Book Description
When first published, The Lord of the Rings stood so far apart from the mainstream that no one could recall reading anything like it. Tolkien"s unique tale needed valiant defenders, vocal admirers who understood its sources and relished its monumental scale. While such champions of modernism as Edmund Wilson mocked the trilogy"s archaic structure and language, W. H. Auden — a great modernist poet in his own right — rose to Tolkien"s defense with a spirited essay on the true nature of the hero quest. Edmund Fuller"s essay 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 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. The collection also includes essays by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Verlyn Fleiger, and each of the editors, as well as a brand-new essay by Tom Shippey that shows us what to make of all this vast learning, adding to it the many delights of the films, so we can relish Tolkien"s achievement all the more.
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Relié
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