Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review, Volume II 2005 [Hardcover]

Douglas A. Anderson (Author, Editor), Michael D. C. Drout (Editor), Verlyn Flieger (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2005

Tolkien Studies is an annual journal of scholarship on J.R.R. Tolkien and his works. Since the publication of The Hobbit in 1937, the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien have been admired throughout the world. With the publication in the 1950s of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's fantasy writing began to attract academic attention in both the classroom and the world of scholarship. Most recently, Peter Jackson's three-part movie adaptation has added film-study scholars to those fascinated by Tolkien's work. Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review is the first scholarly journal published by an academic press for the purpose of presenting and reviewing the growing body of critical commentary and scholarship about Tolkien's writings. The founding editors--Douglas A. Anderson, Michael D. C. Drout, and Verlyn Flieger-- and the members of the editorial board--David Bratman, Carl F. Hostetter, Tom Shippey, Richard C. West, and Marjorie Burns--are all distinguished Tolkien scholars.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: West Virginia University Press (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933202033
• ISBN-13: 978-1933202037
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,433,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FULLY DIMENSIONAL, March 25, 2006

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This review is from: Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review, Volume II 2005 (Hardcover)

It's easy to feel a bit disturbed about the surface features of this most recent popularization of Tolkien's work. Consider this month's launch of "Lord of the Rings, the Musical" (I am not making this up) and the tendency brought on by Jackson's film version of the same to set the story as -- mostly -- a series of all-out battles expertly supported by the merchandising of action figures, fight-oriented video games and the rest and there's plenty of reasons to think that a large number of people who claim they love Tolkien's work might actually have very little familiarity with it. These tendencies to trade language, ideas and emotion for Action, to over-simplify and dumb down the nature of this collection of works -- or any works -- which offer meaning on a saturated scale, is not unusual in pop culture. But it remains deeply unfortunate. After all, set aside the basics and the world we actually inhabit is pretty much of our invention, too. Perhaps it would be better to fill it with a few ideas more profound than making vast sums of cash off of molded plastic.

Yet because of their intricacy and the striving towards a representation of a world made complete with history, ideas, events, beings and ways of being, thinking about Tolkien's works can be as rewarding an experience as the pleasure of reading the works themselves. With the breadth of concepts set forth in this book and Volume I, those rewards only multiply.

The essays in this and the first volume tend to avoid the tactical -- calendars, phases of the moon, etc. -- and go instead after the inferences, the references and the meanings. Volume II includes 12 essays and comprehensive notes. Unlike the uniformly excellent critical works of Shippey, Flieger and others, these volumes contain multiple views across diverse topics (in this case Modernism; World Creation and Colonization; the Medieval myth of the Restoration of the Roman Empire and many others) which expose the reader to a profoundly rich array of paths within and around the works. The editorial board has done a great job: the writing is lively and uniformly accessible, laden with ideas that enhance comprehension of the works while, as part of a seemingly endless chain, leading to other readings as well.

As time carries us further and further from the origins of Tolkien's works, it is writing and thinking such as this that will help slow the rise of pure pop levels of comprehension, and prevent Tolkien's world from shrinking down to three, two, or even one dimension.