Bethberry: Thanks for clearing things up. I think I understand you much better now.
There are three different topics that have not, I think, been sufficiently distinguished in this thread, resulting in some of my confusion over your meaning. They are:
1. Is Tolkien's use of archaic style to the advantage or detriment of
The Lord of the Rings?
2. Given an answer to 1, how does the style achieve this effect?
3. What was Tolkien's motivation or intent in using that style?
You have been trying to answer 2, given the assumption that Tolkien's writing is poor in places. The question I had been focused on was 1.
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As to your point that standards change, well, yes, they do.
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Hmm . . . did I make that point? As a matter of fact, I think that standards ought
not to change; or that if there is an objective standard for good literature it does not change.
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Again, my point is not that I think the use of archaic language is wrong-minded, but that when it is emphasised as Tolkien uses it, it works counter to a significant meaning.
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Is this then the crux of your problem with Tolkien's style? It sounds like a more intriguing idea than the simple charge that the writing is poor (though I suspect that I still disagree with it). Does it involve your hypothesis that Tolkien could not envision heroism in a modern context? If so, I think that rather the opposite conclusion can be drawn about his style. But I don't want to launch into another argument against a view no one holds.
Regarding the grammatical question: I completely agree with the material you quoted from Quirk and Greenbaum. A sentence like:
Since leaving her, life has seemed empty.
is incorrect based on a simple analysis of its functional/logical structure (assuming that the intended meaning was not that "life left her" but that "I [or someone else] left her". The same goes for:
Reading the evening paper, a dog started barking.
That is, again, unless the intent is that a dog was reading the paper. The problem with these is that the participle has no subject and is thus not logically related to the main verb (and it is also not in an absolute construction). In other words, it is subordinated to nothing.
But Tolkien's sentence is quite different:
Borne upon the wind, they heard the howling of wolves.
The subject of "borne"
is expressed. It is "the howling of wolves". The grammatical structure of the sentence is this: "heard" is the main verb; "they" is its subject; "the howling of wolves" is its object; "borne upon the wind" is adjectival, modifying "howling of wolves".
The only possible problem with the sentence is that "Borne upon the wind" is not placed next to "the howling of wolves". In some cases, this could lead to confusion, if it is not obvious to what noun the participle is subordinate. But I certainly can't see how it is logically/grammatically incorrect.
Lyta Underhill: I agree with what you say about the purpose of the stylistic changes. As the somewhat modern Hobbits enter and learn about the world of the Elves and the ancient kingdoms of the Dunedain, the change in style matches the change in content.
The same thing happens in
The Hobbit and I believe its use there is discussed by Tom Shippey in the
Author of the Century.