“For Love of Sophia: The Mythic Tradition of the Wise Woman”
The attached PDF file is the text of the paper I presented at Mythcon 34, the annual conference for the Mythopoeic Society, which was held at Nashville, Tennessee (July 25-28, 2003). Some of the elements in this paper, about the figure of the Wise Woman, were informed by the work I did developing The Scribbler’s Guide to the Land of Myth.
In the paper, after discussing the components and tradition of the mythic Wise Woman, I then look at J.R.R. Tolkien’s Goldberry and Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings and Charles Williams’ Sybil Coningsby in The Greater Trumps.
In the paper, I make reference also to The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, Joseph Campbell’s The Hero of a Thousand Faces, The Aeneid by Virgil, and The Epic of Gilgamesh.
