Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism [Hardcover]

Neil D Isaacs (Editor), Rose A Zimbardo (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 24, 2004

When first published, The Lord of the Rings stood far from the mainstream: no one had seen anything like it for decades. Tolkien's almost stridently antimodern tale needed valiant defenders, vocal admirers who understood its sources and relished its monumental scale. While such champions of modernism as Edmund Wilson mocked Tolkien's archaic structure and language, W. H. Auden -- a great modernist poet in his own right -- rose to his defense with a spirited essay on the true nature of the Hero Quest. Edmund Fuller's essay collected here discusses the nature of the fairy tale, returning to the roots of the term to remove the treacle of Disney and restore the value of realistic enchantment. Tolkien's friend C. S. Lewis takes up the question of why, if you have a serious comment to make about real life, you would drape it in a never-never land of your own. He shrewdly argues that it is because real life does have mythic and heroic qualities -- in abundance.
This collection also includes, among others, essays by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Verlyn Flieger, Paul Kocher, Jane Chance, and each of the editors, as well as a brand-new essay by Tom Shippey that shows us how to process all this vast learning, adding to it the many delights of the film versions of Tolkien's epic masterpiece, so we can relish his achievement all the more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Fans will find much in these essays to enjoy and ponder.
Library Journal

About the Author

Neil D. Isaacs, Professor Emeritus of English language and literature at the University of Maryland, lives in Colesville, Maryland.

Rose A. Zimbardo, Distringuished Teaching Professor Emeritus of English at Stony Brook University, has been a noted Restoration scholar for more than forty years. She lives in San Francisco. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 294 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 1st edition (May 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061842251X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618422517
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #921,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good reprint, November 22, 2004

By 

J. Davenport "author of *Will as Commmitment ... (Maplewood, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism (Hardcover)

This book reprints several of the best essays from the editors' 1968 collection *Tolkien and the Critics,* combining them with several new essays by some of the best Tolkien scholars writing today. Together, they make a strong case for the strength of Tolkien's masterpiece on solid literary grounds (rebutting the main early critiques). It is very useful for my Philosophy and Fantasy course, and the papers are all accessible and interesting for the general reader. I can strongly recommend this book to all fans and literary critics alike.

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, comprehensive, and insightful, September 30, 2005

By 

C. B Collins Jr. (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism (Hardcover)

This is an excellent collection of essays on various aspects and interpretations of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.

I would first like to highlight some of the high points of specific essays and then highlight some of the overarching conceptualization of Tolkein's themes.

C.S. Lewis offers an excellent essay on the Dethronement of Power which explains in as clear a manner as I have ever read, the Christian philosophical underpinning and explanation as to the corrupting nature of power. Why does power corrupt? Lewis asserts that all earthly power is illusion and frail in comparison to the source of all true power, which he sees as God. Thus, when given access to this force, even when intentions are good, the power corrupts because it is not in the hands of its rightful owner, God in Heaven. Whether one believes or does not believe this concept, it does correspond with Tolkein's world view expressed in the Lord of the Rings.

W. H. Auden's essay on the Quest Hero resonates with the works of Joseph Campbell especially when he analyzes the concept of the heroic friendship, using Frodo and Sam as the example. Auden links the heroic quest to the quest of all human beings for transcendence. He sees human nature as a nature continually in quest of itself, 'obliged at every moment to transcend what it was a moment before'.

Two essays, written separetely by Rose Zimbardo and Patricia Meyer Spacks deal with the relationship between moral vision, meaning in existence, and the embedded existence in a moral universe. A moral universe is one that reveals God's signature and unveils the infinite good news that GOd plays an active role in the universe and the conditions of men. Thus a pre-Christian universe in Tolkein's vision, would be one in which God plays a major role upon the universal stage, much like the conception of the Universe established in the Old Testament as conceptualized by religious Jews. This world, expressed by St. Augustus, is one in which nothing is created evil, in fact evil is good that has been perverted. This world view also then brings up the issue of individual reponsibility which is thus seen not only as to one's own individual integrity but is a cosmic integrity. This responsibility is justified by the existence of some vast unnamed power for good.

Marion Bradley writes a compelling essay on the relationships embedded in the text, focusing on Merry and Pippin; Eowyn and Arwen; and ending with a superb analysis of the friendship between Frodo and Sam.

Verlyn Fleiger writes of the vast differences in heroic behavior between Aragorn and Frodo. Read this essay after reading the Auden essay since they deal with similar themes.

Patrick Grant does a superb job of interpreting Lord of the Rings from a Jungian perspective, acknowleding that the work can not be totally rendered or reduced into Jungian terms and concepts. Grant demonstrated both mastery of Jung and Tolkein and I felt Grant actually had enough concepts packed into one essay that he could have written a book. I especially liked the point that Frodo was on an inner quest of individuation and that certain characters were excellent examples of Jungian archtypes, such as Gollum as the Shadow; Galdriel as the Anima; Gandlaf as the Wise Old Man; Aragorn as the Heroic King; and Shelob as the dark Anima. Grant however also integrates Milton into the analysis and points out the theme of the Christian epic in which the true hero is on a spiritual quest, growing in faith and hope which is based on charity. Grant also points out the realm of fairie is the realm of dream and myth where interior journeys through the psyche occur, stabilized by archetypal structures. Jung used the term 'enantidromia' to mean that evil leads to good. Grant points out that this concept resonates in Tolkein's work. Jung saw man's quest as individuation, the realization of the whole man. Jung also realized that great darkness could arise from the psyche and that numinous, impressive, dangerous archetypes rise from the unconscious. Thus archtypical characters of good have a corresponding archetypal character of darkness; an example being the fellowship of the ring balanced by the Ringwraiths; or Gandalf by Saruman.

Tom Shippey is the final essay with a wonderful defense of the film trilogy with which I agree 100%.

Some themes flowed throughout the essays. These included the quest of the hero, the moral universe, and linking Lord of the Rings to historic facts and forces. Whereas all the authors related that Tolkein hated allegory, there were certainly linkages bwteeen Mordor and the blight of the industrial revolution as well as Tolkein's experiences in World War I and the gloom of Nazism and Communism.

Several essayist quoted the wonderful timeless lines when Frodo says: I wish it need not have happened in my time, to which Gandalf says "So do I...and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide."

Very well written and clear, these essays offered comprehensive interpretations of Tolkein's great work.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking views on Lord of the Rings, March 6, 2011

By 

Colin Platt (St. Marys, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism (Hardcover)

I do not normally extend my reading of Tolkien criticism beyond that of Tom Shippey or Verlyn Flieger having come across a couple of rather woeful efforts at reviewing the Lord of the Rings. However, both these authors have contributed essays to this book, and I must say that all the essays here are fascinating and thought provoking. Even Patrick Grant's exploration via Jungian psychology (something I most certainly wouldn't normally be interested in) is quite fascinating. Basically, if you like the various works that Tom Shippey has put out on Tolkien or the Lord of the Rings, I think that you will find this book compelling reading.