Masculine and Feminine Insights Into the Fantastic World of Elves: J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings and Muriel Barbery’s the Life of Elves

The paper focuses on the fantasy universes created by J.R.R. Tolkien and by the more recent French writer, Muriel Barbery. The two authors excel in their depiction of the elusive world of the elves, each offering a deeply personal vision (a man writer’s and a woman writer’s) of what such magical beings may be like and how they may relate to humankind.