Cover 8

Tolkien's Modern Reading

Tolkien's Modern Reading

Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages

2021 • 382 pages

Ratings1

Average rating5

15

[Read 06/08/23] Genuinely quite fantastic. Thoroughly dismantles Humphrey Carpenter's largely inaccurate depiction of Tolkien as an old fart stuck in the past while going through his modern reading WITH clear evidence. While there are a few eyebrow raising claims (when aren't there in this kind of scholarship? see Tolkien's Lost Chaucer) this is an erudite and meticulously researched book that I wish I had gotten to sooner. Super engaging and, as someone who did focus on medieval texts in my own degree, definitely broadened my horizons regarding my own understanding of Tolkien. 4.5

August 6, 2023