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Articles for Spring 2004 The Forgotten Chapters of The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien's Challenge to the Conventional Quest By Thomas Bowler
Dante's Love: Earthly or Extraordinary? By David Brensinger
Snapshots From the Ether: E-mail Narratives in Contemporary Literature By Jeremy Cooke
Food as a Marker of Cultural Duality in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies By Elizabeth Jin
Dealing With A S-T-A-U-N-C-H Character: Locating Edie Beale's Cultural Significance By Christina Jordan
"Otherness" in Charlotte Mew's Poetry By Natalie Kressen
Constructed Love: Mis-fulfilled Expectations in Troilus and Criseyde By Michael Opest
By Michael Ritchey
Saving Privatization: Speilberg and the Neoliberal War Film By Josh Smicker |
The
Forgotten Chapters of The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien's Challenge
to the Conventional Quest
By Thomas Bowler [ Contents | Abstract | I | II | III | IV | V | Notes | Works Cited ] Conclusion Critics often focus on peripheral
aspects of The Lord of the Rings—the language therein and the
development of the text, for example—perhaps because they despair of
developing compelling arguments from a text that can seem so straightforward.
I do not dispute the existence of this textual difficulty, for Tolkien's
literature is notoriously difficult to analyze, but I contend that it
does not arise solely from the text itself, but from critics' expectations
of the text as well. Regarding The Lord of the Rings as a formulaic
work of fantasy does not detract from the reader's enjoyment of the text,
but it does limit the critical possibilities that the text holds. The
chapters that take place after the destruction of the Ring deviate most
sharply from familiar fantasy patterns, and in doing so, they reveal new
significance to the text, which has eluded scholarly inquiry. I hopefully
demonstrate that, although the narrative of the quest itself has great
intrinsic literary and entertainment value, it also has a higher function
than merely conveying adventure: it is the vehicle that enables Tolkien,
throughout the final chapters of The Lord of the Rings, to explore
the conflict's impact on the individual identity that has been cast into
its midst. These chapters reveal the text's greater literary significance
by demonstrating that a good work of fantasy has greater potential that
simply describing the action within a struggle between good and evil. [ Notes >> ] [ Contents | Abstract | I | II | III | IV | V | Notes | Works Cited ] |
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