The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays
The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays is a collection of J.R.R. Tolkien's scholarly linguistic essays and lectures. The book was edited by Christopher Tolkien and published posthumously in 1983.
All of them were initially delivered as lectures to academics, with the exception of On Translating Beowulf, which Christopher Tolkien notes in his foreword is not addressed to an academic audience.
Contents
Seven essays are included in the book, some of which had been published before, while others were presented for the first time in print.
- Foreword
- "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" — lecture delivered in 1936, looks at the critics' understanding of Beowulf, and proposes a fresh take on the poem
- "On Translating Beowulf" — published in 1940, looks at the difficulties in translating the poem from Old English
- "On Fairy-stories" — lecture delivered in 1939, a defence of the fantasy genre
- "A Secret Vice" — lecture delivered in 1931, talks about creating imaginary languages, giving background to Tolkien's Quenya and Sindarin
- "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" — lecture delivered in 1953, a study of the medieval poem of the same name
- "English and Welsh" — lecture delivered in 1955, a survey of the historical relationship between the two tongues, including an analysis of the word Welsh
- "Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford" — lecture delivered in 1959, given upon Tolkien's retirement from Oxford
Relation to the legendarium
As these essays are of a scholarly nature, there are scarcely any direct references to the legendarium of Tolkien. However, the essay "A Secret Vice" contains a final section of Notes by Christopher Tolkien, where he points to references to The Book of Lost Tales and also reprints a later version of one of the Elvish poems, being "one of the major pieces of Quenya".
Publication history and gallery
UK editions
- George Allen and Unwin, hardcover (1983), pp. 240. ISBN 0048090190
- HarperCollins paperback (1997), pp. 256. ISBN 026110263X
- — 1997 paperback edition, reset in 2006
- — 2006 paperback edition, 27th impression (2025)
Referencias
1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 30/05/2026.
