The Relative Strengths of Lewis & Tolkien Scholarship

Part 1: Introduction

This post is the first of a four (or perhaps five!) part series that began with a response I made to a Lewis scholar’s blog posts in which he raises and explores the question of why Tolkien scholarship is stronger than Lewis scholarship. By the end of my series, however, I plan to show how this event is similar to two other recent ones. I wrote about one earlier in this Newsletter (Decorum and Diversity), and the other which was published in Mythlore.

The major similarity between the three events was that, to differing degrees, the issue of how to communicate ideas about Tolkien's work across ideological differences was central. While all instances relate to some part of the global phenomenon of “Tolkien” (which I define as his legendarium, all the adaptations, and the reception of his work and the adaptations, specifically the fandom and fan activities) the events have different rhetorical contexts (who they were written for and how public they are).

Looking back, I consider all to attempts to have failed because I see no evidence than the participants learned anything about why the other interprets Tolkien’s work so differently. I do not consider the goal such discussions is changing another’s positions; rather, my goal is to gain greater understanding of why reader responses to Tolkien’s legendarium are so varied, complex and, as Verlyn Flieger points out, in "The Arch and the Keystone," are contradictory to the point of being oppositional.  She points out that "[e]verybody has their own private Tolkien — more Tolkiens than you can shake a stick at" (9).

My attempt to expand my earliest response resulted in something like a 13,000 word behemoth that was hard even for me to read through. So I decided to break it down into into more manageable sections that will become part of a series on the relative strengths of Lewis & Tolkien scholarship.

The four parts planned so far are:

1. Part 1: Introduction

2. Part 2: A Summary and Some Niggles

3. Part 3: Bugbears, so Many Bugbears¹

4. Part 4: This is Becoming a Habit

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First Some Background

In 2021, Brenton Dickieson, a Lewis fan and scholar posted an essay in three parts on his blog answering the question of why he considers Tolkien scholarship to be stronger than Lewis scholarship. Dickieson has clearly read deeply in Lewis scholarship and significantly in Tolkien scholarship. I, on the other hand, have read significantly in some specific parts of Tolkien scholarship (including publishing two bibliographic essays, that is, essays that analyze patterns in the scholarship on a particular theme or topic rather than just summarizing it),² and very little on Lewis (except for a few chapters in “Inklings” focused books).

I found Dickieson’s question, and his answers, intriguing, if incomplete (all essays are incomplete to some extent, including my own!). I am interested in the complicated issues of “canonization” (meaning what authors/texts are deemed “worthy” to be read and studied in academic contexts — which, for many years, Tolkien’s legendarium was not — and how academic fields, such as “Tolkien studies” and “Lewis studies” or “fantasy studies” originate, change over time, and reflect changing cultural contexts.

I have some theories about what makes Tolkien scholarship so strong which I will identify in the following parts. My theories may raise the question of whether the lack of those elements might be part of what (comparatively) weakens Lewis scholarship, but I am sure there are other reasons that neither Dickieson nor I have considered, so feel free to share your theories in comments.

My academic areas of teaching and research before I retired in 2020 were, broadly, critical theory, creative writing, and marginalized literatures.³ Dickieson’s topic, and questions, are relevant to my interest in marginalized literatures in Anglophone literary studies.⁴ Marginalized literatures are those bodies of work that have historically been given little, if any, academic/scholarly attention until recently.

I am largely in agreement with Dickieson's major argument (that Tolkien scholarship as a body of work is stronger than Lewis scholarship), and even agree with some of his supporting reasons. I should also note that I admire the clarity, quality, and handling of evidence in his writing. If the posts were badly written, I probably would have stopped reading before finishing and would not have written any response.⁵

Dickieson describes what he will be covering in his first post:

In Part 1, I talk about four moments in Tolkien readership that resulted in bursts of creative scholarly energy. In Part 2, I take the daring approach of comparing and contrasting the work of Lewis and Tolkien. And in Part 3, I look at other factors, focusing especially on the tools and techniques that Lewis and Tolkien scholars have used.

Dickieson invited responses in all three of his blog posts, starting with the first where he states his main hope was to “inspire” Lewis scholars to “dig in and take greater risks.”⁶

This series of articles is simply here to create a start to the conversation–though I hope to inspire Lewis scholars to dig in and take greater risks. Feel free to critique my reasons or enhance my understanding of Inklings studies with your own insights. Use the comment section or social media to challenge me or develop an idea further. If you want to write an essay in response proving me wrong or right, and if you can write it well enough, I’ll even give you space here to publish it.

By "greater risks" I think (from what he says in the three posts) that Dickieson means Lewis and/or Inklings scholars might consider drawing from a wider range of literary (critical) theories than they have in the past and, perhaps, might also consider moving beyond what he describes as "Christian fellowship" in their reviews and commentary on each other’s scholarship. If my sense of his meaning is correct, I agree those goals would be good (and are applicable to some parts of Tolkien scholarship as well!)

Despite my general agreement with Dickieson's main points, I do have a few niggles which seems natural for a Tolkien fan and scholar! While there was no explicit invitation in any of the three posts for Tolkienist scholars to participate in the discussion, I could not resist engaging with the posts because of my interests in analyzing patterns in scholarship, especially relating to the processes of literary canonization.

I wrote a fairly hasty response that I posted on my personal Dreamwidth journal rather than in the post comments (due to it being about 7000 words long!). I then posted a brief comment on Dickieson’s third post, along with a link to my journal, inviting further discussion.⁷

Robin Reid says:

April 25, 2021 at 6:59 pm

Hi Brenton: I’m a Tolkienist but found your trilogy essay fascinating — and had to write a response which grew like “Leaf by Niggle.” So I’ve posted on my Dreamwidth journal (it’s a fan journal under my fandom pseudonym). I’ve set comments to allow replies by anyone (so not requiring a DW account), but people need to put their names in their comment (it doesn’t have the same features WordPress and other blogging services do).

https://ithiliana.dreamwidth.org/1873576.html

Neither Dickieson or any of the other commenters acknowledged my comment, nor did anyone take up the invitation to come over to Dreamwidth to respond, and my comment apparently ended the discussion thread on the final post!

However, the discussion did not end with Dickieson’s third entry. I do not have time to track through all the blog posts between the first one and now, but using the ‘tag’ search, I found some follow-up and reactions that are worth noting.

First, there was one direct response that Dickieson published in his blog:

Lewis and Tolkien Among American Evangelicals: Guest Post by G. Connor Salter (Lewis Scholarship Series).

Therefore, we need to consider how American evangelical culture may have influenced Lewis research. Here are two broad movements that have arguably influenced evangelical views on Lewis, but which haven’t impacted Tolkien research.

The two movements Salter describes are “Evangelicals and the Academy” and “Evangelicals and Fantasy.” I need to spend more time read/thinking about Salter’s piece, as well as reading some of the linked materials, in the context of my knowledge of Tolkien scholarship, as well as my limited knowledge of “evangelical culture” (or cultures?), but I think Salter is on to something here. My overall sense is that some “evangelical views” about the academy and fantasy have also influenced some parts of Tolkien scholarship (though I would concede that it is probably a smaller percentage of the field than Lewis studies).

Second, a post about the Mythopoeic Award Shortlist which, as Dickieson’s title indicates, is related to his question of relative strengths of the two fields of scholarship:

Tolkien Studies Projects Sweep the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award Shortlist in Inklings Studies (Trying Not To Say “I Told You So”)⁸

Awards, as well as the systemic bias in any award system, are worth thinking about analytically — but that is a topic for another time!

This post is one that led to one of my niggles (which I will cover later in the series): I began to wonder about the possibility that Dickieson is comparing two different things. On the one hand, he focuses on Tolkien scholarship which is short-listed and/or wins awards and then compares it to compared to Lewis scholarship (which he knows better as a body of work than he does Tolkien scholarship).

The third follow-up in Dickieson's blog may not seem as relevant as the previous two, but I consider it important to foreground the extent to which a good deal of fantasy (and science fiction) scholarship is done by independent scholars (those who are not affiliated/employed by universities in any position, staff or faculty, and who thus lack access to the subscription-only databases of academic scholarship).

5 Ways to Find Open Source Academic Research on C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings

Strong academic scholarship a public conversation⁹ (except that much of the work is locked away from the public), and the lack of access to what has been published hampers the ability to make original arguments. This problem is why I am such a fan for open-access and peer-reviewed scholarship and share Dickieson’s admiration for journals such as Mythlore and Journal of Tolkien Research which have all their work available. Mallorn is close, having made all its past issues open-access through its website although the work in the two most recent years is accessibly only to paid members of the Tolkien Society or, as far as I remember, through the subscription databases).

Information on open-access sources is important to share independent scholars (a significant amount of Tolkien scholarship was and is done by independent scholars —meaning those who are not in tenured positions at research universities or other academic spaces where they have access to the subscription databases!). I have been working on gathering online resources that can be useful to Tolkien scholars as well, and Dickieson’s post is an excellent model. I would highly recommend bookmarking it!

At some point in the next week, I will post the second part of this series, covering why I do not read or write scholarship on Lewis; a summary of Dickieson’s points and my niggles with some of them; and some of my theories about scholarship.

1. Part 3 is very likely to split into two sections because it deals with that most monstrous of all topics, BUGBEARS! And when there are so many, there may need to be two posts!

2. "The History of Scholarship on Female Characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium: A Feminist Bibliographic Essay." Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J. R. R. Tolkien, eds. Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan, Mythopoeic Press, 2015, pp. 13-40.

"Race in Tolkien Studies: A Bibliographic Essay." Tolkien and Alterity, eds. Christopher Vaccaro and Yvette Kisor, Palgrave, 2017, pp. 33-74.

3. Note to self here: post CV in a pinned post here for easy reference, not to mention easy updating!

4. The same process occurs in other national literatures I am sure, but I am not familiar enough with them to say anything. In the United States, since the 1960s, in correlation with, if not caused by, activist rights movements, previously marginalized literatures have become more acknowledged in educational and academic settings. That process has been part of the larger “Culture War” in the United States which are still going on (if anything become more strongly conflicted in recent years). I consider my work a part of this process which has resulted in multiple canons rather than a single (dead white male) canon.

5. I share Dickieson’s reluctance at writing negative reviews although I find a peer-review of a submitted article, not yet published, where constructive feedback can perhaps help the writer improve it a completely different project than a review about a published book. Reviews are written more for potential readers of the book than for the writer. Dickieson notes that:

I just completed a largely negative review for an academic journal and wish that I had never heard of the book rather than have to spend my time that way. Indeed, I have mostly given up academic reviewing because I cannot seem to balance the negative and positive well. And as someone who does all this for free, I can make that choice.

I would note that all academic reviewers (in humanities — I don’t know about the sciences) do peer-reviews and publication reviews for free unless you count the book that publishers sometimes provide (nowadays, I am getting PDF copies). But the tenure-track and tenured scholars are expected to engage in such professional service as part of their job requirements.  

In this case, my response to his three blog posts, I think it is worth posting because the questions he raises are so important, and because this sort of online interaction, outside the timetables of publications, allows for more open communication, with more people, on important questions (at least in theory! in real life, there are many breakdowns in communication in all modes).

6. There is a lot of overlap between scholarship on Tolkien and scholarship on Lewis (and on the other Inklings). There are scholars who write on Tolkien & Lewis, as well as on the other Inklings, but Tolkien draws much more attention the others. I would be interested to hear from people who work on both authors, either together or sequentially (or who take the broader “Inklings” approach).

7. Technically, Dreamwidth (as was LiveJournal) is a blogging system, but many of us call our sites “journals” rather than blogs. I have done so since I joined LiveJournal in 2003. In addition, are significant differences between the ways DW/LJ operate and blogs (DW is based on the LJ open-access code and was created by former volunteers at LJ). But that is a topic for another post!

8. But he does sort of say that, and I have to say, he’s right!

9. This metaphor is *not* one I coined but has long been used by rhetorical and literary theorists: Scholarship as a Conversation