J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion , drew on a wide array of influences including language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. He was inspired primarily by his profession, philology; his work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf , and he acknowledged its importance to his writings.
He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Germanic, Celtic, Finnish, Slavic, and Greek language and mythology. His fiction reflected his Christian beliefs and his early reading of adventure stories and fantasy books. Commentators have attempted to identify many literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings. Some writers were certainly important to him, including the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris, and he undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home.
Tolkien stated that he had been influenced by his childhood experiences of the English countryside of Worcestershire and its urbanisation by the growth of Birmingham, and his personal experience of the First World War.
Tolkien was a professional philologist, a scholar of comparative and historical linguistics. He was especially familiar with Old English and related languages. He remarked to the poet and The New York Times book reviewer Harvey Breit that "I am a philologist and all my work is philological"; he explained to his American publisher Houghton Mifflin that this was meant to imply that his work was "all of a piece, and fundamentally linguistic [sic] in inspiration. ... The invention of languages is the foundation. The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows." [7]
Tolkien began his mythology with the 1914 poem The Voyage of Earendel the Evening Star, inspired by the Old English poem Crist 1 . [8] [5] Around 1915, he had the idea that his constructed language Quenya was spoken by Elves whom Eärendil meets during his journeys. [9] From there, he wrote the Lay of Earendel, telling of Earendel and his voyages and how his ship is turned into the morning star. [10] [11] [4] [12] These lines from Crist 1 also gave Tolkien the term Middle-earth (translating Old English Middangeard). Accordingly, the medievalists Stuart D. Lee and Elizabeth Solopova state that Crist 1 was "the catalyst for Tolkien's mythology". [8] [5] [6]
Tolkien was an expert on Old English literature, especially the epic poem Beowulf , and made many uses of it in The Lord of the Rings . For example, Beowulf's list of creatures, eotenas ond ylfe ond orcnéas, "ettens [giants] and elves and demon-corpses", contributed to his creation of some of the races of beings in Middle-earth, though with so little information about what elves were like, he was forced to combine scraps from all the Old English sources he could find. [14]
He derived the Ents from a phrase in another Old English poem, Maxims II , orþanc enta geweorc, "skilful work of giants"; [15] The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey suggests that Tolkien took the name of the tower of Orthanc (orþanc) from the same phrase, reinterpreted as "Orthanc, the Ents' fortress". [16] The word occurs again in Beowulf in the phrase searonet seowed, smiþes orþancum, "[a mail-shirt, a] cunning-net sewn, by a smith's skill": Tolkien used searo in its Mercian form *saru for the name of Orthanc's ruler, the wizard Saruman, incorporating the ideas of cunning and technology into Saruman's character. [17] He made use of Beowulf, too, along with other Old English sources, for many aspects of the Riders of Rohan: for instance, their land was the Mark, a version of the Mercia where he lived, in Mercian dialect *Marc. [18]
Several Middle-earth concepts may have come from the Old English word Sigelwara, used in the Codex Junius to mean "Aethiopian". [21] [22] Tolkien wondered why there was a word with this meaning, and conjectured that it had once had a different meaning, which he explored in detail in his essay "Sigelwara Land", published in two parts in 1932 and 1934. [19] He stated that Sigel meant "both sun and jewel", the former as it was the name of the sun rune *sowilō (ᛋ), the latter from Latin sigillum, a seal. [20] He decided that the second element was *hearwa, possibly related to Old English heorð, "hearth", and ultimately to Latin carbo, "soot". He suggested this implied a class of demons "with red-hot eyes that emitted sparks and faces black as soot". [19] Shippey states that this "helped to naturalise the Balrog" (a demon of fire) and contributed to the sun-jewel Silmarils. [23] The Aethiopians suggested to Tolkien the Haradrim, a dark southern race of men. [a] [24]
In 1928, a 4th-century pagan cult temple was excavated at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire. [26] Tolkien was asked to investigate a Latin inscription there: "For the god Nodens. Silvianus has lost a ring and has donated one-half [its worth] to Nodens. Among those who are called Senicianus do not allow health until he brings it to the temple of Nodens." [27] The Anglo-Saxon name for the place was Dwarf's Hill, and in 1932 Tolkien traced Nodens to the Irish hero Nuada Airgetlám , "Nuada of the Silver-Hand". [28]
Shippey thought this "a pivotal influence" on Tolkien's Middle-earth, combining as it did a god-hero, a ring, dwarves, and a silver hand. [25] The J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia notes also the "Hobbit-like appearance of [Dwarf's Hill]'s mine-shaft holes", and that Tolkien was extremely interested in the hill's folklore on his stay there, citing Helen Armstrong's comment that the place may have inspired Tolkien's "Celebrimbor and the fallen realms of Moria and Eregion". [25] [29] The Lydney curator Sylvia Jones said that Tolkien was "surely influenced" by the site. [30] The scholar of English literature John M. Bowers notes that the name of the Elven-smith Celebrimbor is the Sindarin for "Silver Hand", and that "Because the place was known locally as Dwarf's Hill and honeycombed with abandoned mines, it naturally suggested itself as background for the Lonely Mountain and the Mines of Moria." [31]
Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic. He once described The Lord of the Rings to his friend, the English Jesuit Father Robert Murray, as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision." [32] Many theological themes underlie the narrative, including the battle of good versus evil, the triumph of humility over pride, and the activity of grace, as seen with Frodo's pity toward Gollum. In addition the epic includes the themes of death and immortality, mercy and pity, resurrection, salvation, repentance, self-sacrifice, free will, justice, fellowship, authority and healing. Tolkien mentions the Lord's Prayer, especially the line "And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil" in connection with Frodo's struggles against the power of the One Ring. [33] Tolkien said "Of course God is in The Lord of the Rings. The period was pre-Christian, but it was a monotheistic world", and when questioned who was the One God of Middle-earth, Tolkien replied "The one, of course! The book is about the world that God created – the actual world of this planet." [34]
The Bible and traditional Christian narrative also influenced The Silmarillion . The conflict between Melkor and Eru Ilúvatar parallels that between Satan and God. [35] Further, The Silmarillion tells of the creation and fall of the Elves, as Genesis tells of the creation and fall of Man. [36] As with all of Tolkien's works, The Silmarillion allows room for later Christian history, and one version of Tolkien's drafts even has Finrod, a character in The Silmarillion, speculating on the necessity of Eru Ilúvatar's eventual incarnation to save Mankind. [37] A specifically Christian influence is the notion of the fall of man, which influenced the Ainulindalë, the Kinslaying at Alqualondë, and the fall of Númenor. [38]
Tolkien was influenced by Germanic heroic legend, especially its Norse and Old English forms. During his education at King Edward's School in Birmingham, he read and translated from the Old Norse in his free time. One of his first Norse purchases was the Völsunga saga . While a student, Tolkien read the only available English translation [40] [39] of the Völsunga saga, the 1870 rendering by William Morris of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement and Icelandic scholar Eiríkur Magnússon. [41] The Old Norse Völsunga saga and the Middle High German Nibelungenlied were coeval texts made with the use of the same ancient sources. [42] [43] Both of them provided some of the basis for Richard Wagner's opera series, Der Ring des Nibelungen , featuring in particular a magical but cursed golden ring and a broken sword reforged. In the Völsunga saga, these items are respectively Andvaranaut and Gram, and they correspond broadly to the One Ring and the sword Narsil (reforged as Andúril). [44] The Völsunga saga also gives various names found in Tolkien. Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún discusses the saga in relation to the myth of Sigurd and Gudrún. [45]
Tolkien was influenced by Old English poetry, especially Beowulf; Shippey writes that this was "obviously" [46] the work that had most influence upon him. The dragon Smaug in The Hobbit is closely based on the Beowulf dragon, the points of similarity including its ferocity, its greed for gold, flying by night, having a well-guarded hoard, and being of great age. [47] Tolkien made use of the epic poem in The Lord of the Rings in many ways, including elements like the great hall of Heorot, which appears as Meduseld, the Golden Hall of the Kings of Rohan. The Elf Legolas describes Meduseld in a direct translation of line 311 of Beowulf (líxte se léoma ofer landa fela), "The light of it shines far over the land". [48] The name Meduseld, meaning "mead hall", is itself from Beowulf. Shippey writes that the whole chapter "The King of the Golden Hall" is constructed exactly like the section of the poem where the hero and his party approach the King's hall: the visitors are challenged twice; they pile their weapons outside the door; and they hear wise words from the guard, Háma, a man who thinks for himself and takes a risk in making his decision. Both societies have a king, and both rule over a free people where, Shippey states, just obeying orders is not enough. [48]
The figure of Gandalf is based on the Norse deity Odin [49] in his incarnation as "The Wanderer", an old man with one eye, a long white beard, a wide brimmed hat, and a staff. Tolkien wrote in a 1946 letter that he thought of Gandalf as an "Odinic wanderer". [33] [50] The Balrog and the collapse of the Bridge of Khazad-dûm in Moria parallel the fire jötunn Surtr and the foretold destruction of Asgard's bridge, Bifröst. [51] The "straight road" linking Valinor with Middle-Earth after the Second Age further mirrors the Bifröst linking Midgard and Asgard, and the Valar themselves resemble the Æsir, the gods of Asgard. [52] Thor, for example, physically the strongest of the gods, can be seen both in Oromë, who fights the monsters of Melkor, and in Tulkas, the strongest of the Valar. [49] Manwë, the head of the Valar, has some similarities to Odin, the "Allfather". [49] The division between the Calaquendi (Elves of Light) and Moriquendi (Elves of Darkness) echoes the Norse division of light elves and dark elves. [53] The light elves of Norse mythology are associated with the gods, much as the Calaquendi are associated with the Valar. [54] [55]
Some critics have suggested that The Lord of the Rings was directly derived from Richard Wagner's opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen , whose plot also centres on a powerful ring from Germanic mythology. [56] Others have argued that any similarity is due to the common influence of the Völsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied on both authors. [57] [58] Tolkien sought to dismiss critics' direct comparisons to Wagner, telling his publisher, "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases." [59] According to Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien, the author claimed to hold Wagner's interpretation of the relevant Germanic myths in contempt, even as a young man before reaching university. [60] Some researchers take an intermediate position: that both the authors used the same sources, but that Tolkien was influenced by Wagner's development of the mythology, [61] [62] especially the conception of the Ring as conferring world mastery. [63] Wagner probably developed this element by combining the ring with a magical wand mentioned in the Nibelungenlied that could give to its wearer the control over "the race of men". [64] [65] Some argue that Tolkien's denial of a Wagnerian influence was an over-reaction to statements about the Ring by Åke Ohlmarks, Tolkien's Swedish translator. [66] [67] Others believe that Tolkien was reacting against the links between Wagner's work and Nazism. [68] [69] [b]
Tolkien was "greatly affected" [38] by the Finnish national epic Kalevala , especially the tale of Kullervo, as an influence on Middle-earth. He credited Kullervo's story with being the "germ of [his] attempt to write legends". [72] He tried to rework the story of Kullervo into a story of his own, and though he never finished, [73] similarities to the story can still be seen in the tale of Túrin Turambar. Both are tragic heroes who accidentally commit incest with their sister who on finding out kills herself by leaping into water. Both heroes later kill themselves after asking their sword if it will slay them, which it confirms. [74]
Like The Lord of the Rings, the Kalevala centres around a magical item of great power, the Sampo, which bestows great fortune on its owner, but whose exact nature is never made clear; [75] it has been considered a World pillar (Axis mundi) among other possibilities. [76] Scholars including Randel Helms have suggested that the Sampo contributed to Tolkien's Silmarils that form a central element of his legendarium. [77] Jonathan Himes has suggested further that Tolkien found the Sampo complex, and chose to split the Sampo's parts into desirable objects. The pillar became the Two Trees of Valinor with their Tree of life aspect, illuminating the world. The decorated lid became the brilliant Silmarils, which embodied all that was left of the light of the Two Trees, thus tying the symbols together. [78]
Like the One Ring, the Sampo is fought over by forces of good and evil, and is ultimately lost to the world as it is destroyed towards the end of the story. The work's central character, Väinämöinen, shares with Gandalf immortal origins and wise nature, and both works end with the character's departure on a ship to lands beyond the mortal world. Tolkien also based elements of his Elvish language Quenya on Finnish. [75] [79] Other critics have identified similarities between Väinämöinen and Tom Bombadil. [71]
Influence from Greek mythology is apparent in the disappearance of the island of Númenor, recalling Atlantis. [82] Tolkien's Elvish name "Atalantë" for Númenor resembles Plato's Atlantis, [83] furthering the illusion that his mythology simply extends the history and mythology of the real world. [84] In his Letters , however, Tolkien described this merely as a "curious chance." [85]
Classical mythology colours the Valar, who borrow many attributes from the Olympian gods. [86] The Valar, like the Olympians, live in the world, but on a high mountain, separated from mortals; [87] Ulmo, Lord of the Waters, owes much to Poseidon, while Manwë, the Lord of the Air and King of the Valar, to Zeus. [86]
Tolkien compared Beren and Lúthien with Orpheus and Eurydice, but with the gender roles reversed. [80] Oedipus is mentioned in connection with Túrin in the Children of Húrin, among other mythological figures:
There is the Children of Húrin, the tragic tale of Túrin Turambar and his sister Níniel – of which Túrin is the hero: a figure that might be said (by people who like that sort of thing, though it is not very useful) to be derived from elements in Sigurd the Volsung, Oedipus, and the Finnish Kullervo. [38]
Fëanor has been compared with Prometheus by researchers such as Verlyn Flieger. They share a symbolical and literal association with fire, are both rebels against the gods' decrees and inventors of artefacts that were sources of light, or vessels to divine flame. [88]
The extent of Celtic influence has been debated. Tolkien wrote that he gave the Elvish language Sindarin "a linguistic character very like (though not identical with) Welsh ... because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers". [90] Some names of characters and places in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have Welsh origin; for instance, Crickhollow in the Shire recalls the Welsh placename Crickhowell, [91] while the hobbit name Meriadoc has been suggested as an allusion to a legendary king of Brittany, [92] though Tolkien denied any connection. [93] In addition, the depiction of Elves has been described as deriving from Celtic mythology. [94]
Tolkien wrote of "a certain distaste" for Celtic legends, "largely for their fundamental unreason", [95] but The Silmarillion is thought by scholars to have some Celtic influence. The exile of the Noldorin Elves, for example, has parallels with the story of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish mythology. [96] The Tuatha Dé Danann, semi-divine beings, invaded Ireland from across the sea, burning their ships when they arrived and fighting a fierce battle with the current inhabitants. The Noldor arrived in Middle-earth from Valinor and burned their ships, then turned to fight Melkor. Another parallel can be seen between the loss of a hand by Maedhros, son of Fëanor, and the similar mutilation suffered by Nuada Airgetlám / Llud llaw Ereint ("Silver Hand/Arm") during the battle with the Firbolg. [97] [98] Nuada received a hand made of silver to replace the lost one, and his later appellation has the same meaning as the Elvish name Celebrimbor : "silver fist" or "Hand of silver" in Sindarin (Telperinquar in Quenya). [99] [31]
The Arthurian legends are part of the Celtic cultural heritage. Tolkien denied their influence, but critics have found several parallels. [100] [101] [102] [103] Authors such as Donald O'Brien, Patrick Wynne, Carl Hostetter, and Tom Shippey have pointed out similarities between the tale of Beren and Lúthien in The Silmarillion and Culhwch and Olwen , a tale in the Welsh Mabinogion . In both, the male heroes make rash promises after having been stricken by the beauty of non-mortal maidens; both enlist the aid of great kings, Arthur and Finrod; both show rings that prove their identities; and both are set impossible tasks that include, directly or indirectly, the hunting and killing of ferocious beasts (the wild boars, Twrch Trwyth and Ysgithrywyn, and the wolf Carcharoth) with the help of a supernatural hound (Cafall and Huan). Both maidens possess such beauty that flowers grow beneath their feet when they come to meet the heroes for the first time, as if they were living embodiments of spring. [104] The Mabinogion was part of the Red Book of Hergest , a source of Welsh Celtic lore, which the Red Book of Westmarch , a supposed source of Hobbit-lore, probably imitates. [105]
Gandalf has been compared with Merlin, [106] Frodo and Aragorn with Arthur, [107] and Galadriel with the Lady of the Lake. [100] Flieger has investigated the correlations and Tolkien's creative methods. [108] She points out visible correspondences such as Avalon and Avallónë, and Brocéliande and Broceliand, the original name of Beleriand. [109] Tolkien himself said that Frodo's and Bilbo's departure to Tol Eressëa (also called "Avallon" in the Legendarium) was an "Arthurian ending". [109] [110] Such correlations are discussed in the posthumously published The Fall of Arthur ; a section, "The Connection to the Quenta", explores Tolkien's use of Arthurian material in The Silmarillion. [111] Another parallel is between the Arthurian tale of Sir Balin and that of Tolkien's Túrin Turambar. Though Balin knows he wields an accursed sword, he continues his quest to regain King Arthur's favour. Fate catches up with him when he unwittingly kills his own brother, who mortally wounds him. Turin accidentally kills his friend Beleg with his sword. [112]
There are a few echoes of Slavic mythology in Tolkien's novels, such as the names of the wizard Radagast and his home at Rhosgobel in Rhovanion; all three appear to be connected with the Slavic god Rodegast, a god of the sun, war, hospitality, fertility, and harvest. [113] The Anduin, the Sindarin name for The Great River of Rhovanion, may be related to the Danube River, which flows mainly among the Slavic people and played an important role in their folklore. [113]
The Battle of the Pelennor Fields towards the end of The Lord of the Rings may have been inspired by a conflict of real-world antiquity. Elizabeth Solopova notes that Tolkien repeatedly referred to a historic account of the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields by Jordanes, and analyses the two battles' similarities. Both battles take place between civilisations of the "East" and "West", and like Jordanes, Tolkien describes his battle as one of legendary fame that lasted for several generations. Another apparent similarity is the death of king Theodoric I on the Catalaunian Fields and that of Théoden on the Pelennor. Jordanes reports that Theodoric was thrown off by his horse and trampled to death by his own men who charged forward. Théoden rallies his men shortly before he falls and is crushed by his horse. And like Theodoric, Théoden is carried from the battlefield with his knights weeping and singing for him while the battle still goes on. [114] [115]
Scholars including Nick Groom place Tolkien in the tradition of English antiquarianism, where 18th century authors like Thomas Chatterton, Thomas Percy, and William Stukeley created a wide variety of antique-seeming materials much as Tolkien did, including calligraphy, invented language, forged medieval manuscripts, genealogies, maps, heraldry, and a mass of invented paratexts such as notes and glossaries. [116] Will Sherwood comments that these non-narrative elements "will all sound familiar as they are the techniques that [Tolkien] used to immerse readers into Arda." [117] Sherwood argues that Tolkien intentionally set about improving on antiquarian forgery, eventually creating "the codes and conventions of modern fantasy literature". [117]
Thomas Kullmann and Dirk Siepmann write that The Lord of the Rings imitates "epic poetry from ancient Greece, Ireland and England; early modern romances, folklore and fairy tales; rhetorical traditions and popular poetry", adding that the tradition Tolkien uses most is none of those, but the often overlooked influence of "nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novel-writing." [118] Claire Buck, writing in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia , explores his literary context, [119] while Dale Nelson in the same work surveys 24 authors whose works are paralleled by elements in Tolkien's writings. [120] Postwar literary figures such as Anthony Burgess, Edwin Muir and Philip Toynbee sneered at The Lord of the Rings, but others like Naomi Mitchison and Iris Murdoch respected the work, and W. H. Auden championed it. Those early critics dismissed Tolkien as non-modernist. Later critics have placed Tolkien closer to the modernist tradition with his emphasis on language and temporality, while his pastoral emphasis is shared with First World War poets and the Georgian movement. Buck suggests that if Tolkien was intending to create a new mythology for England, that would fit the tradition of English post-colonial literature and the many novelists and poets who reflected on the state of modern English society and the nature of Englishness. [119]
Tolkien acknowledged a few authors, such asJohn Buchan and H. Rider Haggard, as writing excellent stories. [120] Tolkien stated that he "preferred the lighter contemporary novels", such as Buchan's. [121] Critics have detailed resonances between the two authors. [120] [122] Auden compared The Fellowship of the Ring to Buchan's thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps . [123] Nelson states that Tolkien responded rather directly to the "mythopoeic and straightforward adventure romance" in Haggard. [120] Tolkien wrote that stories about "Red Indians" were his favourites as a boy; Shippey likens the Fellowship's trip downriver, from Lothlórien to Tol Brandir "with its canoes and portages", to James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 historical romance The Last of the Mohicans . [124] Shippey writes that Éomer's riders of Rohan in the scene in the Eastemnet wheel and circle "round the strangers, weapons poised" in a way "more like the old movies' image of the Comanche or the Cheyenne than anything from English history". [125]
When interviewed, the only book Tolkien named as a favourite was Rider Haggard's adventure novel She : "I suppose as a boy She interested me as much as anything—like the Greek shard of Amyntas [Amenartas], which was the kind of machine by which everything got moving." [126] A supposed facsimile of this potsherd appeared in Haggard's first edition, and the ancient inscription it bore, once translated, led the English characters to She's ancient kingdom, perhaps influencing the Testament of Isildur in The Lord of the Rings [127] and Tolkien's efforts to produce a realistic-looking page from the Book of Mazarbul . [128] Critics starting with Edwin Muir [129] have found resemblances between Haggard's romances and Tolkien's. [130] [131] [132] [133] Saruman's death has been compared to the sudden shrivelling of Ayesha when she steps into the flame of immortality. [120]
Parallels between The Hobbit and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth include a hidden runic message and a celestial alignment that direct the adventurers to the goals of their quests. [134]
Tolkien wrote of being impressed as a boy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett's historical fantasy novel The Black Douglas and of using it for the battle with the wargs in The Fellowship of the Ring; [135] critics have suggested other incidents and characters that it may have inspired, [136] [137] but others have cautioned that the evidence is limited. [120] Tolkien stated that he had read many of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books, but denied that the Barsoom novels influenced his giant spiders such as Shelob and Ungoliant: "I developed a dislike for his Tarzan even greater than my distaste for spiders. Spiders I had met long before Burroughs began to write, and I do not think he is in any way responsible for Shelob. At any rate I retain no memory of the Siths or the Apts." [138]
The Ent attack on Isengard was inspired by "Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane" in Shakespeare's Macbeth . [139] Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers has likewise been shown to have reflections in Tolkien; [140] for instance, Bilbo's birthday party speech recalls Pickwick's first speech to his group. [141] A major influence was the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris. Tolkien wished to imitate the style and content of Morris's prose and poetry romances, [142] and made use of elements such as the Dead Marshes [143] and Mirkwood. [144] Another was the fantasy author George MacDonald, who wrote The Princess and the Goblin . Books by the Inkling author Owen Barfield contributed to his world-view, particularly The Silver Trumpet (1925), History in English Words (1926) and Poetic Diction (1928). Edward Wyke-Smith's Marvellous Land of Snergs , with its "table-high" title characters, influenced the incidents, themes, and depiction of Hobbits, [145] as did the character George Babbitt from Babbitt . [146] H. G. Wells's description of the subterranean Morlocks in his 1895 novel The Time Machine are suggestive of some of Tolkien's monsters. [120]
Some locations and characters were inspired by Tolkien's childhood in rural Warwickshire, where from 1896 he first lived near Sarehole Mill, and later in Birmingham near Edgbaston Reservoir. [147] There are also hints of the nearby industrial Black Country; he stated that he had based the description of Saruman's industrialization of Isengard and The Shire on that of England. [148] [c] The name of Bilbo's Hobbit-hole, "Bag End", was the real name of the Worcestershire home of Tolkien's aunt Jane Neave in Dormston. [152] [153]
On publication of The Lord of the Rings there was speculation that the One Ring was an allegory for the atomic bomb; Alan Nicholls wrote that "The closeness of its analogy to the human situation gives it a dreadful reality and relevance. It is a prose-poet's rendering of the mental twilight of the modern world, darkened as it is by the black power ... of the atom bomb". [155] The poet and novelist Edwin Muir disagreed, writing that it could not directly equated with the hydrogen bomb, as it "seems to stand for evil itself". [155] Tolkien insisted that the book was not allegorical, [156] and pointed out that he had completed most of the book, including the ending, before the first use of atomic bombs. [157] However, in a 1960 letter, he wrote that "The Dead Marshes [just north of Mordor] and the approaches to the Morannon [an entrance to Mordor] owe something to northern France after the Battle of the Somme", [158] and, in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings, that the First World War was "no less hideous an experience" for its young participants than the Second. [156] [154] In September and October 1916, Tolkien took part in the Battle of the Somme as a signals officer, before being sent home with trench fever. [159] [160] [161] Tolkien scholars agree that Tolkien responded to the war by creating his Middle-earth legendarium. [162] [163] [164] [165] Commentators have suggested multiple correspondences between Tolkien's wartime experiences and aspects of his Middle-earth writings. For example, the metallic dragons that attack the Elves in the final battle of The Fall of Gondolin are reminiscent of the newly-invented tanks that Tolkien saw. [166] Tolkien's fellow-Inkling C. S. Lewis, who fought in the 1917 Battle of Arras, wrote that The Lord of the Rings realistically portrayed "the very quality of the war my generation knew", including "the flying civilians, the lively, vivid friendships, the background of something like despair and the merry foreground, and such heavensent windfalls as a cache of tobacco 'salvaged' from a ruin". [167]
Tolkien was a core member of the Inklings, an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford between the early 1930s and late 1949. [168] The group shared in Colin Duriez's words "a guiding vision of the relationship of imagination and myth to reality and of a Christian worldview in which a pagan spirituality is seen as prefiguring the advent of Christ and the Christian story." [169] Shippey adds that the group was "preoccupied" with "virtuous pagans", and that The Lord of the Rings is plainly a tale of such people in the dark past before Christian revelation. [170] He further writes that what Tolkien called the Northern theory of courage, namely that even total defeat does not make what is right wrong, was "a vital belief" shared by Tolkien and other Inklings. [171] The group considered philosophical issues, too, which found their way into Tolkien's writings, among them the ancient debate within Christianity on the nature of evil. Shippey notes Elrond's Boethian statement that "nothing is evil in the beginning. Even [the Dark Lord] Sauron was not so", [172] in other words all things were created good; but that the Inklings, as evidenced by C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity , book 2, section 2, to some extent tolerated the Manichean view that Good and Evil are equally powerful, and battle it out in the world. [173] Shippey writes that Tolkien's Ringwraiths embody an Inkling and Boethian idea found in Lewis and Charles Williams, that of things being bent out of shape, the word wraith suggesting "writhe" and "wrath", glossed as "a twisted emotion"; even the world became bent, so men could no longer sail the old straight road westwards to the Undying Lands. All the same, Shippey writes, Tolkien's personal war experience was Manichean: evil seemed at least as powerful as good, and could easily have been victorious, a strand which can also be seen in Middle-earth. [174] At a personal level, Lewis's friendship greatly encouraged Tolkien to keep going with The Lord of the Rings; he wrote that without Lewis "I should never have brought The L. of the R. to a conclusion." [175]
In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, Man and Men denote humans, whether male or female, in contrast to Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and other humanoid races. Men are described as the second or younger people, created after the Elves, and differing from them in being mortal. Along with Ents and Dwarves, these are the "free peoples" of Middle-earth, differing from the enslaved peoples such as Orcs.
Eärendil the Mariner and his wife Elwing are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. They are depicted in The Silmarillion as Half-elven, the children of Men and Elves. He is a great seafarer who, on his brow, carried the Morning Star, a jewel called a Silmaril, across the sky. The jewel had been saved by Elwing from the destruction of the Havens of Sirion. The Morning Star and the Silmarils are elements of the symbolism of light, for divine creativity, continually splintered as history progresses. Tolkien took Eärendil's name from the Old English name Earendel, found in the poem Crist 1, which hailed him as "brightest of angels"; this was the beginning of Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology. Elwing is the granddaughter of Lúthien and Beren, and is descended from Melian the Maia, while Earendil is the son of Tuor and Idril. Through their progeny, Eärendil and Elwing became the ancestors of the Númenorean, and later Dúnedain, royal bloodline.
Ælfwine the mariner is a fictional character found in various early versions of J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium. Tolkien envisaged Ælfwine as an Anglo-Saxon who visited and befriended the Elves and acted as the source of later mythology. Thus, in the frame story, Ælfwine is the stated author of the various translations in Old English that appear in the twelve-volume The History of Middle-earth edited by Christopher Tolkien.
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä, the fictional universe. Time from that point was measured using Valian Years, though the subsequent history of Arda was divided into three time periods using different years, known as the Years of the Lamps, the Years of the Trees, and the Years of the Sun. A separate, overlapping chronology divides the history into 'Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar'. The first such Age began with the Awakening of the Elves during the Years of the Trees and continued for the first six centuries of the Years of the Sun. All the subsequent Ages took place during the Years of the Sun. Most Middle-earth stories take place in the first three Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar.
Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his The Lord of the Rings, and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of The Silmarillion and documented in his 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth. The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps, and inventing languages and names as a private project to create a mythology for England. The earliest story, "The Voyage of Earendel, the Evening Star", is from 1914; he revised and rewrote the legendarium stories for most of his adult life.
Middle-earth is the setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf. Middle-earth is the oecumene in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium, his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world.
The Silmarillion is a book consisting of a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited, partly written, and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by Guy Gavriel Kay, who became a fantasy author. It tells of Eä, a fictional universe that includes the Blessed Realm of Valinor, the ill-fated region of Beleriand, the island of Númenor, and the continent of Middle-earth, where Tolkien's most popular works—The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—are set. After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher, Stanley Unwin, requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the writings that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic", so Tolkien began working on a new story that eventually became The Lord of the Rings.
Christianity is a central theme in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional works about Middle-earth, but the specifics are always kept hidden. This allows for the books' meaning to be personally interpreted by the reader, instead of the author detailing a strict, set meaning.
J. R. R. Tolkien built a process of decline and fall in Middle-earth into both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.
England and Englishness are represented in multiple forms within J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings; it appears, more or less thinly disguised, in the form of the Shire and the lands close to it; in kindly characters such as Treebeard, Faramir, and Théoden; in its industrialised state as Isengard and Mordor; and as Anglo-Saxon England in Rohan. Lastly, and most pervasively, Englishness appears in the words and behaviour of the hobbits, both in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien's monsters are the evil beings, such as Orcs, Trolls, and giant spiders, who oppose and sometimes fight the protagonists in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. Tolkien was an expert on Old English, especially Beowulf, and several of his monsters share aspects of the Beowulf monsters; his Trolls have been likened to Grendel, the Orcs' name harks back to the poem's orcneas, and the dragon Smaug has multiple attributes of the Beowulf dragon. The European medieval tradition of monsters makes them either humanoid but distorted, or like wild beasts, but very large and malevolent; Tolkien follows both traditions, with monsters like Orcs of the first kind and Wargs of the second. Some scholars add Tolkien's immensely powerful Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron to the list, as monstrous enemies in spirit as well as in body. Scholars have noted that the monsters' evil nature reflects Tolkien's Roman Catholicism, a religion which has a clear conception of good and evil.
J. R. R. Tolkien, a fantasy author and professional philologist, drew on the Old English poem Beowulf for multiple aspects of his Middle-earth legendarium, alongside other influences. He used elements such as names, monsters, and the structure of society in a heroic age. He emulated its style, creating an impression of depth and adopting an elegiac tone. Tolkien admired the way that Beowulf, written by a Christian looking back at a pagan past, just as he was, embodied a "large symbolism" without ever becoming allegorical. He worked to echo the symbolism of life's road and individual heroism in The Lord of the Rings.
J. R. R. Tolkien's presentation of heroism in The Lord of the Rings is based on medieval tradition, but modifies it, as there is no single hero but a combination of heroes with contrasting attributes. Aragorn is the man born to be a hero, of a line of kings; he emerges from the wilds and is uniformly bold and restrained. Frodo is an unheroic, home-loving Hobbit who has heroism thrust upon him when he learns that the ring he has inherited from his cousin Bilbo is the One Ring that would enable the Dark Lord Sauron to dominate the whole of Middle-earth. His servant Sam sets out to take care of his beloved master, and rises through the privations of the quest to destroy the Ring to become heroic.
J. R. R. Tolkien was attracted to medieval literature, and made use of it in his writings, both in his poetry, which contained numerous pastiches of medieval verse, and in his Middle-earth novels where he embodied a wide range of medieval concepts.
J. R. R. Tolkien took part in the First World War, known then as the Great War, and began his fantasy Middle-earth writings at that time. The Fall of Gondolin was the first prose work that he created after returning from the front, and it contains detailed descriptions of battle and streetfighting. He continued the dark tone in much of his legendarium, as seen in The Silmarillion. The Lord of the Rings, too, has been described as a war book.
J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, created what he came to feel was a moral dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs, when he made them able to speak. This identified them as sentient and sapient; indeed, he portrayed them talking about right and wrong. This meant, he believed, that they were open to morality, like Men. In Tolkien's Christian framework, that in turn meant they must have souls, so killing them would be wrong without very good reason. Orcs serve as the principal forces of the enemy in The Lord of the Rings, where they are slaughtered in large numbers in the battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields in particular.
In Tolkien's legendarium, ancestry provides a guide to character. The apparently genteel Hobbits of the Baggins family turn out to be worthy protagonists of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo Baggins is seen from his family tree to be both a Baggins and an adventurous Took. Similarly, Frodo Baggins has some relatively outlandish Brandybuck blood. Among the Elves of Middle-earth, as described in The Silmarillion, the highest are the peaceful Vanyar, whose ancestors conformed most closely to the divine will, migrating to Aman and seeing the light of the Two Trees of Valinor; the lowest are the mutable Teleri; and in between are the conflicted Noldor. Scholars have analysed the impact of ancestry on Elves such as the creative but headstrong Fëanor, who makes the Silmarils. Among Men, Aragorn, hero of The Lord of the Rings, is shown by his descent from Kings, Elves, and an immortal Maia to be of royal blood, destined to be the true King who will restore his people. Scholars have commented that in this way, Tolkien was presenting a view of character from Norse mythology, and an Anglo-Saxon view of kingship, though others have called his implied views racist.
Tolkien derived the characters, stories, places, and languages of Middle-earth from many sources. Among these are Norse mythology, seen in his Dwarves, Wargs, Trolls, Beorn and the barrow-wight, places such as Mirkwood, characters including the Wizards Gandalf and Saruman and the Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron derived from the Norse god Odin, magical artefacts like the One Ring and Aragorn's sword Andúril, and the quality that Tolkien called "Northern courage". The powerful Valar, too, somewhat resemble the pantheon of Norse gods, the Æsir.
J. R. R. Tolkien repeatedly dealt with the theme of death and immortality in Middle-earth. He stated directly that the "real theme" of The Lord of the Rings was "Death and Immortality." In Middle-earth, Men are mortal, while Elves are immortal. One of his stories, The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, explores the willing choice of death through the love of an immortal Elf for a mortal Man. He several times revisited the Old Norse theme of the mountain tomb, containing treasure along with the dead and visited by fighting. He brought multiple leading evil characters in The Lord of the Rings to a fiery end, including Gollum, the Nazgûl, the Dark Lord Sauron, and the evil Wizard Saruman, while in The Hobbit, the dragon Smaug is killed. Their destruction contrasts with the heroic deaths of two leaders of the free peoples, Théoden of Rohan and Boromir of Gondor, reflecting the early medieval ideal of Northern courage. Despite these pagan themes, the work contains hints of Christianity, such as of the resurrection of Christ, as when the Lord of the Nazgûl, thinking himself victorious, calls himself Death, only to be answered by the crowing of a cockerel. There are, too, hints that the Elvish land of Lothlórien represents an Earthly Paradise. Scholars have commented that Tolkien clearly moved during his career from being oriented towards pagan themes to a more Christian theology.
The English author J. R. R. Tolkien has often been supposed to have spoken of wishing to create "a mythology for England". It seems he never used the actual phrase, but various commentators have found his biographer Humphrey Carpenter's phrase appropriate as a description of much of his approach in creating Middle-earth, and the legendarium behind The Silmarillion.
The wish-rod lay among them, / of gold a little wand.
Whosoe'er its powers / full might understand,
The same might make him master / o'er all the race of men.
Andrew Morton, used this catalogue as one of his sources and reproduced it in full. He discovered that the farm was owned by Tolkien's aunt in the 1920s and was visited by the author on at least a couple of occasions. The name is probably all that was used, as the farm bears little resemblance otherwise to the Hobbit dwelling of the books.
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