This four-week hybrid course reads Tolkien's final published fiction as a valedictory work, one whose unusual survival of authorial notes and public critical disagreement make it uniquely suited to close, evidence-based study.

Week One establishes the story's composition history, its origins in a rejected commission to preface George MacDonald's The Golden Key, and its status as an "old man's book" written in Tolkien's mid-seventies.

Week Two turns to the central critical crux of the course, the disagreement between Verlyn Flieger and Tom Shippey over whether Smith should be read as allegory or resists that mode entirely, using Tolkien's own vacillating notes as primary evidence.

Week Three examines the story's singular treatment of Faery as an experienced rather than a described place, testing Croft's concept of "faërian drama" directly against the text.

Week Four closes with character study of Smith, Nokes, and Alf, tracing the theme of renunciation through the story's double structure of succession and drawing the four weeks together into a single account of what this story uniquely attempts.

The module will follow an 8-session structure and is shown by weeks:

Week	Topic
Week 1	Context — The Last Tale
Week 2	Allegory versus Bounce — The Flieger–Shippey Debate
Week 3	Faery and Faërian Drama
Week 4	Characterisation, Craft, and the Passing of the Gift