[Leaf]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

So, what is your opinion of the role of the modern and the medieval in Professor Tolkien's work?

I'll try to contribute to this topic even though my knowledge about medieval literature and myths is limited. Please forgive that I'm starting off, at least kind of, LotR-centric as well.

There's a certain aspect of Tolkien's work that I find to be very important if you're going to analyse this question: Tolkien's concept of a fictional modern translator and editor who has, supposedly, access to the original (albeit fictional as well) source material, which he translates into modern English and then uses to compile and create the given novel. The fictional source material, on the other side, was communicated, written down and gathered by numerous fictional authors within the context of Middle-Earth.

This stylistic device creates a literary tradition which bridges the gap between the days of legend and the modern era. It also makes the question so much more difficult, since it adds all those different meta-levels to the text. At least if you take this concept seriously.

Textual allusions to medieval culture like the language of the Rohirrim, the look of certain runes or the form of some Middle-Earth poetry, are meant to translate the real Middle-Earth equivalent. And the decision to use those medieval placeholders is supposed to be made by Tolkien's fictional counterpart to give modern readers an idea about Middle-Earth. The language of the Rohirrim, for example, got translated to Anglo-Saxon with the intent to illustrate the linguistic relationship between their archaic language and the commonly spoken Westron, in a way a modern English speaker could comprehend.