Ebook: Tolkien and the Critics

Tolkien and the Critics - Edited by Neil D Isaacs, Rose A Zimbardo

J.R.R. Tolkien has defined fantasy as the making or glimpsing of other worlds. The other world he invented is Middle Earth, with its own geography, mythology, balladry, history, languages, alphabet, flora and fauna, poetry, and other necessary tangible and intangible elements of culture. The most interesting subjects are the populus: hobbits, dwarves, orcs, ents, and other Tolkien-invented creatures.

The fifteen essays in this volume include previously published critiques along with several original treatments, having the single purpose of serious criticism—to render judgment on a work of art. The essays shift the emphasis from extraliterary aspects of the trilogy and its audience to a consideration of the work itself, and in doing so they answer some of the basic problems about genres, influences, sources, relationships, and other pertinent aspects.