Style and Re-vision in Tolkien

While Edmund Wilson lampooned Tolkien's style, even more sympathetic critics
such as Burton Raffel have argued that Tolkien's style is not sufficiently
literary ,while some dismiss his writing as artless. More recently, Tom
Shippey has argued that the hybrid styles of The Lord of the Rings are
purposefully chosen for aesthetic effects. With the publication of the
History of Middle-earth, we can study the development of Tolkien's style and
analyze his writing process, both of which changed dramatically over time
and among literary works.

This session will revisit the question of the style of Tolkien's writing,
both in terms of the finished works, not limited to The Lord of the Rings,
and in terms of the choices and changes that he made in style, plot,
characterization, and genre.

The organizers are interested in proposals which bring stylistic methodology
(functional grammar or some other linguistic methodology) or aesthetic
theory to analyze in detail specific elements of Tolkien's style of writing.

Send completed abstracts to the organizers below by September 15, 2006. A
complete proposal is an abstract of no more than 300 words plus the
completed Abstract Cover Sheet which can be found in pdf format on the
Congress web site at:

http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/42cfp/forms.html
<http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/42cfp/forms.html>

Session Organizers
Faye Ringel, Dept. of Humanities
U.S. Coast Guard Academy
27 Mohegan Ave.
New London, CT 06320
 <mailto:fringel_at_exmail.uscga.edu> fringel_at_exmail.uscga.edu
and
Jane Chance
Rice Univ.
English Dept.
MS 30
PO Box 1892
Houston, TX 77251-1892
 <mailto:jchance_at_rice.edu> jchance_at_rice.edu

More information on the Congress can be found at their web site:
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/
<http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/>
The Tolkien at Kalamazoo web site is: http://www.tolkienkzoo.org/
<http://www.tolkienkzoo.org/>

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Received on Wed Jul 12 2006 - 16:31:00 EDT