The Postmodern Poetry of J.R.R. Tolkien: a review of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien: Three-Volume Box Set By J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond (Michael Lucchese, 4/20/25, University Bookman)
Postmodernism is more often associated with black-turtlenecked intellectuals smoking cigarettes in Parisian cafés than tweedy Oxford dons puffing on pipes. But Gerald Russello, the late editor of The University Bookman, drew a connection between conservatism and postmodernism, especially in the thought of Russell Kirk, this publication’s founder and another of the twentieth century’s great Christian writers. He argued that Kirk’s emphasis on imagination and sentiment constituted a rejection of modern rationalism. In his book The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk, Russello wrote:
Sentiment assumes a larger importance in Kirk’s work because of his assertion that the coming (post)modern age will be an Age of Sentiments, superseding the old, modern, liberal Age of Discussion. The Age of Sentiments will be more concerned with the power of image on the heart, rather than that of logical discourse on the mind. Kirk thought that rhetoric—the creation of image through language—was a critical art for conservatism to perfect. And according to Kirk, rhetoric is only effective at creating those images if it pays careful heed to the sentiments of both the speaker and the audience.
This is exactly the kind of conservative postmodernism Tolkien mastered.
The Anglosphere avoided the tragedy of Modernism, following Hume’s rejection of Reason.