SEMINARS SPRING 2009
HONR 208E J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
Monday/Wednesday 2 - 3:15 p.m.
Dr. Verlyn Flieger, Department of English
In the years between 1996 and 1999, several British institutions, among them Waterstone's bookshop chain, the Daily Telegraph, the Folio Society, and the TV program Bookworm, commissioned readers' polls to determine the greatest books of the century. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was the overwhelming winner. Response from British critics and intellectuals was outraged cries of horror and derision. In spite of such protest (or perhaps because of it) this work and the creative imagination behind it deserve thoughtful consideration for their impact on the century that produced both. The course will study Tolkien's major works, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, as well as some minor works (the alliterative verse drama The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth) and Tolkien's major scholarly criticism (his Andrew Lang lecture "On Fairy-Stories," and his landmark essay on "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.")
Reading both fiction and scholarship in the context in which Tolkien wrote—the period between the two major wars—will throw light on mindset and confusion that marked the twentieth century.
Impassioned discussion, a mid-term, a final exam, and one long paper will encourage students to think seriously about the century and its most popular book.
CORE: Literature [HL]
