Understanding The Lord Of The Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism – The Definitive Collection: Fifty Years of Essays on Middle-earth

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

Understanding The Lord of the The Best of Tolkien Criticism is the definitive collection of essays on Tolkien's masterpiece. The essays span fifty years of critical reaction, from the first publication of The Fellowship of the Ring through the release of Peter Jackson's film trilogy, which inspired a new generation of readers to discover the classic work and prior generations to rediscover its power and beauty.
Fans and scholars alike will appreciate these important, insightful, and timely pieces. Fourteen of the fifteen have been previously published but are gathered here for the first time. The final essay in the volume, "The Road Back to Middle-earth" by Tom Shippey, was commissioned especially for this collection. Shippey examines how Peter Jackson translated the text into film drama, shaping the story to fit the understanding of a modern audience without compromising its deep philosophical core.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Essays, Literature, Reference, Books About Books, Criticism

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 12, 2004

Reviews

[Francisco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The editors of this book truly found the best, most insightful essays on Tolkien's work. Why read someone else's insights on a mind like Tolkien's unless they too were of the same mettle - and by this I mean that they possess an affinity, intellectual, imaginative, moral and spiritual to the work they seek to illuminate. And they do, the wonderful minds who ponder with heart and scholarship over Tolkien's work are like taking a walk in a Middle Earth forest with an expert bird watcher, who hears and sees and points to birds only his expertise and the years of calm listening and study has allowed him to detect. What is so wonderful about these essays is the depth of understanding that they add to the experience of immersing yourself in Tolkien's world. If you are going to jump in and live there for a while why not use all your faculties including your mind? Do you think that understanding how Frodo's journey is similar and different to the mythic journey of the hero throughout ages is going to diminish your love for him? Do you think Frodo and Sam and Aragorn are going to cease to give you strength and courage in your own battles with the internal and external Sauron's that besiege you simply because you understand them better? Here is what happens when you read good books of criticism, books that seek to enhance your understanding and your pleasure and not diminish the work you love so much: you are able to place Tolkien side by side with the great and the lesser known authors who through all ages, as T.S. Eliot says, have "fought to recover what has been lost and found again and lost again and again and now, under conditions that seem unpropitious." I'm reading again what thoughtful minds say about Tolkien's work because I want to understand what makes his work so great and how he does it. Surely it is his unmatched ability to create a new world. But there is so much more to Tolkien than his imagination. So many works of fantasy are created and published these days with so many imaginative new worlds with so much detail and these books are so widely read. And yet, it saddens me to see that they do not go as far and as deep as they could go. What is missing from them that is present in Tolkien's work? If you read a book like this you will see that connection to the universal, to truth, that so many of our modern fantasies do not have. If you are a young person (or even not so young) about to put your dragons and your magical heroes to paper, read this book first and then read The Lord of the Rings. Why not try to make your work live forever?

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays brings together positive criticism of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, diving deep into the literary modes and philosophic views that make his work so lasting and impactful. Exploring the meaning behind the myth, we learn about good and evil and Tolkien's deep faith in Christ. Analyzing his literary style, we learn about fairy tales, the universal truth behind every myth, and Tolkien's ideas of sub-creation. We get to consider the history of the hero quest going all the way back to ancient times and how that affects our ideas of hero worship today, and how Tolkien used different types of heroes in Lord of the Rings.

This book is now full of little sticky tabs where I bookmarked especially interesting places and little pencil marks where I marked insights that particularly captured my imagination. After reading this book, I will look at Aragorn, Gandalf, Frodo, and Sam in a completely new light.

However, I did not agree with everything in every essay. Some of the writers seemed to me to be stretching a little bit to make some certain point and I just didn't see the connection at all. One essay went on and on about Jungian archetypes that I didn't agree with at all.
Another essay had a part about how Pippin represents all young people who mischievously rebel against their elders. So far so good. But then they said that Pippin taking the Palantir was because Gandalf was just too scared to use the Palantir. "And the moral of this seems to be that the young, ... sometimes have their own answers for what their elders fear." (pg. 79, Marion Zimmer Bradley) I did not accept their interpretation, but everyone is entitled to their own perspective.

However the same essay had a wonderful insight into Eowyn's crush on Aragorn, saying that she didn't really ever love Aragorn, she wanted to BE him. She looked up to him as a captain and a warrior because she wants to identify with who he is. She wants to be a hero and so she has a case of hero-worship. After she has achieved her own brave deeds on the battlefield and proven her courage, her previous feelings dissolve because she has become the person she wanted to be, and is ready to embrace another new aspect of her womanhood. I really love that insight!

I especially enjoyed the essays exploring the concept of the hero and the hero's quest. It was so interesting to see how ancient legends, and in particular Beowulf, shaped Tolkien's fantasy. One essay contrasts the different quests of Aragorn and Frodo. Aragorn goes on a quest to gain a kingdom and a princess, but Frodo goes on a quest to lose the Ring. Fairy tales are full of weak third sons who are humble and they go on adventures to win the kingdom and marry the princess. And Northern legends like Beowulf are full of strong warriors, but they tragically die in darkness in the end. Frodo and Aragorn have swapped places in their destinies. It's the weak and humble hero (Frodo) who must tragically die, like King Arthur sailing across the sea to have his wounds healed. And it's the brave strong warrior (Aragorn) who wins the princess and the kingdom and legacy of happy generations. I love that Tolkien incorporated these literary tropes, but flipped them upside down.

I also really loved how many of the essays talked about Tolkien's Christian worldview being reflected in Lord of the Rings. One talks about how Christianity teaches that God is always there to help us and yet we are expected to put in the effort ourselves to get through life, just as the powerful Valar are involved in the affairs of Middle Earth, but Frodo and Sam must make the journey to Mount Doom themselves. "The idea of free will intimately involved with fate..." (pg. 64, Patricia Myer Spacks) Our individual choices contribute to a larger fate that is destined by a higher power.

The essays on literary style were especially good, because it analyzed how fairy stories are meant to reveal to us truths in the real world. Fairy stories offer an escape from the real world, only to point us back to the real world with a fresh perspective where ordinary things take on a new significance. "It is not a refusal to face reality; it is a time needed to regroup one's forces for the next day's battle." (pg. 101, R.J. Reilly) We come away from Tolkien's fantasy inspired with the courage to face our own daily battles in life.

Jane Chance's essay had some very interesting ideas about how Gollum represents the monster without and Frodo is battling the monster within. Even Shelob and Saruman represent the intellectual monster and the sensual monster. And Denethor and King Theoden represent different Germanic lords of legend, one fighting for family and the other for selfish power. It was very interesting to examine these parallels and contrasts.

Another cool essay was the one from Tom Shippey about how Peter's Jackson's movie trilogy captured the most essential messages of Lord of the Rings and translated them to the screen. Although many things were changed, left out or added to the movies, the spirit of Tolkien's story was kept intact.

This is such a great collection of essays that explore a lot of different insights and ideas into Tolkien's work!

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book I was reading for class, this was surprisingly fun. Not just readable, but actively enjoyable. Okay, granted, I have a deep interest in Tolkien and what he was up to in the first place, and might've read this outside of class, but still.

It's a good collection of essays, covering quite a bit of ground -- even touching on the film adaptation. It's not full of literary terms or anything: it's an easy read. Worth picking up if you want to dissect Tolkien's work a bit.

[l · Rating 3 out of 5]

CS Lewis’ piece was very sweet: “If you are tired of the real landscape, look at it in a mirror. By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves. This book applies the treatment not only to bread or apple but to good and evil, to our endless perils, our anguish and our joys. By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly.”

Flieger’s Frodo and Aragorn is good. Jane Chance makes some interesting points. I don’t think shippey’s palantir theory is correct.

[Mitchell Kooh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title is misleading: this is nowhere close to the best of Tolkien criticism. The essays selected seem to reflect the editor's idiosyncratic reading of Tolkien rather than a collection of the best Tolkien criticism from the era.

[Nova Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good collection of essays where my fellow Tolkien nerds get to hyper analyze things

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2289084.html[return][return]A very interesting collection of essays about Tolkien, of which the two standout pieces are "Men, Halflings, and Hero Worship" by Marion Zimmer Bradley, about love and heroism and how they apply to LotR, and "The Road Back to Middle-earth" by Tom Shippey, unlike the others specially commissioned for this volume, describing in detail the differences between the three Peter Jackson films and the books, and analysing why those choices were made. The pieces by C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden, and Patrick Grants reflection on Tolkien and Jung, are pretty good too. Some of the others have been slightly overtaken by events, specifically by the publication of The Silmarillion and the History of Middle Earth series. But it's well worth getting hold of for Bradley, Shippey, Lewis, Auden and Grant.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I deeply enjoyed this. It was like sitting down with a group of very smart professors and students to pick apart the book I most love to analyze. This is the third in a series of LoTR lit crit edited by Isaacs and Zimbardo. The introduction calls it a "greatest hits" of sorts, and the essays certainly felt like the cream of the crop. Nice variety of perspectives, approaches, and styles. I only wish it were easier to get my hands on books like this - they're hard to find when you're not working or studying at a college.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

My goal in reading this book is to understand a broader view of Tolkien’s writings. The authors have a deeper comprehension than I do. Their field, at least in part, is studying Tolkien.

My take-aways from this book:
1. The book includes responses to the negative criticism on Tolkien’s Middle-earth world. For example, the first chapter by Neil D. Isaacs.
2. The group of contributors are an eclectic group. Some examples: W. H. Auden was a poet. C. S. Lewis was a fantasy and nonfiction author. He taught English literature at Oxford. Lewis also knew Tolkien as a friend. Rose A. Zimbardo taught English literature at several universities. Tom Shippey is considered a leading scholar on Tolkien.
3. One of my favorite chapters is written by Edmund Fuller. He explains important key words in Tolkien stories. The word Fairy is altogether different than the cutesy definition that’s usually attributed. Faerie “means enchantment.” Page 17. Elven people, Half-elven people, wizards, evil creatures, and hobbits are explained. The conflicts in the stories are examined. Fuller touches on Christian themes. Some readers have dismissed these themes. He states, “Grace is at work abundantly in the story.” Fuller examines the Christian approach from both sides. I appreciate this.
4. Rose A. Zimbardo is astute at discerning the creatures of Middle-earth.
5. I love Verlyn Flieger’s analysis of Frodo and Aragorn.
6. The last essay is by Tom Shippey. This chapter is on recreating the stories to film.

I am a big Tolkien fan. It’s fun to read Tolkien stories and fun to read what other people think about Tolkien stories.

[John Fredrickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The middling rating is because these are essays from various writers, and several of the essays felt repetitive to what others had written, and some were downright confusing.

There were two essays that struck me as exceptional. One was by Verlyn Flieger - every other paragraph hit me with something I had never considered, and which felt true. The other was by Tom Shippey - I didn't like this one as much as the Flieger essay, but it was still very good.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these essays were over my head because of my lack of knowledge of philosophy and psychology. But I enjoyed those that focused more on the comparisons to ancient mythology. I particularly liked Koher's "Middle-earth: An imaginary World" which showed how Tolkiien makes Middle Earth more believable as a real place, and Shippey's comparison of the books to Jackson's movie trilogy.

[Liz Busby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skimmed through this as background for my thesis. I would like to get back to this eventually and give these essays the attention they deserve. It was certainly interesting to see the early reactions to Tolkien's creation of a genre and the almost immediate defensiveness that happened against critical scorn.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Lit Crit muscles have atrophied too much since college to comment on the quality of the essays in this collection. I can only say that, as a lover of The Lord of the Rings beyond just about any other work of art ever produced, it was a delightful experience to read multiple learned explanations of what makes the thing I love great.

[Anna Schubert · Rating 3 out of 5]

C.S. Lewis' and Marion Zimmer Bradley's essays were particularly insightful. Some of the later essays felt like they were dragging on a bit, or felt like the authors had failed to read the text as closely as they might.

[Kathryn Looney · Rating 3 out of 5]

was difficult to get through, and many of the essays felt repetitive. however, I thoroughly enjoyed Verlyn Flieger's "Frodo and Aragorn: The Concept of the Hero" as it was extremely well-written and insightful.

[Mel Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some real gems in this volume! Jane Chance on Tolkien's Epic is superb, and so is Tom Shippey's essay on Jackson's movies. The editing is a bit eccentric in places.

[G. Salter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of essays about the philosophy, theology and other elements in Lord of the Rings.

[Maria Copeland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lewis's essay was the best. =))))

[Phil McGuinness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good, some a bit too intense for my liking, referencing other criticisms that I wasn't familiar with. Definitely added some cool layers to think about next time I read the books though.

[Gregg Koskela · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any collection of essays, hit and miss. But helpful stuff. Appreciated the essays by women. Shippey’s analysis of the movies helpful.

[Mitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a mixed bag.

[Gogor Seta Dewa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of Tolkien essays.

[robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you love something, it is a self-indulgent treat to listen to other people talk about how much they love it too. When that love takes the form of scholarly essays, the self-indulgence is tempered by duty; I didn't enjoy ALL the essays in this book, some of them I had to plow through, but that's a lack of learning on my part.

Regardless. When people much smarter than oneself apply their scholarship to WHY something is great, good, entertaining, and far more intelligently crafted than obvious at first glance, one feels that much smarter. Because obviously there are good reasons behind the unreasoning love for LotR that exists in one's bosom and has existed, since age 10 or so. And here they are.

The biggest treat for me was WH Auden's essay. Not only because someone of his caliber had written a serious piece about Tolkien, but because it's from the time period before the trilogy became the juggernaut that it is today. It's like reading write-ups of the Beatles when they were still playing Hamburg; with the benefit of hindsight, it's obvious that serious critical attention was merited, but to have taken the trouble at the time argues impressive farsightedness.

And of course, at the time, fantasy wasn't a "thing." it was possible to be a serious writer who happened to, oh yes, write a fantasy book or a ghost book in the middle of the other sorts of things they'd written, and not be immediately trivialized. So, in reading and writing about LotR AS IF IT MATTERED, Auden would not have immediately been infected with leprosy so far as the other serious writers were concerned.

So. There's Auden. A piece by CS Lewis, who surely if ANYone has the "right" to critique Tolkien. Probably my favorite piece, Verlyn Flieger's essay on the concept of the hero.

The most valuable thing about this book for me, a non-scholar, is that the essayists used Tolkien's other works, like his essays on fairy tales and on Beowulf, or his studies in Germanic and Norse tales, to analyze the story structure of LotR. Like, it's obvious that Aragorn and Frodo are the spearheads of the story, and that Aragorn is the classical hero. It never occurred to me that Frodo is ALSO the hero; I read these books as a child, and as a child, I read Frodo as myself, and that made him far too familiar and small to be THE hero. He was just the guy who struggled through Mordor with nothing waiting for him but a lonely death, while everyone else was reaping glory and horror on the battlefield.

The irony being that his was the only story that really mattered, despite it being so FRIGGING hard to read at points.

So he was obviously a hero, duh. Flieger's essay, though, explains that he is the fairytale hero, as compared to Aragorn's mythic hero, and goes on to show that Tolkien then gave each of his heroes the other's ending: Aragorn gets the princess and the fairytale ending, Frodo gets sacrifice and disillusionment, the mythic ending.

And I KNOW that, I knew there was a reason why the ending always resonates so, why it HURTS that Frodo loses everything, why it feels so unsettling to return to the Shire to find it changed, when we've just left the happy ending in Gondor. But I could never articulate WHY it feels so jarring, despite feeling so right. Frodo got the ending that was much larger than he was, much larger than his story should have been, but it works, the story can carry it, because those larger-than life, those mythic characters are coexisting with him.

Seriously, it's like wow, to understand HOW the ending works, having always known that it DID work.

Even in the essays that I had trouble with, there was always something that made me stop and reread, and the very best ones were amazing.

Blah blah blah. Don't listen to me blather, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I'm just a fan who loves the original books and gets all fangirl over intelligent insights. The essays in this book, by smart people, justify that unabashed and increasingly well-informed love.

[Skedatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazingly enough, my library system had a copy of this book. I know. Shocked me.

Back in college, I had a literature professor that personified the argument that fantasy and science fiction are somehow a lesser kind of writing. I was glad to see that not all agree with her view and some had gone so far as to write literary criticism.

While all of these essays had merit, my favorites are by C.S. Lewis (The Dethronement of Power), Rose A. Zimbardo (Moral Vision in the Lord of the Rings), and Marion Zimmer Bradley (Men, Halflings, and Hero Worship).

One of my favorite passages is from C. S. Lewis: "The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by "the veil of familiarity."" (14)

Bradley's essay is clear, to the point and supports with passages from the story. And I agree with it all.

Long and short, if you are not afraid of more thinking, read this book.

[Martha☀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a lover of all things Hobbit, I didn't hesitate when I saw this title in the library. Sadly it did not live up to my expectations. It is a collection of essays by various intellectuals who look at the Lord of the Rings through their focussed lenses of literary criticism. Even though I consider myself well-educated and well-read, I felt that the discussions were taking place over my head. I easily lost interest and found some of the observations to be patronizing, making me feel that I was unworthy of such reading since I didn't see the connections to Beowulf et al. Personally, I believe that Tolkien (and most other authors) sought to have readers who would find joy in the intricate tale he wrote. These authors need to understand that literature can be enjoyed by all on many different levels.

[Richard Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been ~ ~ years since reading "The Lord of the Rings," I was unsure how much I would recall. Amazingly, quite a bit. The fifteen essays comprised of such notables as W. H. Auden and Marion Zimmer Bradley made it easy. Three main concepts presented were The Quest, the epic, and the hero. Auden itemized the six essential elements of a Quest, Bradley discusses the hero, and Jane Chance covers the epic. Personally, my favorite character was Sam due to the important roles he played. Bradley must concur as she writes a wonderful encomium for him (pgs. 87 - 92). Jane Chance writes "... Sam serves Frodo through the moral character that reveals him to be... the most heroic." I would highly recommend this for anyone having read the trilogy.

[ika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this complication – Zimbardo and Isaacs did a nice job selecting one of the most insightful essays on Tolkien’s fiction, from the very moment it was published. I loved C.S. Lewis’ short, but very throughout analysis of the structural pattern – he really did lay the foundations there. It’s hard to miss Auden’s famous essay on the nature of good and evil, and the role of the quest. Thanks to people like that, Tolkien’s fiction was treated better. The foundations of defense of the author's work is right here, in this book – I do recommend it to anyone who wants to get to know The Lord of the Rings from a different perspective.

[Gwendolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a collection of essays about The Lord of The Rings. My favorite, written by Marion Zimmer Bradley, was about the various forms of love. Another interesting one compared the Peter Jackson movie adaptation to the written original.

[Shellie Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invaluable insight for Tolkien scholars, this collection of essays covers a wide variety of Tolkien-related topics. I really enjoyed this piece of reference material. Anything else I can get my hands on to talk about Tolkien and I'm a happy camper!

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was absolutely awesome.