Tolkien, Epic Traditions, and Golden Age Myths

Abstract

Epic typically lays before a contemporary audience a vision of lost glory, of an age when heroes walked the earth whose stature we may emulate but not equal. It may also hold out some hope for a reparation of loss, but not necessarily: we have epics whose mood is elegiac, such as Beowulf and the Iliad, as well as ones of more prophetic strain, such as the Aeneid and Paradise Lost. In some we find a more balanced mood: for Spenser, mutability reigns, but is not to be mistaken for decline; for Tennyson, Camelot passes, but the process of divine fulfilment continues.

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