Michael D. C. Drout

Michael D. C. Drout
Born	May 3, 1968
Occupation	Literary critic and author
Nationality	American
Period	2002-present
Genre	Fantasy Anglo-Saxon literature Medieval literature Science fiction
Website
michaeldrout.com

Michael D. C. Drout (born 1968) is the Prentice Professor of English and Former Chair of the Department of English at Wheaton College and an author and editor specializing in Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature, science fiction and fantasy, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin.

Drout holds a Ph.D. in English from Loyola University Chicago (May 1997), an M.A. in English from the University of Missouri (May 1993), an M.A. in Communication from Stanford University (May 1991), and a B.A. in Professional and Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University.

He is best known for his studies of Tolkien's scholarly work on Beowulf and the precursors and textual evolution of the essay Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics, published as Beowulf and the Critics by J. R. R. Tolkien (2002), which won the Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship in Inklings Studies, 2003.

He is the editor of the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment (2006), a one-volume reference on Tolkien's works and their contexts.

With Douglas A. Anderson and Verlyn Flieger, he is co-editor of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review, (Volumes 1–7, 2004–2010).

Books

Books written or edited by Michael Drout include:

• 2002, (editor), Beowulf and the Critics by J. R. R. Tolkien, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 248 (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), Tempe, AZ, ISBN 0-86698-290-6
• 2007, (editor), J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment (New York; London: Routledge, 2007), ISBN 9780415969420; 0415969425
• 2013, (editor), J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 1135880344, 9781135880347

Audio

Michael Drout has published ten audio lectures for Recorded Books' Modern Scholar Series:

• Bard of the Middle Ages: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
• Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature
• From Here to Infinity: An Explanation of Science Fiction Literature
• A Way With Words: Writing, Rhetoric, and the Art of Persuasion
• History of the English Language
• A Way With Words II: Approaches to Literature
• A Way With Words III: Understanding Grammar for Powerful Communication
• A Way With Words IV: Understanding Poetry
• Anglo-Saxon World
• Tolkien and the West: Recovering the Lost Tradition of Europe

Having both a nostalgic love of the Anglo-Saxon language, and academic expertise in its linguistic basis for the modern English Language; Drout maintains a growing collection of recorded Anglo-Saxon on Anglo-Saxon Aloud.

References

• Faculty page at Wheaton College
• Michael D. C. Drout's Vita
• Tolkien Studies bibilographic information at Muse

External links

• Michael D. C. Drout's personal home page