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Originally Posted by davem
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What's interesting about this entry by Drout is that his critique does not seem to support his general comment. He wonders if Tolkien could have achieved the same effect with fewer words--and then qualifies that wonder with the wonderfully inane comment from the Emperor in
Amadeus. And then he quibbles over a few small points, but largely lauds the cited passages.
There would be two ways to consider the claim about excessive landscape description: the wordiness of particular passages (which he counters here) and the dwelling upon landscape so that it features constantly and continuously in the narrative. I suppose he tries to address this latter point when he compares Tolkien positively to Donaldson, but largely he does not addresss this claim.
So, his point that Tolkien's style is meant to create a mythic feel in modern language isn't, to my mind, drawn out well in this entry.
I really have to say, however, that I laud his efforts to bring Old English to a wider audience, especially with those podcasts. I haven't listened to any yet, but I recognise that setting up such a feature speaks highly to his efforts. Imagine setting up podcasts on the Downs, of passages from Tolkien's created languages.