He said; she said: where the critics led

[Bêthberry]

I have just found online a very well argued critical review of Tolkien scholarship. The review is scholarly but not deadly. (Well, not in the negative sense; as legitimate readers of Tolkien, these authors probably do deserve our own playful title of "dead.")

"Tom Shippey's JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century and a Look Back at Tolkien Criticism since 1982" by Michael D.C. Drout and Hilary Wynne

Drout and Wynne believe that Shippey and Flieger are the best critics on Tolkien and they substantiate their argument. They also review other trends and critics with wit and flair.

This is a tremendously rich barrow for raiding in search of inspiration for topic ideas here on the Barrow Downs.

Some of the topics covered:

the problem with equating the identification of a source with discovery of meaning in Tolkien's art;
the right way and the wrong way to talk about Good and Evil;
bibliographies of articles;
authoritative texts;
why we need to defend Tolkien and why we don't;
mythology for England.

Drout and Wynne provide a good summation of what attracts so many to Tolkien, that Tolkien is himself an exile speaking to exiles and giving voice to this longing of not belonging. They suggest that Treebeard is Tolkien's voice: "I am not altogether on anybody's side because nobody is on my side."

Drout and Wynne are particularly fair to fans of Tolkien who face the derision of academic critics. I had a good chuckle out of this line, probably because I belong to both these camps:

Every sub-culture has its rituals and at least the Tolkien fans seem to be having fun when they enact theirs (unlike, say, the participants of the Modern Language Association conference, who appear to be uniformly miserable.

Bêthberry