The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien

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The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien
Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien cover.jpg
First British edition
Editor John Garth
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Subject J. R. R. Tolkien
PublisherFrances Lincoln
Publication date
2020
Media typeHardback
Pages208
ISBN 978-0-71124-127-5

The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth is a 2020 non-fiction book by the journalist and Tolkien scholar John Garth. It describes the places that most likely inspired J. R. R. Tolkien to invent Middle-earth, as portrayed in his fantasy books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings . Those places include many that Tolkien lived in or visited in his early life, as well as sites from history and literature. Most are real, for instance with England as the counterpart of the Shire, though some, like Atlantis, are mythical, and others, like Mirkwood, probably have roots in real places. He notes the ambiguities in some of the connections, and that others have made superficial comparisons, such as of Tolkien's towers with various modern towers in Birmingham, where Tolkien lived as a child. Garth presents his theories of the likely origins of some of these places, supporting these with maps and photographs.

Contents

Scholars broadly welcomed the book as a well-researched contribution to Tolkien studies. In their view, it avoids the trap of simply trying to map each feature of Middle-earth to a place in the real world; instead, Garth explains how Tolkien had skilfully interwoven geographic elements to suit his storytelling. The book's popular reception was more mixed; critics noted the book's handsome format and attractive illustrations, while remaining uncertain of its audience and whether its opinions were soundly based.

Author

John Garth read English at St Anne's College, Oxford. He trained as a journalist and worked for 18 years on newspapers including the Evening Standard in London. He then became a freelance author while continuing to contribute newspaper articles. After independently researching Tolkien's world for many years, he became known as an authority on Tolkien with his 2003 book Tolkien and the Great War . [G 1]

Book

Publication history

The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien was published in 2020 in hardback by Frances Lincoln Publishers in the United Kingdom and by Princeton University Press in the United States. In 2021 it was translated into Czech, French, and German. [1]

Content

Garth states that the voyages of Brendan influenced Tolkien to create lands across the sea. Painting by Edward Reginald Frampton, 1908 The Voyage of St. Brandan by Edward Reginald Frampton, 1908, oil on canvas - Chazen Museum of Art - DSC02356.JPG
Garth states that the voyages of Brendan influenced Tolkien to create lands across the sea. Painting by Edward Reginald Frampton, 1908

The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien begins with a brief introduction in which Garth sets out his approach. He states that he brings "a particular interest in biography, history, landscape and language". [G 3] On his method, he explains: "I observe Tolkien's footsteps closely, consider the context, and try to enter sympathetically into his creative thoughts and feelings". [G 4] This is followed by 11 unnumbered chapters that group Tolkien's places by theme, and a detailed set of helps including an appendix, notes, and scholarly bibliography.

The book's chapters begin with England, the origin of many elements of Middle-earth including The Shire; this was the starting-point for both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings . [G 5] Garth then looks in successive chapters at what he considers Tolkien to have viewed as the "Four Winds" (the title of a chapter) from the corners of the Earth, namely Norse myth for the North, Celtic faerie including the Tuatha Dé Danann for the West, ancient Greece for the South with such things as the legend of Atlantis, and Mesopotamia and medieval legends of Alexander the Great for the East. [G 6] He then examines the origins of Tolkien's mythology for England and his early attempts to connect specific places like Warwick with places such as Kortirion in Middle-earth, and more broadly to map England to his lost western realm of Beleriand. [G 7]

The chapter "The Shore and the Sea" looks at Tolkien's use of the sea, from his own painting at the Lizard peninsula to the voyages of the Irish saint Brendan. [G 8] Garth then illustrates Tolkien's mountains, showing what they owe to his sole visit to Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland in 1911 in the "Roots of the Mountains" chapter, including Tolkien's painting of Rivendell. [G 9] The chapter "Rivers, Lakes, and Waterlands" argues that they have both personalities and symbolic significance; Garth also argues they are connected to places Tolkien knew, like the willow-meads of the River Cherwell, and to the books he read. [G 10] A chapter entitled "Tree-Woven Lands" illustrates how important trees were to Tolkien, along with the mythical wild men who inhabited them. Trees and forests are found in abundance in Middle-earth, and the forest of Mirkwood has ancient roots in medieval legends of the Huns and the Goths. Garth notes that these state that Myrkviðr, upon which Mirkwood is based, is by the River Dnieper of Eastern Europe – a fact that Tolkien mentioned in a poem. [G 11]

Tolkien was a philologist with a side-interest in archaeology. These concerns are reflected in his many uses of the medieval in Middle-earth, along with earlier elements of the landscape such as long barrows, stone circles, and lake towns, as described in the chapter "Ancient Imprints". [G 12] Garth devotes a chapter, "Watch and Ward", to the fortified towers of Middle-earth, including Minas Tirith and Orthanc. He points out that the title of Tolkien's The Two Towers was intentionally ambiguous as to which of the five possible towers were intended. Garth discounts superficial comparisons with modern towers in Birmingham, pointing out multiple origins in landscape and literature, from Faringdon Folly to Dante's Divine Comedy . [G 13]

The chapter "Places of War" summarises Garth's research for his earlier book Tolkien and the Great War , showing the profound effect Tolkien's wartime experiences had on his writings. [G 14] Finally, Garth looks at the influence of craft and industry on Tolkien's writings, from William Morris's Arts and Crafts movement to the creeping enlargement of industrial Birmingham which swallowed up Tolkien's boyhood home at Sarehole. [G 15]

The appendix sets out Garth's views on two matters. First, he explores the possible origins of the One Ring in the Temple of Nodens at Lydney Park, and the possibly associated Ring of Silvianus (the Vyne Ring), which he discounts. Second, he examines Tolkien's much-debated written remark that "Personally I do not think either war (and of course not the atomic bomb) had any influence upon either the plot [of The Lord of the Rings] or the manner of its unfolding. Perhaps in landscape. The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme. They owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans, as in The House of the Wolfings or The Roots of the Mountains." [2] Garth explains Tolkien's remark as two separate statements, with invisible parentheses bracketing the second and third sentences. This would mean that while Tolkien found Morris's writings useful, the war perhaps influenced the shattered landscapes of the Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon (the Black Gate). Other scholars have puzzled over the remark; Garth mentions that Tom Shippey takes it to mean that soldiers in the Great War found Tolkien "more realistic ... than the genteel novels favoured by literary critics". [G 16]

The book is illustrated with numerous photographs of places and artefacts that could have inspired Tolkien, maps (both hand-drawn and historic), artworks by Tolkien of Middle-earth and real-world subjects, and artworks that Tolkien might have seen or which illustrate similar themes.

Reception

Garth compares Cerin Amroth, a grassy mound in Lothlorien surrounded by two circles of trees, to the Motte of Warwick Castle, known as Ethelfleda's Mound (pictured), where a young Tolkien went with his future wife Edith Bratt. Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, England, a popular tourist destination.jpg
Garth compares Cerin Amroth, a grassy mound in Lothlórien surrounded by two circles of trees, to the Motte of Warwick Castle, known as Ethelfleda's Mound (pictured), where a young Tolkien went with his future wife Edith Bratt.

The Tolkien scholar Mike Foster writes in a long review in Mythlore , describing the contents of each chapter, that "Tolkien scholarship is much the richer" for the book. Its "prodigal detail" includes drawings never previously published, maps, and paintings that exploit the book's large (8"×10") format as well as Garth's well-researched text and informative sidebars. [3]

The scholar Matthew Fisher, writing in Tolkien Studies , comments that Tolkien scholarship has considered his concern for nature and the environment, and to some extent the geography of Middle-earth, with some "geographic source criticism" that made "an attempt to compile a list of equalities where A in the real world equals B in Middle-earth". In his view, Garth does not do this, but rather looks at the places that inspired Tolkien and shows how he made use of them in varied ways to construct Middle-earth. Fisher quotes Garth's introduction on what he considers a richer approach: "The book ... examines the influences that shaped his imagined cultures and cosmology. It counts place as a combination of location, geology, ecology, culture, nomenclature, and other factors." [4]

Laura Schmidt writes in VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center that Garth is following up on multiple studies of Tolkien's locations, not to mention the tourist industry around some of them in Oxford and elsewhere, but that he separates fact from fiction, listing both his reasoning and his sources. Schmidt states that the book gave her the "revelation" that Tolkien's use of places is like the way he weaves his languages from many materials until, with philological skill, they fit snugly together. Similarly, he mixed and matched places and geographic elements until he had what he wanted. [5]

John L. Murphy, reviewing the book for New York Journal of Books, writes that Garth adds "a careful eye and steady step" to the "ever-proliferating pile of Tolkien-related media". He notes Garth's description of Tolkien's literary approach as using "a paint-box, in which the author dipped, daubed, and mixed layers of color, depth, hue, form, and drama into his vast legacy of narratives." He quotes, too, Garth's "astute caution" to readers that Tolkien described "races and places as seen by medieval poets and chroniclers, not necessarily as they actually were". He notes Garth's correction of Tolkien's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, who equated Birmingham to the dark land of Mordor; Murphy writes that Garth instead examines "that city's toy industry, and its buildings preserving the Gothic Revival and William Morris' Arts and Crafts Movement of Victorian times", and thus influencing Middle-earth's artistry and craftsmanship. In Murphy's view, both those new to Middle-earth and "veteran pilgrim[s]" will learn much from the book. [6]

Clea Simon, in her review for the arts fuse, called the book beautifully produced and "replete with illustrations" with "evocative landscapes", maps, architectural details, and Tolkien's own paintings, making it in her opinion "a lovely keepsake for fans". She found the works of "lesser artists" to be "less lovely", undercutting Tolkien's own imagination. She called it "a short book ... more an essay than a full manuscript", and repetitive. She noted that Garth was "a painstaking scholar", but that in the book he "ignores the poetry and creativity underpinning Tolkien's classic, dissecting it in an over-thought (and, at times, overwrought) search for connections to the author's real-life experiences". She notes that Garth quotes Gandalf's remark that "he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom", and states that Garth is guilty of just that. In her view, the text might have worked well as "a series of speculative essays", but its packaging as a definitive work did a disservice both to Garth and to "the underlying scholarship". [7]

Darragh McManus, reviewing the book for the Irish Independent , considers it best for a general audience that is already familiar with Tolkien's books, since Garth expects detailed knowledge of Tolkien's placenames from his readers. He grants, however, that even specialists would appreciate its visual appeal. [8]

Tom Chivers, reviewing the work for The Times , writes that The Lord of the Rings is not so much an escapist adventure as a tale of heartbreak and the loss of innocence as the world is threatened by overwhelming dark. In his view, Garth takes the book that way, bringing out Tolkien's "elegiac tone", ostensibly describing landscapes that inspired Middle-earth, but "unavoidably, a history of the man and his ideas". Chivers comments that the book is physically beautiful, richly bound and wonderfully illustrated, giving it the look of a coffee-table book. He adds that much of it is "surely speculative" as it expresses many of Garth's opinions and theories. [9]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

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<i>The Atlas of Middle-earth</i> 1981 book by Karen Wynn Fonstad

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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the real-world history and notable fictional elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy universe. It covers materials created by Tolkien; the works on his unpublished manuscripts, by his son Christopher Tolkien; and films, games and other media created by other people.

The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have served as the inspiration to painters, musicians, film-makers and writers, to such an extent that he is sometimes seen as the "father" of the entire genre of high fantasy.

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<i>J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century</i> Book by Tom Shippey

J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is a 2000 book of literary criticism written by Tom Shippey. It is about the work of the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien. In it, Shippey argues for the relevance of Tolkien today and attempts to firmly establish Tolkien's literary merits, based on analysis of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and Tolkien's shorter works.

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Mirkwood is a name used for a great dark fictional forest in novels by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris in the 19th century, and by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 20th century. The critic Tom Shippey explains that the name evoked the excitement of the wildness of Europe's ancient North.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mordor</span> Evil land in J. R. R. Tolkiens Middle-earth legendarium

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to the south of Mirkwood. Mount Doom, a volcano in Mordor, was the goal of the Fellowship of the Ring in the quest to destroy the One Ring. Mordor was surrounded by three mountain ranges, to the north, the west, and the south. These both protected the land from invasion and kept those living in Mordor from escaping.

<i>The Road to Middle-Earth</i> Book of literary criticism of Tolkien

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trees and forests in Middle-earth</span> Trees and forests in the fictional works of J. R. R. Tolkien

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Environmentalism in <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> Theme of environmentalism in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

The theme of environmentalism in The Lord of the Rings has been remarked upon by critics since the 1970s. The Hobbits' visions of Saruman's industrial hell of Isengard and Sauron's desolate polluted land of Mordor have been interpreted as comments on modern society, while the destruction of Isengard by the tree-giant Ents, and "The Scouring of the Shire" by the Hobbits, have a strong theme of restoration of the natural environment after such industrial pollution and degradation. However, Tolkien's love of trees and unspoilt nature is apparent throughout the novel.

John Garth is a British journalist and author, known especially for writings about J. R. R. Tolkien including his biography Tolkien and the Great War and a book on the places that inspired Middle-earth, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien. He won a 2004 Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship for his work on Tolkien. The biography influenced much Tolkien scholarship in the subsequent decades.

<i>Tolkien and the Great War</i> 2003 biography of author J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth is a 2003 biography by John Garth of the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien's early life, focusing on his formative military experiences during the First World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Great War and Middle-earth</span> Effect of the First World War on Tolkiens fantasy writings

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, 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.

The architecture in Middle-earth, J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world, is as varied as the Hobbit-holes of the Shire, the tree-houses of Lothlórien, the wooden halls of Rohan, and the stone dwellings and fortifications of Minas Tirith, capital of Gondor. Tolkien uses the architecture in each place, including its interior design, to provide clues to each people's character. The Hobbit Bilbo Baggins's cosy home, Bag End, described in his 1937 children's book The Hobbit, establishes the character of Hobbits as averse to travelling outside the Shire. In his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, Lothlórien demonstrates the close integration of the Elves with their natural environment. The King of Rohan's hall, Meduseld, indicates the Rohirrim's affinity with Anglo-Saxon culture, while Gondor's tall and beautiful stone architecture was described by Tolkien as "Byzantine". In contrast, the Dark Lord Sauron and the fallen Wizard Saruman's realms are damaged lands around tall dark towers.

References

Primary

  1. ↑ Garth, John. "About". John Garth. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  2. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 60–81
  3. ↑ Garth 2020 , p. 6
  4. ↑ Garth 2020 , p. 6
  5. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 10–23
  6. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 24–41
  7. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 42–59
  8. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 60–81
  9. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 83–99
  10. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 100–111
  11. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 112–131
  12. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 132–145
  13. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 146–157
  14. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 158–173
  15. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 174–185
  16. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 187–188
  17. ↑ Garth 2020 , pp. 118–121

Secondary

  1. ↑ Formats and Editions of 'The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth'. WorldCat. OCLC   1203557739. Archived from the original on 20 October 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  2. ↑ Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (1981). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien . Boston: Houghton Mifflin. letter 226 to L. W. Forster, 31 December 1960. ISBN   978-0-395-31555-2.
  3. ↑ Foster, Mike (2020). "The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places That Inspired Middle-earth, by John Garth". Mythlore . 39 (1). article 19, pages 220–229. Archived from the original on 24 September 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  4. ↑ Fisher, Matthew A. (2021). "[Review of] 'The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien'". Tolkien Studies . 18 (18): 245–249. doi:10.1353/tks.2021.0015. S2CID   241940126.
  5. ↑ Schmidt, Laura (2020). "[Review of] 'The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien'". VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center. 37 (2): e172–e174. Archived from the original on 20 October 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  6. ↑ Murphy, John L. "[Review:] The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places That Inspired Middle-earth". New York Journal of Books. Archived from the original on 20 October 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  7. ↑ Simon, Clea (1 June 2020). "Book Review: "The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien" — Ignoring the Poetry". the arts fuse. Archived from the original on 20 October 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  8. ↑ McManus, Darragh (15 August 2020). "The Worlds of JRR Tolkien: A scenic guide to the lands that inspired Tolkien". Irish Independent . Archived from the original on 20 October 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  9. ↑ Chivers, Tom (4 June 2020). "The Worlds of JRR Tolkien by John Garth review – on the trail of the hobbits". The Times . Archived from the original on 20 October 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
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