LOTR vs. Scholars, or Academics Can Kiss My As-taldo.

[Aiwendil]

So: rather than being considered along with (for instance) James Joyce and Shakespeare and Dickens, should Tolkien be considered along with Kalevala and the Eddas and such? And if an academic refuses to treat him alongside the Genuine Ancients, should that surprise us?

It seems to me that these should not be made into fundamentally separate categories. Of course, it makes sense to divide them up for purposes of comparison, analysis of stylistic devices, and so forth. But I have always felt that literary (as opposed to historical) scholars are in error when they study ancient texts in one way, holding them to one set of standards, and modern texts in a different way with a different set.

The problem is, I think, that scholars tend to assume that the only (or at least the chief) value of ancient works lies not in the works in and of themselves, but in the very antiquity of them. I strongly suspect that if Beowulf had been written in the twentieth century, it would have met the same critical hostility as The Lord of the Rings. Detached from their historical and cultural significance, I suspect that ancient works would be of little or no interest to most modern scholars.

This, in turn, seems to me to be tied to the erroneous notion that there is some kind of inevitable progress in the history of art. Modernists and postmodernists have the unfortunate tendency to assume that the evolution of artistic style is a teleological one, or at least that it is directed in some positive direction. But when we identify and examine this supposition, it appears to rest on no firm ground.

So perhaps Tolkien should be studied in conjunction with the Eddas, the Kalevala, Beowulf, etc., for actual analysis of the structure of the work (though many features of LotR are not shared with these works, and many are in fact shared with more modern forms). But a major problem with relegating it to that kind of study in practice (that is, in the non-ideal academic world that we inhabit) is that the works in that class are generally studied not as works in themselves, but for their significance. Tolkien's work, without the actual antiquity, is seen in this view as not being worthy of study.