21st Century Tolkien

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

This is probably the thing I like least about modern fandom -- all the critics and the "Tolkien scholars" and the literary and academic acceptance that so many Tolkien fans have craved for so many years. With every twist and turn in the development of the texts traced, every source and inspiration thoroughly analyzed and linked, every Old English allusion and philological inside joke neatly catalogued, every mystery laid bare, Middle-earth sometimes seems to lay there like a roughly dissected corpse.

I think the commentators can be divided into two classes - the ones who are attempting to analyse Tolkien's work & draw out the meaning & relevance of it in as objective a way as possible, in order that the reader can come to their own understanding - & the ones with an 'agenda', who seek to use the work to confirm & promote their own agenda (showing the 'Christian' sub-text or 'revealing' the 'racist' sub text).

In the first group I'd put Humphrey Carpenter, Verlyn Flieger, Tom Shippey, Michael Drout, et al. In the second, Joseph Pearce, Bradley Birzer, Germaine Greer & others. The first group have contributed immeasurably to Tolkien studies, the second are a nuisance & I'm sure their books will disappear pretty soon.