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

[Lush]

As planned, I have contacted, met, and chatted with the lady who is Duke University's resident expert on all things Tolkien. One of the topics of our most interesting conversation were the many aspects of the distaste the scholarly world has, and continues to express in regards to Tolkien's works (I was compelled to contact this lady after reading and posting to Iarwain's "Unworthy" thread).

At the risk of trivializing our very exciting talk, allow me to post some of the issues we discussed:

There are several reasons as to why Tolkien's works are not taken seriously by "serious" scholars. One is general prejudice toward medievalism, another is the Catholicism of the author. A humorous suggestion that many academics cannot take Tolkien seriously because he was happily married was mentioned as well.

However, it seems that Tolkien is mainly discredited because his works are popular, as in "Joe from the trailer park must enjoy The Lord of the Rings, therefore this could not possibly be a worthy book." It's interesting to note that Shakespeare received the same kind of treatment in his day, and that as late as 1960, Dickens was still not being assigned in schools and universities in the Western world, because he was too "popular" (compare that with the way Dickens is treated today). My personal opinion is that in using this sort of logic in discrediting Tolkien, academics are conveniently forgetting the fact that popular works of art reach many people on many different levels, i.e. an eleven year-old enjoys the character of Eowyn and takes one thing from her, and someone like Mithadan, to give an example of one of our illustrious head-honchos, enjoys reading about Eowyn, but interprets this character in a different manner. The academics, though, point at the eleven year-old and scream: "This book is written for kids!" while completely ignoring our friend Mithadan. Am I making myself clear here?

The good lady also confirmed my speculation that a great deal of scholars have personal grudges toward the works of Tolkien, because his stuff is actually being read by a variety of people, as many scholars' own works are gathering dust. It seems that most academics' inability to reach a wider audience creates automatic (though rarely, if ever, admitted) resentment toward a book such as the LOTR. See, kids, even "smart" people aren't above envy!

She also had some interesting things to say regarding the treatment of females in the LOTR. I was very intrigued when she said that the assumption that LOTR is a book that's not to be taken seriously because women may not identify with most of it is "insulting to female readers." Furthermore, she said, "how many male readers of the LOTR can identify with the male characters?" Clearly, she believes, the LOTR was meant to invoke a different sort of sentiment other than "oh goody, I'm going exactly what Aragorn is going through!"

She does believe that the fact that the LOTR is stuck next to the works of Terry Brooks, for example, is not helping her cause of convincing academics to take the book serisously. "Tolkien's language is on par with that of Joyce," she said, but compare the way these two authors are treated. And yes, she does believe that change will occur, but that it would involve many decades, and a possible re-vamping of the fantasy genre en masse.

We talked about a great deal of other things, but I fear this post is gigantic enough already at this point.

Comments, anyone?

P.S. Lest anyone think that I would have missed my chance to pucker up to the BW: The lady has heard about the Barrow-Downs, and will hopefully visit it more often, especially following my shameless plugs. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[ March 28, 2003: Message edited by: Lush ]