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The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays

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3.9/5
AbeBooks

Language
  
English

ISBN
  
978-0261102637

Dewey Decimal
  
820/.9 19

Country
  
United Kingdom

Genres
  
Literature, Essay

3.9/5
Goodreads

Editor
  
Christopher Tolkien

Publication date
  
1983

OCLC
  
9945117

Originally published
  
1983

Preceded by
  
Finn and Hengest

The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays t0gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcSQzr2e6ihEqvHkt

Authors
  
J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien

Publishers
  
Allen & Unwin, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Similar
  
J R R Tolkien books, Essays, Other books

The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's scholarly linguistic essays edited by his son Christopher and published posthumously in 1983.

Contents

All of them were initially delivered as lectures to academics, with the exception of "On Translating Beowulf", which Christopher Tolkien notes in his foreword is not addressed to an academic audience.

Essays

The essays are:

  • "Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics" looks at the critics' understanding of Beowulf, and proposes instead a fresh take on the poem.
  • "On Translating Beowulf" looks at the difficulties in translating the poem from its Anglo-Saxon.
  • "On Fairy-Stories," the 1939 Andrew Lang lecture at St Andrew's University, is a defence of the fantasy genre.
  • "A Secret Vice" talks about creating imaginary languages, giving background to Tolkien's Quenya and Sindarin.
  • "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is a study of the medieval poem of the same name.
  • "English and Welsh," the inaugural O'Donnell Memorial Lecture (1955), is a survey of the historical relationship between the two tongues, including an analysis of the word Welsh.
  • "Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford", given upon his retirement in 1959.

    • Versions

  • The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays (1983). J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. George Allen and Unwin. ISBN 0-04-809019-0

    • References

    The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA