Tolkien’s Glee

Lovers of Tolkien’s works know well his penchant for including song lyrics and verse in his prose. This book offers a thorough reading of every piece of verse in the two best-known works of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The study of these songs begins with the assumption that they were intended to delight through sound, and so a great deal of the analysis focuses on the “music” of the songs, the sounds of the individual words, and the metrical patterns, and how they contribute to Tolkien’s story and his themes. Though some of the discussion gets technical, all specialized terms are defined in a glossary, and introduced side-by-side with clear, understandable explanations without oversimplification. The book discusses influences on Tolkien’s verse from classical, Old and Middle English, and modern English, though “source study” is expressly avoided.

John R. Holmes has been teaching Medieval literature at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio since 1985 and has written two dozen articles on J.R.R. Tolkien.

John R. Holmes
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages:
Bibliographic Info: glossary, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2025
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9865-6
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5735-6
Imprint: McFarland