“There is a ton of Tolkien writing out there, but Kocher’s, written way back in 1972, will stay on my shelf.”

Tolkien and the Critics (1968)

Isaacs and Zimbardo assembled this earlier criticism of Lord of the Rings in 1968, essays gathered from 1955 - 1966, including explorations by C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. For this reason alone, the historically first looks at Tolkien are worthwhile reading: as an historical moment in what would soon become a cultural phenomenon.

That said, however, don’t go looking for high insights or close examinations of the trilogy. Instead, each critic approaches his or her topic with broader strokes, offering “safer” claims that to many of today’s readers and fans will feel completely unenlightening. Patricia Meyer Spacks spends too many pages explaining how the story is a quest for power with the Ring at its center (she goes on to say that the the reading is weak in its literary merit). W. H. Auden tells us that the trilogy has a large Quest pattern similar to many myths.

No, I was entertained by these quaint takes on the Master of Middle Earth, reading fairly quickly through the most obvious of passages. More, though, I was satisfied to have visited an era where criticism still struggled to make sense of a work fairly new to literature, a fantasy which echoes deeply.

Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings (1969)

Carter–famous for his own series of sword-&-sorcery works largely steps away from his own ego-driven talks to offer an historical overview of sources from ancient to modern which largely fed the Tolkien universe. (And that slam about his ego is hardly mine alone; he does in fact, close the book with a few sentences about how his own upcoming works–never completed–will echo Tolkien.)

The only real critique I have of this thin book is that about 1/3 of it is relatively useless. He spends four fairly lengthy chapters simply summarizing the four main books for us; does he presume that some of his audience are interested in Tolkien without having read a thing about him? I skimmed these, finding nothing original there.

What is valuable, though, is that historical tracing. While the real Tolkien nerd may find interest in the origins of names like Gandalf and Thorin, places like Numenor or Mirkwood, broken swords and eternal trees–all of this requiring no small amount of digging in pre-internet 1969–what I found most interesting is the tracing of the historical hero and fantasy epic across ages and regions. This makes itself for a great reading/source list for those seeking early incarnations of literary imagination. More, Carter is not afraid to share which are most valuable to today’s readers and which may be skipped over for their tedium or poor translation.

So while Tolkien’s work stands as a pillar dividing fantasy into Before and After JRR in the 20th century, it hardly exists in isolation. Linguist and scholar Tolkien intentionally worked to modernize regional mythology (much as Wagner did), but more, Tolkien inherited a centuries-old tradition or infrastructure of epic works which, appropriately, his Lord of the Rings sits atop. Everything which follows (A.JRR) are efforts to recapture his genius or to make their own space alongside.

The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power (1992)

When I understood Chance to be a lifelong writer and teacher on Tolkien and one who based her studies on the works of Michel Foucault, I admit I slathered at the mouth a bit. But who knew how quickly that excitement might run dry?

“Dry” is the first word I might offer to describe Chance’s approach. For the better part of this work (which feels much longer than it is), she ploddingly assembles her points around the role of “power” in Middle-Earth. She rightly places it mostly in the realms of language and difference, of epistemologyAny question of philosophy which addresses what we can know ... More and politics–and I would not therefore oppose her approach or even most conclusions–but the results of her inquiry largely fall into territories obvious to lay-readers without the Foucault background: Bombadil’s joyous language to banish the lifeless barrow wights, the illusory power of “sight” with the One Ring, etc. Chance has the language, but too often her jargon only obscures what must be otherwise apparent.

For me, what truly bothered me about her scholarship was the limited reading of power as she approaches LotR: for Foucault there is an ever-dynamic flow of power which itself is not inherently destructive. We cannot/must not fool ourselves to naming a condition as static but recognize that it is the arresting or creative energy to power which alters conditions, which moves us to change inside its workings. For Chance, little is made of this and we are left to see particular characters and incidents as ever-wicked or heroic. What of Bilbo across the epic? What of the biography of Galadriel? Yes, duplicity is a destructive strategy, but does Gandalf never use it?

Certainly much might have been made from Chance’s approach; but she treated her analysis as yeoman’s work rather than an opening for usefulness.

Understanding Tolkien (1968)

A lot wrong with a book like this, as many reviewers discuss. Ready is pompous, self-assured, factually wrong, in need of an editor (is an introduction or conclusion requisite?), and so overarching in his praise of Tolkien and dismissal of contemporaries and predecessors that one wonders on what his arguments are based. Has he read Tolkien? It’s anyone’s guess.

Still. . . . Still, we might find in Ready’s rhetoric the traditional British erudite littérateur, waxing in the parlor one evening, about the power of this work of fantasy. In such a venue, he hardly need do more than expound, has few demands accept to mesmerize through words. And he does. This is not the plain-spoken backgrounder on Tolkien of Carter, Kocher, or Chance, but one who presumes a certain aesthetic sensibility about our beloved fantasy epic.

Both reveling and highly speculative late in his career, yes, Ready is off-putting to Tolkien fans who seek to learn author or trilogy facts. I’m largely with them. On the other hand, a sometimes poetic and broadening take on a subject that is too often pedantic trivia skirmishes.

Master of Middle-Earth (1972)

Probably the best of several books of LotR criticism I have read: Kocher is approachable, admiring of Tolkien, and expansively thoughtful about the larger-scale themes the master of linguistics and storytelling as undertaken.

Always cementing his observations with structure, example, and pattern directly from the texts, Kocher demonstrate and moral and cosmic order to Tolkien’s universe, reflecting on the roles of its denizens through their own parturition, fates, and philosophies. Is the storyline pre-ordained? Is chance involved or does a “divine” hand guide? What roles for fealty and friendship? What for mercy and environment? How, exactly, do we understand evil in a universe without religion?

These are just a few of the questions Kocher addresses as he examines each of the realms races, the complexity of Aragorn (a terrific chapter), and the value or lack thereof in presuming simple allegory from Tolkien’s lifework. At the work’s close, Kocher looks closely at seven other writings of Tolkien to reveal their connections to the central LotR, as well.

There is a ton of Tolkien writing out there, but Kocher’s, written way back in 1972, will stay on my shelf.