Some remarks on the epic dimension of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The aim of the present article is to assess the possibility of treating Tolkien’s novel as an epic, that is a narrative that may be thought of as belonging to the tradition of great Mediterranean and ancient epic narrative poems, especially those that are focused on the archetype of the heroic quest. The article is not so much concerned with comparing individual motifs in those poems with their counterparts in The Lord of the Rings, but rather with comparing and contrasting the basic and archetypal narrative structures, therefore the author of the present article has chosen, in particular, three ancient epics, i.e. Homer’s Odyssey, Vergil’s Aeneid, and Statius’s Thebaid, as they seem to stand for three basic models of fashioning the epic narrative. The author concludes that Tolkien’s work shares some features with all the three models, even though the affinities with Homer’s Odyssey and the type of epic it represents appear predominant. The article contains also a discussion of the thesis that The Lord of the Rings is a romance rather than an epic.