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Old 10-28-2003, 11:36 AM   #32
Eurytus
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: England
Posts: 179
Eurytus has just left Hobbiton.
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Quote:
In other words, if you are claiming that the Iliad and the Odyssey are not good, then I must simply disagree. But if they are good, then there is no reason that their styles ought not be used.
Just because something is good does not mean that its style should be used.
Is A Clockwork Orange good. Clearly. Should you write a book in the same style? Probably not, it would clearly be a pastiche of the former.

Is Beowulf (the original poem) a great work of fiction, again clearly. Should it's style be used now? Again no, it would come across as blatantly false.

I have little problem with Tolkien aping the Illiad for the Silmarillion. That after all was attempting to be a mythology.
But the LOTR was not. It was written primarily as a modern book, a sequel to the Hobbit which was likewise, a modern book.

Compare FOTR to ROTK and you can see how Tolkien totally changes the style and it jars.
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