JRR Tolkien Denied Nobel Due To Low Quality Prose

Morty writes "In 1961, C.S. Lewis nominated JRR Tolkien for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tolkien did not receive the prize. 50 years later, the archives for that year have been made available, so now we know why. Tolkien's prose was viewed as low quality."

Comments

Re:Tolkien's prose

[idontgno]

Right idea, but wrong mythos.

Anglo-Saxon literature and its Scandanavian cousins, plus the ancient lore of his own childhood neighborhood are the roots of Tolkien's legendarium. Undoubtedly, the epics of the various Mediterranean cultures were there too, since they were completely unavoidable to anyone studying Oxford "Greats". But the epic-ness of the Silmarillion and the Ring are pretty much Saxon and Brythonic in character.