Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England

Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England
Author	Jane Chance
Publisher	London: Macmillan
Released	1979
Pages	ix, [i], 164
ISBN	0-312-80819-4

Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England is a critical study of the relationship between J.R.R. Tolkien's scholarship in Old and Middle English and his creative writing.

Editions

• American edition: New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979. ix, [i], 164 pp. 23 cm. ISBN 0-312-80819-4.
• Paperback edition: London: Papermac, 1980. ISBN 0-333-29034-8 (pbk. 21.5 × 13.5 cm).
• Revised edition: Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, [November] 2001. xiii, 262 pp. 21.5 × 14 cm. ISBN 0-8131-9020-7 (pbk).

From the back (revised edition)

As a scholar of medieval literature and a lover of Germanic and Finnish mythologies in particular, J.R.R. Tolkien was "grieved by the poverty" of legend and myth in his own beloved culture. Inspired by works like Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tolkien's fiction relied on both pagan epic and Christian legend to create a mythology for England evident in both his major works of fiction like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and his minor stories and critical essays. Revised and expanded, Jane Chane's study examines the sources and influences of Tolkien's works as well as the paradigm of the critic as monster that colors so many of his writings.

References

• Åke Bertenstam, A Chronological Bibliography of Books about Tolkien