[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I couldn't agree more with Duke's resident expert, Lush. I've read a fairly wide range of "quality" literature, and Tolkien's work ranks among the best of it. Even his books for children, such as The Hobbit and Roverandom include often very subtle references to Classical mythology, the philological debates of the day and every level and stage of English literature. Often there's a certain amount of dry humour to the more academic allusions (Smaug, so letter #25 tells me, is the past tense of the primitive Germanic verb Smugan, to squeeze through a hole). His philosophy is intelligent and humane, his characters well conceived and his plots both well-planned and entertaining. I cannot see why he should be so reviled other than through simple blind snobbery. If a work is to be considered of a high quality purely on the basis of its limited readership (the logical conclusion of the argument that popular literature is unworthy of study) then surely the best literature is that with the fewest readers of all: that which was never published. Of course the highest accolade would be for the works that were never even written, since they have a readership of one.

I too am increasingly disillusioned with the literary establishment's constant endorsement of self-consciously intellectual and very boring novels by deservedly unknown writers, who produce work solely for the academic market. Popularity is not an issue when it comes to the objective assessment of an author's work, but to claim that wide appeal and publishing success in some way denote a lack of literary merit is simply wrong-headed. Tolkien was writing in a very long-established literary tradition, with each stage of which he was completely familiar. His influences include giants like Virgil and Homer. Writings such as Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon, Kalevala and the Younger and Elder Eddas, which contributed greatly to his work, date from the very birth of the medieval period, and his references continue through Chaucer and Shakespeare to his own time. That he avoided appearing pretentious or self-important in airing his deep knowledge of language and literature is remarkable, and is due to his doing so simply because that knowledge was born of personal interest. A deep love of language (you can pick just about any language; he spoke quite a few) shines through in almost every syllable he wrote. If anyone understood what literature was it was he.

The sooner the literary establishment begins to assess work on the quality of its writing and the depth of its message the better; although that will require the elimination of pretention and self-importance from the world of literary criticism: a labour worthy of Heracles himself.