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Hobbits: Common Lens For Heroic Experience, David M. Miller

Tolkien Journal

Theorizes that works of fantasy need some sort of bridge linking them to the primary world in order to have literary depth. After discussing bridging devices in several other fantasies, notably Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros, the author locates Tolkien’s bridging device in the initial utter ordinariness and realistic character growth of the hobbits, with whom the reader is led to identify from the start and therefore throughout their later encounters with the high and heroic of Middle -earth.