Paradoxically, this is exactly what makes these books believable, captivating, convincing and valuable. Pick any history book and you will see what this means. The style is not made to serve beauty or fantasy, nor is it meant to entertain. It sacrifices those literary aspects in order to favour the informative purpose. Historical books are also hard to read.
It is is no secret that many have faced difficulties trying to read The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion. It is exactly because of this trait. It is this quality that makes these books a challenge for the reader. You cannot always follow every thread. The details overwhelm you. There are countless years, names and locations to remember. The names are sometimes repeated, but identifying different characters. It may make them harder to spot, but they are there, nonetheless.
Indeed there are loads of landscape descriptions, for example, but, if we are to extract all the information, we would have an enormous database of characters, places, deeds, battles. All of them are so numerous it becomes overwhelming ad intimidating — just like real history. Equally, these are compelling enough, so the reader feels drawn to explore more, to structure the information received and grasp more of this Middle-earth history.
These writings are much like the Bible or the Scandinavian sagas and the Eddas. His writing thus achieves a stylistic consistency and communicative economy that rivals his Modernist contemporaries.
At the same time his treatment of Lear shows his engagement with ideas in this case, the problem of pride and despair among the powerful that have long been considered among the great themes of English literature. Because the following analysis will repeatedly switch from sentence-level writing, to discussion of characters, to the themes of the book, it is necessary to quote the key passage:.
The great shadow descended like a falling cloud. And behold! Upon it sat a shape, black-mantled, huge and threatening. To the air he had returned, summoning his steed ere the darkness failed, and now he was come again, bringing ruin, turning hope to despair, and victory to death.
Yet, in the next sentence, Sam chimes in with "I'll have a peep. Different strokes for different folks. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. Previous Next. Take, for example, his description of the West Gate of Moria: At the top, as high as Gandalf could reach, was an arch of interlacing letters in an Elvish character.
What's Up With the Ending? Setting What's Up With the Epigraph? Style is not what the author writes but how they write. You can examine style by looking at a number of important features of the text, such as word choice also called diction , sentence structure and point of view. Click here for a more detailed introduction to analyzing style. To take a look at Tolkien's style, let's examine a brief passage from the beginning of "The Hobbit. Read along, and pay particularly close attention to how the words and sentences sound.
In these first two paragraphs of the first chapter, Tolkien introduces not only the setting of his novel but also the writing style and narrative voice that will continue throughout the book. For more practice analyzing style, check out this video of Tolkien reading a passage from "The Fellowship of the Ring. What about the diction? If you're feeling really confident, take a look at this academic article about Tolkien's style.
0コメント