Tolkien, the Author and the Critic
Tolkien not only taught medieval literature but also edited medieval texts - such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Ancrene Wisse -, translated Pearl (a 14th century poem), and wrote important articles on Beowulf and Sir Gawain. A common feature of these articles is the claim for originality: Tolkien asserts that he takes the opposite view from his predecessors; besides,his reflexion on medieval literature seems, over twenty years, extremely coherent concerning heroism and war. Moreover, what seems important to him in these texts corresponds to important elements in his fiction. If the relation between fiction and non-fiction is examined in itself, more globally, Tolkien's works appear to present us a peculiar relation between fiction and essays or articles (his critical comments on medieval literature).