On Tolkien's Reappraisal of the Fairy-Story

Joanny Moulin (1)

1 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etudes et de Recherche sur le Monde Anglophone

This article concentrates on two remarkable essays by Tolkien — his 1964 article "On Fairy Story", and, to a lesser extent, his ground-breaking 1936 paper entitled "Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics." The point of departure, as far as the critical reception of Tolkien's theses on fairy-stories is concerned, is an article by Robert J. Reilly, "Tolkien and the Fairy Story", reprinted in the 1968 collection of essays Tolkien and the Critics. Thsi paper addresses two central aspects — Tolkien's rejection of allegory, which can be considered as a case of intentional fallacy, and his revision of some high-romantic concepts and ideas like those of Imagination and the organic conception of literature.

Mots clés: Fairy-tale; Imagination; Allegory; Tolkien

Domaines: Littératures

Joanny Moulin. On Tolkien's Reappraisal of the Fairy-Story. In-between : Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism, 2015, 14 (1), pp.3-12. ⟨hal-01138378⟩