LotR, an Edwardian Adventure Story?

[davem]

Originally Posted by LMP

By not "accurately observing the detailed minutiae of daily [English] life", therefore, Tolkien is writing as someone who is not really English, yet praises Englishness.

I don't see Tolkien as someone 'who is not really English'. I can only think that Lobdell, as an American, seems to have a very narrow concept of what it is to be English. Certainly Tolkien could not have been considered part of the 'English Establishment' (his Catholicism would have excluded him, as would his distaste for the Empire), but the 'Establishment' is not England. England has a strong radical tradition for instance (we, too, had our Civil War, produced the Ranters & the Quakers among other groups). Englishness is a very complex thing, & Tolkien fits in very well.