SOURCE: Burger, Douglas A. “The Uses of the Past in The Lord of the Rings.” Kansas Quarterly 16, no. 3 (summer 1984): 23-8.

In the following essay, Burger finds Tolkien's allusions to ancient and medieval tales in The Lord of the Rings to be intended as modernized instructional and moral stories.

Unhindered by the realist's obligation to reflect ordinary, day-to-day life, the fantasist has the special freedom to give form to a fictional world which reflects his own keenest interest and his most profound wishes. Thus when J. R. R. Tolkien turns to fantasy, it is in no way surprising that his work should be deeply indebted to the past, particularly to the past of early legend and medieval tale. He was, after all, the Rawlinson Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, the co-editor of a widely respected edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and a trail-blazing critic...