What does the sixpence = ?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Bergil

Shhippey means (and I agree) that iff you're looking for a twonie you dropped in a completely different place then you dropped it because the light's better there, you let circumstances decide your actions, and pull you away from what you want to be doing (or what you're good at doing).

Which (as Squatter suggested) is precisely where Shippey's analogy breaks down. Because the "modernists" are not looking for the same sixpence that Tolkien is. Nor, indeed, are they looking for a sixpence which they dropped in the darkness earlier. They are looking for something entirely different. And who is to criticise them for looking in the light for it? It might well be there. Shippey is justified in taking offence at the critics' derision of Tolkien's works. But he is entirely unjustified in deriding them for looking elsewhere for what they are interested in.

For my own part, I would rather look in the light for something that I can find and make use of than stumble around in the dark for something that I may never find and, even if I did, would be unable to discern properly.