The Monsters and The Critics and Other Essays

£79.99

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About this item

Essays on medieval language and literature including a fascinating piece on invented languages.

The seven 'essays' by J.R.R. Tolkien assembled in this book were with one exception delivered as general lectures on particular occasions; and while they mostly arose out of Tolkien's work in mediaeval literature they are very accessible to those without a professional concern in the subjects. Two of them are concerned with Beowulf, including the well-known lecture whose title is taken for this book,and one, which has not been previously published, with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, given in the University of Glasgow in 1953. Included also are On Fairy-Stories; the lecture English and Welsh; the Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford in 1959; and a paper on Invented Languages delivered in 1931, with exemplification from poems in the Elvish tongues. The pieces in this collection thus cover a period of nearly thirty years, beginning with the only occasion on which Tolkien lectures 'academically' on his invention (calling it A Secret Vice), six years before the publication of The Hobbit, and concluding with his farewell to professorship, five years after the publication of The Lord of The Rings.

Author(s):: Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973
Format:: Hardback
ISBN-10:: 0048090190

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