XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com   
      
   On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 10:11:34 -0500, "Michael Martin"    
   wrote:   
      
   >Jess Winfield wrote:   
   >   
   >[snip stuff about CSL's bad suggestions for Tolkien]   
   >   
   >> It leaves me wondering... is anyone else here glad that CSL, who   
   >> often matched genres with JRRT, never attempted an epic poem in   
   >> rhyming couplets?   
   >   
   >I have to disagree that CSL "matched" genres with Tolkien.  LotR is   
   >epic fantasy - actually pseudo-historical fantasy, written as if to   
   >report something that actually happened.  CSL's fiction was nothing of   
   >the kind.  Narnia was much more an allegory (though he called them   
   >"supposals," and disliked straight allegory) and the sci-fi trilogy   
   >was, well, sci-fi!   
   >   
   >Probably the closes comparison in fiction you could make is The Silm   
   >with Narnia, and even that is quite tenuous.   
   >   
   >I'm familiar with CSL's faith-based nonfiction, but not his literary   
   >essays, so I can't make any informed comparison there.   
   >   
   >What little I have read of CSL's poetry has left me cold.  Tolkien was   
   >by far the better poet of the two.   
      
   And Williams was probably better than either.   
      
   Tolkien was a fairly competent versifier; Williams was a poet.   
   --   
   Steve Hayes   
   E-mail: hayesmstw@hotmail.com   
   Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm   
        http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)