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Really, how could you do better than "The Anglo-Saxon War-Culture and The Lord of the Rings: Legacy and Reappraisal"?
Considering the scarcity of the Anglo-Saxon influence in modern war-literature in general, one may wonder and stop by a work like The Lord of the Rings or Silmarillion, which few would be willing to categorise as serious war-literature. The fictional writings of J.R.R. Tolkien are said to have revived the genre of fantasy and magic-realism, and they have been readily assimilated into the new genre of popular literature. What seems to have been forgotten in this process is Tolkien’s own passionate and critical engagement with the war-literature of the Anglo-Saxons, which has gone into the making of his otherwise ‘fantastic’ creation of the ‘Middle Earth’.
Tolkien's description of the fight between the Rohirric cavalry and the Uruk-Hai is as good a picture of a disciplined medieval infantry-cavalry skirmish as exists.

2 comments:

Joel Leggett said...

Fascinating essay. Thanks for sharing.

Grim said...

Glad you liked it.