KICKING THE HOBBIT.

As the film debut of The Fellowship of the Ring approaches, is J.R.R. Tolkien worthy of inclusion in the literary canon?

When it comes to the fantasy novels of J.R.R. Tolkien, it is a truism at critics either love the books or e them: Concerning Middle Earth, e is no middle ground. Such has been the case ever since Tolkien, an Oxford philologist, first published his epic novel The Lord of the Rings in three volumes (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King) between 1954 and 1955. In 1956 W.H. Auden wrote in The New York Times that, in some ...