b_alonsoes, si como creo (por referencias en otros topics, igual estoy liada) sabes inglés, te recomiendo leerlo en su idioma original.
Un par de datos cogidpos de
aquí:
Ronald was already showing remarkable linguistic gifts. He had mastered the Latin and Greek which was the staple fare of an arts education at that time, and was becoming more than competent in a number of other languages, both modern and ancient, notably Gothic, and later Finnish. He was already busy making up his own languages, purely for fun. (de hecho, este es el origen de sus novelas)
...
When the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918, Tolkien had already been putting out feelers to obtain academic employment, and by the time he was demobilised he had been appointed Assistant Lexicographer on the New English Dictionary (the "Oxford English Dictionary"), then in preparation.
...
his academic publication record is very sparse, something that would have been frowned upon in these days of quantitative personnel evaluation.
However, his rare scholarly publications were often extremely influential, most notably his lecture "Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics". His seemingly almost throwaway comments have sometimes helped to transform the understanding of a particular field - for example, in his essay on "English and Welsh",
No sé, pero creo que a alguien con esos antecedentes, probablemente merece la pena intentar leerlo en su idioma. Caso de que sea posible, por supuesto.