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J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. (BookTalk: the master of middle-earth).
J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century By Tom Shippey Houghton Mifflin, 347 pages, $26
Ask a typical literary critic to name he most important novel of the twentieth century, and he might cite a gloomy German tome such as Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain or Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities. But as Tom Shippey demonstrates, the honor belongs to J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy The Lord of the Rings.
Shippey is a crisp, forceful, and intelligent writer who has produced a highly readable appreciation of Tolkien's life and art. J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is the ideal companion for readers enchanted by Tolkien's novels who want to learn more about his ideas.
Tolkien's writings are, of course, best sellers; his most important work, The Lord of the Rings, has sold 50 million copies, The Hobbit 40 million. It's these substantial sales that ensured Hollywood's willingness to finance three new movies based on the trilogy. Moreover, Tolkien is one of the few writers who created his own category of fiction. Walk into any bookstore, and you'll find a fantasy section where most of the bad books (and a few good ones) show his influence.
High-minded litterateurs sneer at Tolkien's readers for wasting time reading trash. But as Shippey, an expatriate Brit who teaches English at Saint Louis University, shows, Tolkien was neither a hack nor a fool; he was a master of English prose who largely succeeded in his goal of creating a great epic.
The key to understanding Tolkien, Shippey believes, lies in his background as a philologist--a scholar who studies language. Tolkien spent his professional career analyzing Old English epics. As he wrote in a 1955 letter to his American publishers, "a primary fact about my work, is that it is all of a piece, and fundamentally linguistic in inspiration." Tolkien thought that by delving deeply enough into a piece of medieval writing, you could peel back the centuries and return to the springtime of a culture, recreating long-suppressed myths that only survive in garbled fragments. He believed his mission was similar ...
- `J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century,' by Tom Shippey; Houghton...
- Newspaper article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Ryan, Desmond November 14, 2001 700+ words
...dozens of times before. Although Tolkien had published "The Hobbit...of hobbit." And initially Tolkien met with equal scorn from the...justice in the publication of Tom Shippey's "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century...
- Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien.(Book review)
- Magazine article from: Mythlore Fisher, Jason September 22, 2007 700+ words
ROOTS AND BRANCHES: SELECTED PAPERS ON TOLKIEN. Tom Shippey. Berne and Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2007...of Tom Shippey, arguably the world's preeminent Tolkien scholar, is a welcome one, and the convenience of...
- Following the many roads of recent Tolkien Scholarship.(The Road to...
- Magazine article from: Christianity and Literature Wood, Ralph C. June 22, 2005 700+ words
...Middle-earth. By Tom Shippey, rev. and expanded...398. $13.00. Tolkien and the Great War...Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom...expanded edition of Tom Shippey's The Road to Middle...fellow medievalist with Tolkien at Oxford and later...
- J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the century. (Frodo lives!).(Review)
- Magazine article from: The Christian Century Wood, Ralph November 21, 2001 700+ words
J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. By Tom Shippey. Houghton Mifflin...adults read this Tolkien work with profit...This is the question Tom Shippey asks in timely relation...arouse an interest in Tolkien comparable to the...
- Archaeology and the sense of history in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth (1).
- Magazine article from: Mythlore Sabo, Deborah September 22, 2007 700+ words
...world its realism. Tolkien's favored medium to...discussed at length by Tom Shippey in The Road to Middle...lore (Shippey 111). Tolkien's characters use words...is reflected in what Tom Shippey calls the cartographic...94-134). But if Tolkien "wisely started with...
- Tolkien truths: The battles between good and evil in 'Rings' trilogy bear...
- Newspaper article from: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL) December 8, 2003 700+ words
...World War I," Foster says, but Tolkien's own friendships influenced...Return." Foster references Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey's theory that the Ring represents...the course of the future." Tolkien not only drives this point home...
- Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader.(Book review)
- Magazine article from: The Historian Clough, Wulfstan December 22, 2005 700+ words
...introduction to the complex subject of Tolkien's mythmaking," and this is...are authored by such prominent Tolkien scholars as Tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger, and Richard...author of two major studies of Tolkien, arranges these articles in...
- J.R.R. Tolkien and director Peter Jackson share fans' obsessions with 'The Lord...
- Newspaper article from: The Boston Herald Schorow, Stephanie December 18, 2001 700+ words
...writers out there," Drout said. Tolkien's lecture on the Anglo-Saxon...Beowulf" was groundbreaking; Tolkien argued that the poem was a work...an influential biography by Tom Shippey, "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century...
Source: HighBeam Research, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. (BookTalk: the master of...