1968 collection and
C. S. Lewis. In
Journal of Tolkien Research, Mariana Rios Maldonado wrote of the 1968 and 2004 compilations that "the importance of both collections to the history of Tolkien studies is beyond doubt".
Richard C. West, in
The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, commented that "much of the best scholarly work being done during this period [the 1960s] was not in single books but in essays scattered in numerous journals. In his view, the 1968
Tolkien and the Critics "was a milestone that gathered some of the most significant such essays (those by Auden, Bradley, and Lewis, for example), and commissioned several new ones (notably by Mary Quella Kelly on Tolkien's poetry and John Tinkler on the use of Old English in
The Lord of the Rings)."
1981 collection Reviewing the 1981 collection, M. Chassagnol wrote that the essays by McLellan and Adams took opposing sides on the merits of
The Silmarillion. In his view, McLellan asserted "without really justifying it" that the work "demands comparison with
Hesiod and
The Iliad,
Paradise Lost and
Genesis", while on the other hand Adams, "more convincingly" saw nothing in it but "an empty and pompous bore". In
Christianity and Literature, Janice G. Neuleib wrote that the volume must have been carefully prepared, as it covered a wide range of viewpoints incorporating "the best of earlier works" alongside new essays, forming "as good an overview of
Tolkien scholarship as one can find". David M. Miller, reviewing the book in
Modern Fiction Studies, calls Adams one of "the old guard", who "laments that
The Silmarillion is not 'Son-of-Ring' and who wonders why people don't read the real stuff, rather than Tolkien's fakes." He respects Flieger and Kuznets for their essays which "make modest claims for clear theses and keep the text firmly in mind." He is less impressed by the essayists who assume or insist that
The Lord of the Rings is Christian, giving as example Frodo's claiming of the
One Ring at the Crack of Doom: "I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!". Accordingly he objects to Zimbardo's
psychological rewriting of the scene: "In fighting the Gollum in himself and subduing it, Frodo (i.e. Frodo/Gollum) is able at last to drop the Ring of Oneness - of falsely defined individuation - into the Crack of Doom". Broadly welcoming the book, Miller comments that
Timothy O'Neill's Jungian
The Individuated Hobbit should have been mentioned; and if "the Procrustean Christians are invited,
Jane Nitzsche's ''
Tolkien's Art'' should be called."
2004 collection Ron Ratliff, reviewing the 2004 collection for
Library Journal, calls it a "splendid anthology". He comments that
the dislike of figures like
Edmund Wilson and
Germaine Greer for
The Lord of the Rings is well known, but that the "excellent essays" in its defence by C. S. Lewis and W. H. Auden are less familiar, and very welcome in the collection. == See also ==