beowulf: the monsters and the critics summary

Two of them are concerned with Beowulf, including the well-known lecture whose title is taken for this book, and one with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, given in the University of Glasgow in 1953.Tolkien was a pretty devastatingly smart guy, who didn't only create a world and languages of his own, but was a serious and intelligent scholar who knew many languages, modern and archaic, and had a wide interest in different literatures and mythologies. Read More

Tolkien on the subject of Beowulf criticism, given by Tolkien as the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture to the British Academy in November 1936. This collection is an absolute staple to appreciating the creator of Middle-earth.Tolkien's "The Monsters and the Critics" was a speech he gave when he received one of his academic chairs. Tolkien's analyses and arguments for his value of Beowulf and Sir Gawain came off to me pedantic and overly intellectual. BEOWULF: THE MONSTERS AND THE CRITICS BY J. R. R. TOLKIEN Read 25 November 1936 ... Beowulf is doubtless an important document, but he is not writing a history of English poetry. Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon are all antagonists added to the story by the author, and because of that they stray from the historical context of Anglo-Saxon history. Tolkien actually never came to Iceland but despite that he did have the ability to read Icelandic fluently. :) I skipped the Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight essays because I haven't read the stories yet and I want to read them before I read Tolkien analyze them.An extraordinary collection of Tolkien essays from the 1930s to 1950s. Those did Not disappoint, and "On Fairy-Stories" was also very good (I'd read it before, but it had been a while!). It was published later in 1983 in The Monsters and the Critics. Tolkien argued that Beowulf should be studied as a work of art, as opposed to merely just a historical document. What can one call the Bible if not a Fairy-Tale? His knowledge of language and literature shines in these essays. I enjoyed the last three essays in this book much more than the first few. Not only was he a great author, but also a very influential scholar. As an Oxford don, Tolkien was uniquely situated to defend fairy stories clearly and with examples of fairy stA fascinating, if dense and academic look at several topics related to the relationship between language and literature. But for anyone interested in Anglo Saxon or medieval lit, or in linguistic distinctions, this book is a treasure. Welcome back. This review only covers the 1936 edition, which contained only this one lecture. The five star rating is for a literary scholar. That essay, with its unfortunate and uninspiring title, changed my life. But for anyone interested in Anglo Saxon or medieval lit, or in linguistic distinctions, this book is a treasure. Start by marking “The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays” as Want to Read: The five star rating is for a literary scholar. My favorite essays were the ones about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--I read Tolkien's version last year and this was a nice refresher of its plot and themes-On Fairy Stories, always a classic, and his "A Secret Vice" where he talks about his love of making up languages and why he thinks that appeals to people.

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.Proceedings of the British Academy, 1936. for SJC students, an abridged edition is on the GALE GROUP--CLICK HERE; full texts are reprinted in AN ANTHOLOGY OF BEOWULF CRITICISM edited by Lewis E. Nicholson, and Harold Bloom's edition of BEOWULF CRITICISM.. JRR Tolkien. I read the summary of Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics summary, and I agree with J.R.R. It is a powerful philosophical work that explores the phenomenon of human consciousness, myth, storytelling, and religion. The author added his own flair and unique writing style, making his creation unique.

My favorite essay out of the collection was "On Fairy Stories." Still Bjólfskviða is written as poetry about a viking time bravery and fights with dragons.