I'm a Tolkien fan, but not a Tolkien buff. I'm working on it, though. I've read various Norse and Old English sagas over the years, and when teaching Beowulf, I can casually refer to Professor Tolkien's groundbreaking essay on it, the essay that launched the poem from obscurity into the English c...
1. Revised and enlarged, the lecture was published in essay form in Essays Presented to Charles Williams (London: Oxford University Press, 1947). The essay, further revised, is reprinted in Tree and Leaf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1965). 2. See The Lord of the Rings, 2nd edition (Boston: Houg...