Biography
Richard Carroll West was born on August 13, 1944. He was educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He began studying J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium in 1968, visiting the Tolkien archives at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin many times from then for some 45 years. He edited ''Orcrist'', the journal of the University of Wisconsin Tolkien Society; he co-founded that society in 1966. He worked for many years as serials and technical services librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, alongside his Tolkien studies. West was part of the group of science fiction fans and scholars who founded WisCon, the firstAwards and distinctions
* 1976 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies * 2014 Scholar Guest of Honor atReception
Jared Lobdell, in the '' J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia'', wrote that "at least one observer has suggested that the best single essay in Tolkien criticism is Richard C. West's "The Interlace Structure of ''The Lord of the Rings''". He noted that at the time West was studying under "the expert in ''entrelacement''", Eugène Vinaver. Lobdell describes the essay as scholarly form-criticism, so useful that it does not belong to the category of egative"criticism" as commonly understood. The Tolkien scholar Dimitra Fimi similarly described West's 1975 article "The Interlace Structure of ''The Lord of the Rings''" as a "key article" in Tolkien scholarship. Librarian and Tolkien scholar David Bratman described it as "one of the pioneering studies in Tolkien’s use of medieval literary techniques". Another well-known Tolkien scholar,Works
Books
* ''Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist'' (Kent State University Press, first edition 1970, updated second edition 1981)Book chapters and articles
* "The Interlace Structure of ''The Lord of the Rings''" in '' A Tolkien Compass'' (Open Court, 1975, ed. Jared Lobdell) * "Setting the Rocket Off in Story: The ''Kalevala'' as the Germ of Tolkien's Legendarium" in ''Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader'' (University Press of Kentucky, 2004) * "A Tolkien Checklist: Selected Criticism 1981-2004", ''Modern Fiction Studies'' 40:4 (2004) * "'And She Named Her Own Name': Being True To One's Word in Tolkien's Middle-earth", ''Tolkien Studies'' 2 (2005) * "Her Choice Was Made and Her Doom Appointed" in ''The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder'' (Marquette University Press, 2006) * "Neither the Shadow nor the Twilight: The Love Story of Aragorn and Arwen in Literature and Film" in ''Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy'' (McFarland & Company, 2011) * "Where Fantasy Fits: The Importance of Being Tolkien", ''Mythlore'' 33:1, article 2 (2014) West contributed chapters to the following scholarly books: * "Túrin's ''Ofermod'': An Old English Theme in the Development of the Story of Túrin" in ''Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth'' (Greenwood Press, 2000) * "Real-World Myth in a Secondary World: Mythological Aspects in the Story of Beren and Lúthien" in ''Tolkien the Medievalist'' (Routledge, 2003) * "'Lack of Counsel Not of Courage': J.R.R. Tolkien's Critique of the Heroic Ethos in The Children of Húrin" in ''Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey'' (McFarland & Company, 2014) * "Canute and Beorhtnoth" in ''A Wilderness of Dragons: Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger'' (The Gabbro Head Press, 2018)References
{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Richard C. 1944 births 2020 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Wisconsin University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Tolkien Society members University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Place of birth missing Tolkien studies