Reception of Non-fiction Works
Tolkien was an accomplished philologist of Anglo-Saxon, but has left a comparatively meagre output of academic publications. His works on Anglo-Saxon philology which have received the most recognition are Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, a 1936 lecture on the interpretation of the Beowulf epic, and his identification of what he termed the "AB language", an early Middle English literary register of the West Midlands. Outside Anglo-Saxon philology, his 1939 lecture On Fairy Stories is of some importance to the literary genres of fantasy or mythopoeia. His 1930 lecture A Secret Vice addressed artistic languages at a time when the topic was of very limited visibility compared to the utilitarian projects of auxiliary languages. His 1955 valedictory lecture English and Welsh expounds his philosophy of language, notably his notion of native language and his views on linguistic aesthetics (c.f. cellar door). Smith (2007) is a monograph on Tolkien's philosophy of language.
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