New Republic Article - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

***Mister Underhill*** · 01-31-2002, 06:56 PM

Glancing back over the thread, I don’t see that anyone has (a) claimed Tolkien’s work to be beyond criticism or completely flawless, or (c) made the claim that critics necessarily have a hidden agenda behind their analysis. Even the most heated replies have disagreed with the critic’s opinion and his tastes, attacked assumptions he has made, and raised the question of whether he has a broader agenda behind what he has written.

Literary criticism (b) is hardly an irrefutable science whose intrinsic merit is beyond question. Critics themselves routinely dismiss popular success as a legitimate measure of a work’s value; I don’t see any reason why popular dismissal of professional literary criticism as a valuable field of study is any less worthwhile an opinion.

Anyway, it shouldn’t be puzzling that fans who visit a board dedicated to the discussion of Tolkien’s works should spring to his defense with strong rebuttals of an analysis that attacks his works with provocative phrases like “emotionally impoverished” and “anemic” and (in a fit of critical rapture, presumably) declares that LotR’s main Hobbit characters and “the rest of Middle-earth, too” have no “balls”.

01-31-2002, 06:56 PM	#16
*Mister Underhill* Dread Horseman Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Behind you! Posts: 2,744	Glancing back over the thread, I don’t see that anyone has (a) claimed Tolkien’s work to be beyond criticism or completely flawless, or (c) made the claim that critics necessarily have a hidden agenda behind their analysis. Even the most heated replies have disagreed with the critic’s opinion and his tastes, attacked assumptions he has made, and raised the question of whether he has a broader agenda behind what he has written. Literary criticism (b) is hardly an irrefutable science whose intrinsic merit is beyond question. Critics themselves routinely dismiss popular success as a legitimate measure of a work’s value; I don’t see any reason why popular dismissal of professional literary criticism as a valuable field of study is any less worthwhile an opinion. Anyway, it shouldn’t be puzzling that fans who visit a board dedicated to the discussion of Tolkien’s works should spring to his defense with strong rebuttals of an analysis that attacks his works with provocative phrases like “emotionally impoverished” and “anemic” and (in a fit of critical rapture, presumably) declares that LotR’s main Hobbit characters and “the rest of Middle-earth, too” have no “balls”.