sleeves, clutching teddies
             babbling excitedly about the doings of hobbits, it has been my
             that Tolkien would turn out to be the most influential writer of the
             twentieth century. The bad dream has materialized. (Mooney, 2001)
             Other literary critics have crowned Tolkien's work as inflated, over-
             written, tendentious, and exceedingly moralistic. It is in response to
             these criticisms that Tom Shippey wrote this book which supported Tolkien's
             nomination as author of the century. Beginning with a detailed refutation
             of the specific complaints of the nay-sayers, he proceeds to a persuasive
             discussion of why Tolkien is the author of the Twentieth Century. (Nelson,
             However, great literature is not defined by its genre, not its
             critics. Most of the critics who disapproved of Tolkien'[s work did so on
             the basis that the work is fantasy. How could an enhanced fairy tale be
             labeled as a great literary work' This objection blinded the critics to
             the commonality of all great literature. It teaches us about ourselves
             through the lives of the characters. It leaves us wondering if we could be
             different, better people. Great literature enables the reader to rise
             above the average, and find himself in the pages. Carol Zaleski gets it,
             and in her review of the LOTR, she summarizes t
             ...