http://www.davidbrin.com/tolkienarticle1.html
David Brin is a pretty established science fiction writer, having won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In this essay he writes about the relationship between the Enlightenment and Romanticism, using Lord of The Rings as context. It is an interesting topic – the appeal of themes drives our behaviour as thinking beings in a way that is on the fringes of free will, neither controlled nor uncontrollable. Brin describes Romanticism as both aiding and rebelling against the industrial modernity brought by the Enlightenment. The two are neither clearly ally nor adversary, which makes the whole thing pretty interesting.