Author: Neil D. IsaacsPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fantasy fiction, English
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
Fifteen critical essays analyze the quality, sources, and influence of Tolkien's trilogy.
Tolkien and the Critics
Author: Neil D. IsaacsPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fantasy fiction, English
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
Fifteen critical essays analyze the quality, sources, and influence of Tolkien's trilogy.
The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien
Author: John GarthPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069119694X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 211
Book Description
An illustrated journey into the life and imagination of one of the world's best-loved authors, Tolkien's Worlds provides a unique exploration of the relationship between the real and the fantastical and is an essential companion for anyone who wants to follow in Tolkien's footsteps.
Beowulf and the Critics
Author: John Ronald Reuel TolkienPublisher: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS)
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 496
Book Description
The most important essay in the history of Beowulf scholarship, J.R.R. Tolkien's "Beowulf: the monsters and the critics" has been much studied and discussed. But scholars of both Beowulf and Tolkien have to this point been unaware that Tolkien's essay was a redaction of a much longer and more substantial work, Beowulf and the critics, which Tolkien wrote in the 1930s and probably delivered as a series of Oxford lectures. This critical edition of Beowulf and the critics presents both unpublished versions of Tolkien's lecture, each substantially different from the other and from the final, published essay. The edition included a description of the manuscript, complete textual and explanatory notes, and a detailed critical introduction that explains the place of Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon scholarship both in the history of Beowulf scholarship and in literary history.
The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays
Author: John Ronald Reuel TolkienPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Understanding the Lord of the Rings
Author: Rose A. ZimbardoPublisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618422531
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
Publisher's description: When first published, The Lord of the Rings stood far from the mainstream: no one had seen anything like it for decades. Tolkien's almost stridently antimodern tale needed valiant defenders, vocal admirers who understood its sources and relished its monumental scale. While such champions of modernism as Edmund Wilson mocked Tolkien's archaic structure and language, W.H. Auden -- a great modernist poet in his own right -- rose to his defense with a spirited essay on the true nature of the Hero Quest. Edmund Fuller's essay collected here discusses the nature of the fairy tale, returning to the roots of the term to remove the treacle of Disney and restore the value of realistic enchantment. Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis takes up the question of why, if you have a serious comment to make about real life, you would drape it in a never-never land of your own. He shrewdly argues that it is because real life does have mythic and heroic qualities -- in abundance. This collection also includes, among others, essays by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Verlyn Flieger, Paul Kocher, Jane Chance, and each of the editors, as well as a brand-new essay by Tom Shippey that shows us how to process all this vast learning, adding to it the many delights of the film versions of Tolkien's epic masterpiece, so we can relish his achievement all the more.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Author: Tom ShippeyPublisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547524439
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 389
Book Description
The definitive Tolkien companion—an indispensable guide to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and more, from the author of The Road to Middle-earth. This “highly erudite celebration and exploration of Tolkien’s works [is] enormous fun,” declared the Houston Chronicle, and Tom Shippey, a prominent medievalist and scholar of fantasy, “deepens your understanding” without “making you forget your initial, purely instinctive response to Middle-earth and hobbits.” In a clear and accessible style, Shippey offers a new approach to Tolkien, to fantasy, and to the importance of language in literature. He breaks down The Lord of the Rings as a linguistic feast for the senses and as a response to the human instinct for myth. Elsewhere, he examines The Hobbit’s counterintuitive relationship to the heroic world of Middle-earth; demonstrates the significance of The Silmarillion to Tolkien’s canon; and takes an illuminating look at lesser-known works in connection with Tolkien’s life. Furthermore, he ties all these strands together in a continuing tradition that traces its roots back through Grimms’ Fairy Tales to Beowulf. “Shippey’s commentary is the best so far in elucidating Tolkien’s lovely myth,” wrote Harper’s Magazine. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is “a triumph” (Chicago Sun-Times) that not only gives readers a deeper understanding of Tolkien and his work, but also serves as an entertaining introduction to some of the most influential novels ever written.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Author: Judith A. JohnsonPublisher: Greenwood
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
J.R.R. Tolkien: Six Decades of Criticism annotates over 1,600 reviews, articles, essays, books, and other commentary on the creator of Middle Earth. Author Judith A. Johnson also provides a bibliography of Tolkien novels, poems, interviews, and other published works; essays describing Tolkien's writings and summarizing the critical response to them; and an appendix listing Tolkien-related organizations, societies, and publications. American Libraries This bibliography of works by and about one of the foremost fantasy writers of the twentieth century contains notes on hundreds of reviews, articles, essays, theses, dissertations, and books. The book's organization is chronological, each chapter devoted to a particular era and time frame in the Tolkien history. Each chapter contains a brief introductory essay that describes works by Tolkien published within a particular time frame and summarizes the patterns or trends of critical response during the period covered. Following this is an alphabetical by title listing of works by Tolkien and a chronologically organized bibliography of Tolkien criticism. The final chapter offers a preview of the response of future critics to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The appendix offers a list of all Tolkien related organizations, societies, and publications. The indexes provide access to the Tolkien criticism by the name of the critic and by individual works.
Defending Middle-Earth
Author: Patrick CurryPublisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544106563
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
A scholar explores the ideas within The Lord of the Rings and the world created by J. R. R. Tolkien: “A most valuable and timely book” (Ursula K. Le Guin, Los Angeles Times–bestselling author of Changing Planes). What are millions of readers all over the world getting out of reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Defending Middle-earth argues, in part, that the appeal for fans goes far deeper than just quests and magic rings and hobbits. In fact, through this epic, Tolkien found a way to provide something close to spirit in a secular age. This thoughtful book focuses on three main aspects of Tolkien’s fiction: the social and political structure of Middle-earth and how the varying cultures within it find common cause in the face of a shared threat; the nature and ecology of Middle-earth and how what we think of as the natural world joins the battle against mindless, mechanized destruction; and the spirituality and ethics of Middle-earth—for which the author provides a particularly insightful and resonant examination. Includes a new afterword
Tolkien and the Modernists
Author: Theresa Freda NicolayPublisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476617201
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
The Lord of the Rings rarely makes an appearance in college courses that aim to examine modern British and American literature. Only in recent years have the fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien and his friend, C.S. Lewis, made their way into college syllabi alongside T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land or F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. This volume aims to situate Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings within the literary period whose sensibility grew out of the 19th-century rise of secularism and industrialism, which culminated in the cataclysm of world war. During a pivotal moment in the history of Western culture, both Tolkien and his contemporaries--the literary modernists--engaged with the past in order to make sense of the present world, especially in the wake of World War I. While Tolkien and the modernists share many of the same concerns, their responses to the crisis of modernity are often antithetical. While the work of the modernists emphasizes alienation and despair, Tolkien's work underscores the value of fellowship and hope.
Beowulf
Author: John Ronald Reuel TolkienPublisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544442784
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 445
Book Description
Presents the prose translation of the Old English epic that Tolkien created as a young man, along with selections from lectures on the poem he gave later in life and a story and poetry he wrote in the style of folklore on the poem's themes.