Heroes and Legends: The Most Influential Characters of Literature by Thomas A. Shippey

The audio course  by Thomas Shippey, Heroes and Legends: The Most Influential Characters of Literature, is also available through Amazon Prime Great Courses Signature Collection.  

I enjoyed going from Odysseus and Beowulf to James Bond and Harry Potter.  Each of the 24 episodes covers a different style of hero.  Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings is not a typical hero.  He comes ill prepared to the task and grows into his role as an unlikely hero.

The Icelandic poems of Thor reveal the human and often humorous side of a hero with tremendous strength.  Lesser know characters such as the colorful Wife of Bath by Chaucer are discussed alongside Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennett.

Each of the stories is put in historical context to give a better understanding of the character and the author.  The series is a useful overview of the types of heroes available to authors creating their own memorable characters.



Writing to the gaps in literature from Tolkien by Thomas Shippey 5 min 30 seconds