This is a really interesting question....
I consider myself a writer, and I find that it isn't fair when my work is compared to Tolkien. There is no hope for aspiring writers when you get fantasy critics that say that 'It is Really like Tolkien'. It hurts when you try and think of an original idea and find that 'Someone has already done that'
Am I angry? Nope. He paved the way for Fantasy novels. Personally, I think these writers aren't angry just jealous. Jealous that they can't think of anything that original. Or they, too, are tired of being compared to such an author as great as he.
Modern Writers shouldn't think of Classical writers as an 'annoyance' that would be like pushing a respected elder down the stairs. They paved the way for the writers of today and it is up to them to think of something unique. If anything, they should try their hardest to become a writer that someday would be amongst the names of authors such as Shakespeare, Mark Twain, J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Robert A. Hienlien. Etc.
~~Daegwenn
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"And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—Riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.
And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair"
Highwayman
Alfred Noyes
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