Tolkien Scholarship

Following on from Ursula Le Guin's discussion of academic treatments (and the scorning) of Tolkien, Norbert Schürer has published an article in the Los Angeles Times Review of Books titled Tolkien Criticism Today.

As Schürer sees it, scholarship on Tolkien has struggled to find a path between recognizing the difficulty of the literature:

ON THE FACE OF IT, J.R.R. Tolkien’s works are not exactly easy reading. The Hobbit veers between childish asides and grandiose battles; The Lord of the Rings trilogy presents 1,000 pages of unrelenting heroism; The Silmarillion makes the Bible look like easy reading — and this doesn’t even begin to consider The History of Middle-Earth, the 12 volumes of manuscript variants compiled posthumously by Tolkien’s son Christopher. Furthermore, much of Tolkien’s work is written in an indigestible faux-medieval style; there are long descriptions of imagined countrysides, and he sprinkles in countless obscure references to invented fantastic histories.

and the popularity of the works:

Tolkien is nonetheless one of the most popular authors of the 20th century. In poll after poll, readers declare him their favorite writer; his main books remain bestsellers 60 years after their publication, and the recent movies based on his works are box office hits. On a superficial level, Tolkien’s success is easy to explain: He offers timeless stories about hard moral choices, and he creates a marvelous world of magic, including talking eagles, walking trees, and hobbits — invented figures with whom many contemporary readers can easily identify.

As he says it, scholars face a difficult trade-off:

On one hand, critics do not want to be seen as fawning fans, so their writing adopts a scholarly tone. On the other hand, they want to appeal to fans, so they have to cater to popular sentiment. They need to address controversial topics, but they cannot attack the author if they want to find readers among fans, and while they often try to address the entirety of Tolkien’s published imaginary writings (known as the legendarium) they can only rely on readers being familiar with The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and often only in cinematic form.

As a result, he concludes that Tolkien scholarship is in a sad state. He then goes on to review seven recent works of Tolkien scholarship, and comes away unimpressed for the most part.

The best of the seven, he argues, is A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Stuart Lee, and published by Wiley Blackwell. The next best, the essay collection Tolkien: The Forest and the City:

these books show the two requirements for good Tolkien criticism. For one, he should be treated like any other author in being discussed in seriously peer-reviewed journals and established academic presses rather than in essay collections and niche publications. Just as importantly, Tolkien should not be treated with kid gloves because he is a fan favorite with legions to be placated, but as the serious and major author he is.