The most famous work of the epic fantasy genre is The Lord of the Rings, written by JRR Tolkien over the course of ten years and published in 1954. In the last few decades c There has been much controversy as to whether or not a story of this kind could be considered a valuable literary work. It was suggested that the fantasy was clichéd and too unrealistic to be in touch with everyday life. However, by reading between the lines, it is possible to find a different interpretation within the same story; an interpretation that may not be as clichéd and far-fetched as one might think. While it is often argued that literary works of the fantasy genre cannot have any literary value, the Lord of the Rings trilogy contains the beautiful, the true and the good (Flood) and is therefore original, is historically or ethically relevant and has value of human truth, which are necessary qualities for a literary work to have value. First, the Lord of the Rings trilogy contains the beautiful and is original, not for the present day, but for its literary standards of its time, when epic fantasy was not written as frequently as in the present day. Avid fantasy readers argue that the book is unoriginal, as it follows the structure of Joseph Campbell's monomyth or the Hero's Journey. The Hero's Journey is a predetermined structure, based on the typical epic fantasy adventure. It typically consists of a cycle of twelve phases, depending on the variant used (Campbell 391), and each story contains at least some of the same standard archetypal characters. Examples of these are the hero, like Frodo, the wizard, like Gandalf, and the trickster, a fun sidekick like Sam. This trilogy is about the journey of these heroes, as they believe… the middle of paper… the th value. The books contain more than just an epic tale: they talk about what really matters, such as good and evil, and what's more they are original in the sense of a modern myth. Works Cited Campbell, Joseph. The hero with a thousand faces. 1949. Novato: New World Library, 2008. Print.Flood, John. "Judging literature". Introduction to literature. Academy building, Groningen. October 14, 2013. Lecture.Tolkien, JRR. "Letter 131." The Letters of JRR Tolkien. Ed. Humprey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien. Expanded edition. Hammersmith: HarperCollins, late 1951. Web. 17 December 2013.Tolkien, JRR. "Letter 156." The Letters of JRR Tolkien. Ed. Humprey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien. Expanded edition. Hammersmith: HarperCollins, 4 November 1954. Web. 17 December 2013.Tolkien, JRR. “Now read on…” Interview by Dennis Gerrolt. BBC Radio 4. BBC, 1971. Web. 11 January. 2014.