From Baggins to Beowful and Back Again: Teaching (via) Tolkien

Beowulf, is traditionally at least, a difficult text for incoming freshmen. The Hobbit is arguably less so. In part this has much to do with their respective languages: one is so archaic as to seem foreign, the other is as comfortable as an old English shoe. One is a tale told to children around a quiet fire, the other an elegy shouted above raucous barbarians at beer. Beowulf is peppered with digressions, and shot through with violent revenge cycles. The Hobbit is a relatively straightfoward quest, adventures along the way notwithstanding. They are, on the surface at least, as distinct as night and day