Tolkien does not fit the mold of the modern psychological-realist novel with its fixation on the inner lives of its characters. His most important literary prec

Tolkien does not fit the mold of the modern psychological-realist novel with its fixation on the inner lives of its characters. His most important literary precursor is probably Beowulf. Simplistic formulas (character development = good), deployed like apotropaic amulets in the conveyor-belt writing of culture-industry hacks, are a poor attempt to reduce literary worth to an objective, analyzable and thus reproducible phenomenon—"good writing in a bottle". The polarity of description and prescription has been reversed.