The Monsters and the Critics

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2154968.html

This is a collection of seven lectures by Tolkien, of which I think I had previously read only "On Fairy Stories" and "A Secret Vice". As always, they are an interesting insight into how his mind worked, or at least how he wanted us to think it worked. The more academic pieces (in particular the second, "On Translating Beowulf") are somewhat moored in academic controversies of their time, which may or may not have subsided by now and which in any case I am not close to. But the title piece rises above that to give an argument for appreciating Beowulf as a real story with serious monsters, rather than just a source for scholarly discussion on vaguely related topics, and that is the point made in show more the vivid metaphor of the man who built his tower on inherited land.

The other highlight for me, even as a non-Welsh speaker, is the lecture "English and Welsh" urging those with an interest in the history of the English language not to ignore its nearest geographical neighbour. He makes the same general point made much later by McWhorter, that English shares a significant substratum with Welsh (and he is very insistent that it is Welsh/British rather than the Goidelic languages), though interestingly uses a completely different set of linguistic/grammatical clues to McWhorter in making the argument. So there may well be something to it.

"On Fairy Stories" has quite a lot of information about Tolkien's views of other works of fantasy literature, ancient and modern; it is a bit less successful at setting up an analytical framework for looking at fairy stories as a whole (Farah Mendlesohn seems to me to have a more useful and more widely applicable approach), but again he makes a convincing emotional appeal to treat the stories first and foremost as stories for an intended audience, rather than for anything else. His valedictory address, at the end of the book, is an amusing but somewhat rambling justification for wandering off the point for most of his career, but in fact a commitment to an aesthetic of narrative seems to have been precisely the point, one which he successfully communicated through both his fiction and his non-fiction. show less

I won't give a rating. I read (parts of) the German translation, and it was very peculiar to read comments on translating Beowulf from Anglo-Saxon into Modern English - in German. It's not that the translation itself is bad, (in fact it is very well done) just that this is something that isn't really suitable for translating.

It might be interesting to read the English if it were easily available, but I have no desire to search for it.

Not exactly scintillating reading, especially if not already a fan of Tolkien. As he himself admits in one of the lectures (for which these essays were the manuscripts), he was not a particularly interesting lecturer. The only essays likely of broader interest are his famous "On Fairy Stories", and "A Secret Vice" (on invented language). Gladly, these are also the most readable of the bunch, and "On Fairy Stories" alone is with the price of the volume. I'm glad to have it on my shelf, but doubt I'll be reading it regularly, apart from referencing that jewel in the middle.

These essays by Tolkien are thought-provoking and quite readable by the general reader. This essay was instrumental in Beowulf criticism to get the work analyzed on its own merits.

This is an academic text that focuses on Tolkien's approach to critical analysis of literature. This book along with "Beowulf and the Critics" is credited with being one of the best and possible the first in describing the way to perform critical analysis on literature. It is a little hard to follow but if you are interested in Beowulf and critical review than this is well worth the time required.

This collection of essays include some that have influenced my understanding of the history of the languages and literatures of Great Britain, as well as the uses and misunderstandings of Fantasy.

Fascinating subject material, albeit slightly difficult to follow.