in Quenya if he had been suborned before the awakening of the Elves.
A Name for the Dark Lord, webpage, Ardalamberon, n.d., https://ardalambion.net/sauronname.htm
Gergely Nagy
Nagy’s paper analyses Sauron’s textual presence in The Lord of the Rings through the lens of semiotics. Nagy argues that since Sauron’s physical body is absent from the narrative, other discourses must step in to replace this missing body. These include the mythology around Sauron, his sphere of action, and how this action affects the world. He also notes that the Ring becomes Sauron’s surrogate body in the narrative.
‘A Body of Myth Representing Sauron in The Lord of the Rings,’ The Body in Tolkien’s Legendarium: Essays on Middle-earth Corporeality, ed. by Christopher Vaccaro, (North Carolina: McFarland, 2013).
John D. Rateliff
Rateliff provides extensive editorial analysis and annotation to the manuscripts and typescripts presented in The History of the Hobbit. In his analysis of Tolkien’s early use of the word “Wizard” he notes similarities between Thû the Necromancer and the characters Tu and Fangli from the early and abandoned story called ‘Gilfanon’s Tale.’
‘The Necromancer,’ The History of the Hobbit: Mr Baggins and Return to Bag-End, ed. by John D. Rateliff, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2023) pp. 147—152.
Maria Alberto
Alberto examines Sauron’s seduction of the Elves of Eregion in light of a medieval understanding of the term: as a leading astray through deceit that invokes the idea of Fall. Seduction serves mythologically within the Secondary World as a means of accounting for Falls. Alberto also notes that the earliest example of a seduction inside the Secondary World is that of Sauron himself.
‘“It Had Been His Virtue, And Therefore Also The Cause Of His Fall”: Seduction As A Mythopoeic Accounting For Evil In Tolkien's Work,’ Mythlore, 35.2 (2017), article 5. https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol35/iss2/5/
Jelena Filipovc
Filipovic’s paper reads Sauron in The Lord of the Rings through the lenses of Machiavelli and Hobbes, suggesting he can be viewed both as a ‘hidden’ Machiavellian political figure and as super-individual corporation in the form of the leviathan.
“Tolkien's Dark Lord as a Political Figure,” conference paper, Tolkien Seminar 2019, Jena, Thüringen, October 2019. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336642312_Tolkien's_Dark_Lord_as_a_Political_Figure
Danna Petersen-Deeprose
Petersen-Deeprose identifies Sauron as an archetypal queer villain, particularly in regards to his use of seduction that frequently takes another male character as its object and has the ultimate effect of greatly destabilizing Middle-earth. Petersen-Deeprose points out the parallels between the master-servant relationships of Frodo/Sam and Morgoth/Sauron, exemplified in Sauron’s adoration of his master.
‘Destabilizing Cishetero Amatonormativity in the Works of Tolkien,’ video recording of conference paper, The Tolkien Society Seminar: “Tolkien and Diversity,” virtual, YouTube, 27 July 2021, https://you tu.be/TU-woH9mW2U?si=zaN1rcB0QblEDJ7D
Cameron Bourquein
As to my own work: ‘The Nameless Enemy’ analyzes the name “Mairon” and argues that, despite its niche publication, the name is meaningful to a reading of Sauron and fits smoothly into a larger pattern of associations of the character with the notions of seeing (or not), being seen (or not), and how one is seen (or how one sees the self).
‘The Nameless Enemy: How Do You Solve a Problem Like “Mairon”?,’ virtual conference paper, Tolkien@UVM, 1 April 2023.
‘Perceiving the Perceiver’ reads Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, the wider Legendarium, and The Rings of Power through Gestalt theory and argues that Sauron’s high degree of indeterminacy and ambiguity in these texts can account for a range of sometimes contradictory interpretations of him.
‘Perceiving the Perceiver: Reading Sauron Through the Gestalt Theory of Perception,’ virtual conference paper, PCA National Conference, 6 April 2023.
‘Through Sauron’s Eye’ is an examination of what happens when we situate Sauron as Tolkien conceived of him during “Phase 5” (roughly 1948–1960)3 within the broader metaphysical alterations Tolkien made to the Legendarium at the same time. It argues that this situation places the telos of Sauron on a collision course with the Problem of Evil in Ea.
‘Through Sauron’s Eye: Hell, Arda Unmarred, Arda Marred, and Arda Healed According to the Maia Formerly Known as Mairon,’ virtual conference paper, MythSoc OMS, 6 August 2023. https://dc.swosu.edu/oms/oms2/schedule/45/
‘Wizard, Demon, Cat’ is a diachronic analysis of Sauron over Tolkien’s lifetime that synthesizes and expands on the work of Abbott, Lobdell, and Rateliff while at the same time arguing that Sauron is a metatextual shape-shifter who appears in three “modes” throughout the Legendarium—modes which cannot fully be synthesized and which each reach back to the characters Tevildo, Tu, and Fangli in The Book of Lost Tales in different proportions.
‘Wizard, Demon, Cat; Reformer, Satanist, Bureaucrat: a Diachronic Analysis of Three Modes of Sauron in the Legendarium in Light of The Book of Lost Tales,’ Journal of Tolkien Research, 19.2 (2024), article 7. https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol19/iss2/7
‘Naked and Ashamed’ reads Sauron’s different relationships to corporeality through the lens of disability theory, particularly Margaret Price’s adaptation of bodyminds.
‘Naked and Ashamed: Impaired Self-image and the Persistence of Sauron’s Bodily Wounds,’ virtual conference paper, ICMS, 10 May 2024.
‘The Crisis of Arda Marred’ argues that Sauron’s “great works” of the early Second Age (the Rings, the Black Speech, and the Dark Tower) have both practical and metaphysical implications for the institution of order in Middle-earth.
‘The Crisis of Arda Marred and How (Not) to Unmar It: the Ring, the Tongue, and the Tower as the New Wheel of Fortune, The New Tower of Babel, and The New World Tree,’ virtual conference paper, Leeds IMC, 1 July 2024.
Mercury Natis
Natis’s papers focus on the queer aspects of Sauron’s uses of seduction. ‘Sauron’s Femme Fatale Sources…’ focuses particularly on Sauron’s seduction of Ar-Pharazôn in the Numenor narratives, where Natis notes this seduction (performed through his fair body and honeyed tongue) and his role as destroyer of Numenor mirrors Biblical femme fatales such as Salome, Jezebel, or the ishah zarah. ‘Sauron, Seduction, and the Queering Mechanism of the Ring’ argues that Sauron’s tendency towards seduction as a tool to achieve his ends is played out in the Third Age by the Ring, which seduces its male bearers (and other men who desire to posses it) and functions as a surrogate wife, “corrupting” them further from normative society.
‘Sauron’s Femme Fatale Sources and Their Role in the Númenor Narrative,’ video recording of The Tolkien Society Seminar ‘Numenor the Might and Frail’ conference paper, YouTube, 16 July 2023, https://yo utu.be/dqkMj3PL3oA?si=XzXv0-lLE4WdLYLF
‘Sauron, Seduction, and the Queering Mechanism of the Ring,’ virtual conference paper, MythSoc OMS ‘Something Mighty Queer,’ 17 February 2024, https://dc.swosu.edu/oms/oms3/schedule/8/
Robert T. Tally Jr.
Tally’s work focuses primarily on Sauron as a more complex figure rather than a one-dimensional villain. ‘Sauron: Weirdly Sexy’ examines Sauron’s legitimate appeal to at least some of his allies during the Second and even Third Ages of Middle-earth, as a political figure at the center of Middle-earth’s complex geopolitical situation. ‘Fiery the angels rose…’ explores a Romantic reading of Sauron, suggesting even a kind of tragic heroism, particularly by likening Sauron to Prometheus as Sauron legitimately offers knowledge and the possibility of order to a post-apocalyptic Second Age.
‘Sauron: Weirdly Sexy,’ Journal of Tolkien Research, 18.2 (2023), article 1. https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol18/iss2/1
‘“Fiery the angels rose”: The Romantic Prometheanism of Tolkien's Enemies,’ video recording of The Tolkien Society Seminar “Tolkien’s Romantic Resonances” conference paper, YouTube, 7 July 2024. https://yo utu.be/InKbF7eVs7M?si=evLTRF4uA8axgDQA
Existential Comics produced a humorous allusion to this parallel: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/303.
Lobdell doesn’t expand on this argument beyond a couple of sentences and appears to base it on one of Tolkien’s letters: Letter #306. While Letter #306 does cite the influence of The Black Douglas on the section of The Hobbit that includes the journey from Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains, it does not mention any influence on the Necromancer specifically. However, John D. Rateliff’s The History of the Hobbit includes additional information on The Black Douglass that seems to support Lobdell’s argument, less by connecting Gilles de Rais to the Necromancer as he appears in The Hobbit and more by connecting him to Thû the Necromancer as he appears in the versions of the Beren and Lúthien story which immediately predate (and appear to influence) work on The Hobbit.
"Phase 5” is an adoption of the terminology used by Elizabeth Whittingham in her book The Evolution of Tolkien’s Mythology.