On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:03:57 -0500, Beth Quitslund wrote:
> So today I received a pamphlet inviting me to become a Charter
> Member Subscriber of *Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review*,
> which is dedicated to "the growing body of critical commentary and
> scholarship about Tolkien's marvellous writing and his academic
> work." It's the last adjective that worries me. Do the editors and
> PR people mean "fabulous" or "fabular"? Studying Tolkien's writing
> for its own sake--for the kinds of reasons that many of us study
> Spenser, historicist, theoretical, and cultural studies apparatus
> notwithstanding--seems little different to me from studying *Star
> Wars* for its verbal genius. On the other hand, studying Tolkien's
> writing the way that critics of 20th-c. literature used to study
> Madonna might yield something.
Patronizing Tolkien won't advance Spenser and certainly doesn't
address the reason why he appeals across a very broad spectrum of
readers, including a large body of literate, sophisticated and
philologically-adept scholars. Many, I might add, are Classicists
like myself. It looks to some of us like mere snobbery based on envy
over the small, and probably dwindling, readership for Spenser.
Remove him from the curriculum and the readership would virtually die.
Tolkien has been doing quite nicely for over half a century without
official adoption into the critical canon. It is possible for those
of us whose brains still remain flexible to move from Homer to the
Kalevala, Joyce to Spenser, Tolkien to Beowulf, the Edda to
Mandelshtam, "Genji Monogatari" to Cervantes, Chaucer to "Der Mann
ohne Eigenschaften" and draw the joys each has to offer without the
need of an hydraulic aesthetics that depresses some to elevate others.
The charge of "faux medievalism" is particularly fatuous. Tolkien was
creating a myth based on his unrivalled knowledge of Old and Medieval
English along with heavy borrowings from Old Norse and Finnish. Those
who know these languages can at least appreciate his adaptive
artistry. It is well known of course that he was primarily interested
in the linguistic domain of Middle Earth and only rather reluctantly
decided he would have to write his narrative in English if anyone was
to read it. While I enjoy the languages and scripts he invented, I am
very glad he decided on English.
Much as I love Spenser this side idolatry, I am not at all certain
that the approved "historicist, theoretical, and cultural studies"
that have been applied to him are productive of a deep, engaged and
independent appreciation. Formal academic study of the English
literary tradition from Chaucer to modernism may have done far more
damage than good to students by presenting that heritage as a
dangerous mountain only to be negotiated with the help of experienced
alpine guides. They may go up once under the careful eye of the
guides, but unless they become guides themselves, will probably never
try the ascent again. The potential view from the top just doesn't
look worth the expenditure of effort.
By contrast, those who love Tolkien often learn his languages and go
on to study some of the real ones that were formative in his myth of
Middle Earth. I doubt very many students force-fed Spenser will
voluntarily return to Chaucer, let alone Old English. The very
steepness of the mountain, magnified by all the academic paraphernalia
students must buy to climb it, has led them quite sensibly to opt for
the hundred years from the Victorian period to modernism, with
concentration on the novel rather than poetry.
-------------------------------------------------------
Steven J. Willett
Shizuoka University of Art and Culture
1794-1 Noguchi-cho, Shizuoka Prefecture
Hamamatsu City, Japan 430-8533
Japan email: [log in to unmask]
US email: [log in to unmask]
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