The Desolation - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

jallanite · 02-14-2014, 06:46 PM

Still, the fact remains that academics often do try to show that a particular work is better or worse objectively than another work. Whether they should do this is another matter. Fans, who are not very academic, often do the same.

Tolkien seems to try to avoid it, but at least comes close. In the introduction to his translations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo Tolkien says on page 13: “But he was a major poet of his day; ...”, this of a poem known only from a single manuscript. He appears to agree with the general opinion that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best surviving Middle English poem, or at least one of the best. On page 21 Tolkien writes of the poem “Pearl”: “The reality of the bereavement will not save the poetry if it is bad, save to those who are in fact interested, not in poetry, but in documents, whose hunger is for history or biography or even for mere names.”

In short, a critic who does not care whether a work of literary art is good or bad is very rare, or is looking at the work in some nonliterary way. If it were not so, should not one just as well teach one of Terry Brooks’ novels or one of E. R. Eddison’s books? The situation is that those who loathe Tolkien mostly dislike these others far more.

People, whether fans or academics or those who claim to be both do have differences of opinion about what they read. They do disagree in public. They sometimes do this politely, and sometime do this with great anger. And they have always done so as far as I can see.

And they sometimes misunderstand the work that they claim to explain. Bloom obviously thinks he understands Tolkien, and Tolkien is not worth bothering about. Drout thinks he understands Tolkien but his talk to me shows someone ignorant both about Tolkien and about Beowulf because he makes gross factual errors. Or maybe I don’t understand Drout and am being the fool, but no-one shows me where my understanding that Drout is the fool is wrong.

I see no difference between a fan who follows a particular line and an academic who follows some particular line, save, as you point out, literary academia is an area where one can’t prove anything, unlike pure mathematics. But I see an academic named Drout who it seems to me doesn’t know the basic facts of his own discipline, like discovering a modern physician is completely unaware of penicillin.

02-14-2014, 06:46 PM	#11
jallanite Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 479	Still, the fact remains that academics often do try to show that a particular work is better or worse objectively than another work. Whether they should do this is another matter. Fans, who are not very academic, often do the same. Tolkien seems to try to avoid it, but at least comes close. In the introduction to his translations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo Tolkien says on page 13: “But he was a major poet of his day; ...”, this of a poem known only from a single manuscript. He appears to agree with the general opinion that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best surviving Middle English poem, or at least one of the best. On page 21 Tolkien writes of the poem “Pearl”: “The reality of the bereavement will not save the poetry if it is bad, save to those who are in fact interested, not in poetry, but in documents, whose hunger is for history or biography or even for mere names.” In short, a critic who does not care whether a work of literary art is good or bad is very rare, or is looking at the work in some nonliterary way. If it were not so, should not one just as well teach one of Terry Brooks’ novels or one of E. R. Eddison’s books? The situation is that those who loathe Tolkien mostly dislike these others far more. People, whether fans or academics or those who claim to be both do have differences of opinion about what they read. They do disagree in public. They sometimes do this politely, and sometime do this with great anger. And they have always done so as far as I can see. And they sometimes misunderstand the work that they claim to explain. Bloom obviously thinks he understands Tolkien, and Tolkien is not worth bothering about. Drout thinks he understands Tolkien but his talk to me shows someone ignorant both about Tolkien and about Beowulf because he makes gross factual errors. Or maybe I don’t understand Drout and am being the fool, but no-one shows me where my understanding that Drout is the fool is wrong. I see no difference between a fan who follows a particular line and an academic who follows some particular line, save, as you point out, literary academia is an area where one can’t prove anything, unlike pure mathematics. But I see an academic named Drout who it seems to me doesn’t know the basic facts of his own discipline, like discovering a modern physician is completely unaware of penicillin.