I have long been thinking that Roberts' parodies and satire on Tolkien were more valuable and 'in depth' readings of Tolkien than his 'actual' scholarship on JRRT. Thank you for making this clear to me in this substantial manner.
I have not read his parodies/satiric work -- or his book on riddles! I do find Rosebury's blurb hilarious (on the front inside book cover where he says that Roberts's book "[adopts] a free interpretative approach which is justified, not by some abstract postmodern theory, but by a bold claim about the riddling, ironic polysemous nature of Tolkien's texts." Clearly nothing abstract OR postmodern about irony or polysemy, amiright?). I'm most interested in the attempts to ward against feminist cooties in Tolkien scholarship, but there's a sort of parallel fear of "postmodern" theories though they never quite say what they mean by that either!
I have long been thinking that Roberts' parodies and satire on Tolkien were more valuable and 'in depth' readings of Tolkien than his 'actual' scholarship on JRRT. Thank you for making this clear to me in this substantial manner.
I have not read his parodies/satiric work -- or his book on riddles! I do find Rosebury's blurb hilarious (on the front inside book cover where he says that Roberts's book "[adopts] a free interpretative approach which is justified, not by some abstract postmodern theory, but by a bold claim about the riddling, ironic polysemous nature of Tolkien's texts." Clearly nothing abstract OR postmodern about irony or polysemy, amiright?). I'm most interested in the attempts to ward against feminist cooties in Tolkien scholarship, but there's a sort of parallel fear of "postmodern" theories though they never quite say what they mean by that either!