News for Oct. 03, 2005
10/03/05, 10:11 pm EST - Xoanon
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who died a fortnight ago in his 81st year, was as much a writer of his time as the archetypical modern from whom he seemed to differ so radically and so sharply. All the arts of our century have been revivals of forms long abandoned. Joyce was our Homer, Pound our Dante. Tolkien dared to resuscitate romance, a form requiring the genius of a Rabelais or Spenser, a form which was shattered after its brilliant flowering in the hands of Boiardo and Ariosto by the publication of Don Quixote. Thereafter the demon realism ruled the roost. [More]