Books, Arts & Manners: Good and Evil for Men and Hobbits

Tolkien and the Critics: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

Edited by Neil Isaacs and Rose Zim-bardoNotre Dame, paperback, $2.95 In the volume of essays that Professors Isaacs and Zimbardo have brought together, the general range is from praise of Tolkien’s narrative power to condemnation of his writing in a medieval style, from praise of his invention of the hobbits (apparently a uniform reaction) to condemnation of his lack of interest in delineating character (except perhaps the character of hobbits). Of explanatory criticism, either the work of the literary historian, or that of the critic proper (Johnson on Shakespeare, Tolkien himself on Beowulf), there is almost none.

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Jared C. Lobdell

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Tolkien and the Critics: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

Edited by Neil Isaacs and Rose Zim-bardoNotre Dame, paperback, $2.95 In the volume of essays that Professors Isaacs and Zimbardo have brought together, the general range is from praise of Tolkien’s narrative power to condemnation of his writing in a medieval style, from praise of his invention of the hobbits (apparently a uniform reaction) to condemnation of his lack of interest in delineating character (except perhaps the character of hobbits). Of explanatory criticism, either the work of the literary historian, or that of the critic proper (Johnson on Shakespeare, Tolkien himself on Beowulf), there is almost none.