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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zoatebix" data-source="post: 1883061" data-attributes="member: 11401">Just a few points for cleaning up:IIRC Tolkein was an expert in the study of Medieval Romanaces, Epic Poems, and Folk Stories, and primarily oral-tradition story-telling.  The "diagetic" (is "diagetic" an appropriate literay term?) songs, poems, and stories are all a big part of the oral epics he's emulating in the Lord of the Rings.  There're at least two lengthy stories (in addition to all the epic similes) in Beowulf, and I'm almost positive Tolkein was a big Beowulf fan.I think The Lord of the Rings is as much a "genre study" of ancient literary techniques as it is a work of modern epic fantasy.  Beowulf's fight with the Dragon is the same kind of mini-sequil - the climax was 30 or more years (my figures are sketchy - it's been a few months since I read it...) before when he beheads Grendel's mom.  Or maybe it "climaxes" with Grendel - it doesn't fit the exposition-complications-climax-denouement model as well as more modern stories.It has merit in a narrative system that's 1500 years or more divorced from what we're used to reading and watching.I think that's the point exactly.Anyways, I haven't read the Lord of the Rings since I've been an adult (I've been meaning to), and I certainly haven't studied it or Tolkein in an acadmic setting yet, so I don't claim that my assertions are 100% accurate.  I'm just trying to show that there's a whole lot more (over a thousand years of story-telling history more) than the transposition of a story from novel to film at work here.Rock on!-George</blockquote>

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