“Perilous and Fair” in “A Bleak, Barren Land”: A Feminist Responds to Dylan Lee Henderson’s Essay

Authors

Robin A. Reid, Independent ScholarFollow

Artists and Illustrations Included in This Record

None

Abstract

Dylan Lee Henderson’s 2023 essay in Mythlore (vol. 42, no. 1) titled “A Bleak, Barren Land’: Women and Fertility in The Lord of the Rings,” claims that “many feminist scholars [since 1971] have condemned Tolkien’s depiction of women as inadequate and denounced Tolkien himself as a misogynist” (88). In my response, I argue that Henderson’s essay reduces a fifty-plus year history of scholarship (much of it by feminists) exploring the complex, contradictory issues of Tolkien’s female characters to a single negative stereotype. I described that stereotype in my 2015 essay in Perilous and Fair (Croft and Donovan) in my conclusion which argued it was more than time to “move beyond the perceived need to defend Tolkien (whether the author, the body of work, or the human being) from the outdated stereotype of ‘feminist critics’ who exist only to rend and destroy” (39). In addition, while Henderson cites a number of essays to support his point, I would encourage those interested in the topic to read the original sources for themselves to get a better sense not only of the scholarship on Tolkien’s female characters.

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