Tolkien stated that he wanted to create a mythology evocative of England, not of Italy. Scholars have noted aspects of his work, such as the plants of Ithilien, which are clearly Mediterranean but not specifically classical.
The classical scholar Giuseppe Pezzini writes that "narratives of decline" are common in the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. This is seen in the writings of both Hesiod and Ovid. Pezzini sees the decline of Tolkien's world of Arda from its First Age "filled with Joy and Light" down to its "Twilight" Third Age as echoing the classical theme of decline from the Golden Age.[7] Ross Clare analyses how Tolkien's chronicles of the decline and fall of his island paradise of Númenor might have been influenced by classical frameworks of decline and fall, as provided by the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Suetonius. Clare sees Athenian decline as entailing a three-stage process, like that of Númenor.[8] Hamish Williams regards the narrative of decline and fall in Númenor as a thought-experiment exercise recalling Plato's philosophical arguments, where certain virtues and ideals (sophocracy, moderation, piety, etc.) are emphasized through their loss.[9]
Tolkien built a process of decline and fall in Middle-earth into both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. The pattern is expressed in several ways, including the splintering of the light provided by the Creator, Eru Iluvatar, into progressively smaller parts;[10][T 1] the fragmentation of languages and peoples, especially the Elves, who are split into many groups;[11] the successive falls, starting with that of the angelic spiritMelkor, and followed by the destruction of the two Lamps of Middle-earth and then of the Two Trees of Valinor, and the cataclysmic fall of Númenor.[11] Tolkien's use of the theme cannot be said to be exclusively classical; The Lord of the Rings shares the sense of impending destruction found in Norse mythology, where even the gods will perish. The Dark Lord Sauron may be defeated, but that will entail the fading and departure of the Elves, leaving the world to Men, to industrialise and to pollute, however much Tolkien regretted the fact.[7][12][13]
Decline and fall: the shattered ruins of the Roman city at Baalbek
Pezzini further states that the pattern of divine intervention in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings echoes that in classical epics such as those of Homer, in 8th century BC Greece, and Virgil, in 1st century BC Rome; Tolkien directly linked The Lord of the Rings to their poems in one of his letters.[14][T 2] He notes that Tolkien likened his Valar to "the gods of 'traditional' 'higher' mythology" – meaning, as Richard Purtill explained, the Roman or Greek pantheons, or to an extent also the Æsir of Norse mythology – though with definite differences. In particular, in his early work The Cottage of Lost Play he equated the classical gods to the Valar. Pezzini writes that in The Silmarillion,[14]
the Valar are, in fact, full-fledged epic gods: they speak, they suffer, they desire, they fight, and, above all, they deliberate on the fates of elves and humans (in councils [like those] in Homer and Virgil) and interact with them in order to bring about their providential plans (individual or collective).[14]
Just as with the interactions of the classical gods with mortals, the Valar's interactions with Middle-earth can take multiple forms: direct appearances or theophanies; through messengers such as the Wizard Gandalf, sent by the Valar; through entities in nature, such as eagles or mists; through dreams; through inspiration; and perhaps also through omens.[14] Pezzini writes that Tolkien's approach, that "the gods' messages can be presented as warnings, and not threats or orders and, above all, that they can be ignored by non-divine characters are both unusual scenarios in classical epic".[14] Further points of difference are that if the Valar choose to intervene, they usually do it overtly, unlike the classical gods; and they do so out of a "desire for fellowship" which is lacking in classical accounts.[14] Pezzini comments, too, that divine inspiration is typically a good thing in Tolkien's writings and a bad thing in classical accounts.[14]
Giuseppe Pezzini's analysis of covert divine intervention in Middle-earth[14]
The Valar intervene, too, in The Lord of the Rings, but always covertly. Pezzini takes the example of the wounding of the Orc captain Grishnákh by a fateful arrow in the dark, soon followed by his death.[14]
Giuseppe Pezzini's analysis of a divine intervention in The Lord of the Rings[14]
Plato's 4th century BC tale of decline in Kritias, from the "decadent magnificence"[7] of Atlantis to the humdrum life of Athens, is "unambiguously and intimately"[7] linked to Tolkien's Númenor, since Tolkien made the comparison himself and actually wrote of "Númenor-Atlantis" in his letters. He had considered using this in a time travel novel.[7][T 4] The destruction of Númenor earned it the Quenya name Atalantë "the Downfallen";[T 5] Tolkien described his invention of this additional allusion to Atlantis as a happy accident when he realized that the Quenya root talat- "to fall" could be incorporated into a name for Númenor.[T 6]
The commentator Charles Delattre states that Tolkien's tale of Númenor is a retelling of the myth of Atlantis, the only drowned island in ancient literature. Multiple details align: it began as a perfect world, geometrically laid out to reflect its balance and harmony; it abounds in valuable minerals; and it has unmatched power, with a strong fleet able to project control far beyond its shores, like ancient Athens. Númenor's pride, too, writes Delattre, matches the hubris of Plato's Atlantis; and its downfall recalls the destruction of Atlantis.[15]
Map of Arda in the Second Age, showing Númenor in the Great Sea, Belegaer, between Aman and Middle-earth.
Tolkien wrote of Númenor as Atlantis.[T 4]Athanasius Kircher's 1669 map (here, inverted to place North at the top) places Atlantis between America and Europe (Hispania, Spain).
Michael Kleu writes that Tolkien made "playful use of Greek myths related to Atlas", possibly including pre-Platonic tradition. Kleu comments that the playfulness extends, in The Notion Club Papers,[16][T 7] to making Plato's 2,000 year old version derive from the "real" Downfall of Númenor, which in Tolkien's chronology took place some 7,000 years before Plato.[16]
Michael Kleu's analysis of parallels between Plato's Atlantis and Númenor[16]
Component
Atlantis
Númenor
Location
In the ocean to the west of Europe
In the ocean to the west of Middle-earth
Resources
"extraordinar[il]y fruitful and rich in resources and wildlife"
Geometry
A mountain at the island's centre, with a temple at its top
Tolkien scholars have compared the fall of Gondolin to the sack of Troy, noting that both cities were famed for their walls, and likening Tolkien's tale to Virgil's Aeneid. Both have frame stories, situated long after the events they narrate; both have "gods" (Tolkien's Valar) in the action; and both involve an escape.[18][19][6] David Greenman compares the actions of Tolkien's quest-heroes to those of Aeneas and Odysseus.[19]
David Greenman's analysis of classical "quest-hero" themes[19]
Event
Classical quest-hero
The Lord of the Rings protagonists
Escape from wreck of a kingdom, creation of a new one
Greenman compares and contrasts Idril's part in the story to Cassandra and Helen of Troy, two prominent female figures in accounts of the Trojan War: like the prophetess, Idril had a premonition of impending danger and like Helen, her beauty played a major role in instigating Maeglin's betrayal of Gondolin, which ultimately led to its downfall and ruin. Conversely, Greenman notes that Idril's advice to enact a contingency plan for a secret escape route out of Gondolin was heeded by her people, unlike the warning of Cassandra; and that Idril had always rejected Maeglin's advances and remained faithful to Tuor, unlike Helen who left her husband King Menelaus of Sparta for Prince Paris of Troy.[19]
Alexander Bruce writes that Tolkien's tale parallels Virgil's account, but varies the story. Thus, Morgoth attacks while Gondolin's guard is lowered during a great feast, whereas the Trojans were celebrating the Greeks' apparent retreat, with the additional note of treachery. The Trojan Horse carried the Greeks into Troy, where they set fire to it, paralleled by the fire-serpents which carried "Balrogs in hundreds" into Gondolin. Tolkien's serpents are matched by the great serpents with "burning eyes, fiery and suffused with blood, their tongues a-flicker out of hissing maws" which kill the high priest Laocoön and his sons. Aeneas and his wife Creusa become separated during their escape; her ghost pleads with him to leave when he searches for her, and he travels to Italy; in contrast, Tuor and Idril escape to Sirion together, eventually sailing from there to Valinor.[18] Marco Cristini adds that both cities are fatally attacked during a feast; their heroes both leave their wives to fight, and both see their kings die.[6] Cristini comments further that "The most evident analogy is perhaps the behaviour of Creusa and Idril, who clasp the knees of their husbands to prevent them from joining again the battle when all hope is lost."[6] Scholars have noted that Tolkien himself drew classical parallels for the assault, writing that "Nor Bablon, nor Ninwi, nor the towers of Trui, nor all the many takings of Rûm that is greatest among Men, saw such terror as fell that day upon Amon Gwareth".[18][6]
J. K. Newman likens the scene in which Sam Gamgee reflects on what fiction is, and how he and Frodo are in a tale or will be put into one, to Virgil's account of Aeneas looking at his own tale: "There in order he sees the battles fought at Troy... 'Yes', he said, 'this tale will bring you some yet mysterious salvation'...heaving many a sigh... He even recognised himself in the melee with the Greek champions."[20]
Tolkien appears to have based one scene on another classical source, Euripides' play The Trojan Women. Maeglin tries to throw Idril's son Eärendil from the city wall, just as Hector's son Astyanax is thrown down from Troy's walls. Tolkien changes the outcome: Eärendil resists, and Tuor appears just in time to rescue him by throwing Maeglin from the walls instead.[18][19]
Tolkien's fire-serpents are paralleled by Virgil's great serpents that kill the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons in the fall of Troy.[18]
Maeglin's failed attempt to throw Eärendil from the city walls contrasts with Euripides' account of the throwing of the young Astyanax from the walls of Troy.[18]
Pippin gazed in growing wonder at the great stone city, vaster and more splendid than anything that he had dreamed of; greater and stronger than Isengard, and far more beautiful. Yet it was in truth falling year by year into decay; and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there. In every street they passed some great house or court over whose door and arched gates were carved many fair letters of strange and ancient shapes: names Pippin guessed of great men and kindreds that had once dwelt there; and yet now they were silent, and no footsteps rang on their wide pavements, nor voice was heard in their halls, nor any face looked out from door or empty window.
The Lord of the Rings, book 5, ch. 1 "Minas Tirith"
Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, discusses the real-world prototypes of Gondor. She writes that like the Normans, their founders the Númenóreans arrived "from across the sea", and that Prince Imrahil's armour with a "burnished vambrace" recalls late-medieval plate armour. Against this theory, she notes Tolkien's direction of readers to Egypt and Byzantium. Recalling that Tolkien located Minas Tirith at the latitude of Florence, she and other scholars[21] suggest that possibly the strongest likenesses are with ancient Rome. She identifies several parallels: Aeneas, from Troy, and Elendil, from Númenor, both survive the destruction of their home countries; Aeneas's descendants, the brothers Romulus and Remus, found Rome, while the brothers Isildur and Anárion found the Númenórean kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor in Middle-earth; and both Gondor and Rome experienced lengthy "decadence and decline".[1]
Judy Ann Ford adds in Tolkien Studies that Gondor is distinctive in Middle-earth in having cities built of stone: "the only culture within [the Anglo-Saxons'] historical memory that had made places like Minas Tirith was the Roman Empire."[22] She comments that Tolkien's account of Gondor can be seen as the decline and fall of Rome, but "with a happy ending", as it "somehow withstood the onslaught of armies from the east, and ... was restored to glory."[22] She finds multiple likenesses between the cities.[22]
Plato's Republic tells the story of the Ring of Gyges that gave its owner the power of invisibility, as Tolkien's One Ring did. In so doing, it created a moral dilemma, enabling people to commit injustices without fearing they would be caught.[23] In contrast, Tolkien's Ring actively exerts an evil force that destroys the morality of the wearer.[T 8]
Scholars including Frederick A. de Armas note parallels between Plato's and Tolkien's rings.[23][24] De Armas suggests that both Bilbo and Gyges, going into deep dark places to find hidden treasure, may have "undergone a Catabasis", a psychological journey to the Underworld.[23]
Frederick A. de Armas's comparison of Plato's and Tolkien's rings[23]
Gyges ravishes the Queen, kills the King, becomes King of Lydia (a bad purpose)
Bilbo puts ring on by accident, is surprised Gollum does not see him, uses it to escape danger (a good purpose)
Moral result
Total failure
Bilbo emerges strengthened
The Tolkien scholar Eric Katz writes that "Plato argues that such [moral] corruption will occur, but Tolkien shows us this corruption through the thoughts and actions of his characters".[25] Plato argues that immoral life is no good as it corrupts one's soul. So, Katz states, according to Plato a moral person has peace and happiness, and would not use a Ring of Power.[25] In Katz's view, Tolkien's story "demonstrate[s] various responses to the question posed by Plato: would a just person be corrupted by the possibility of almost unlimited power?"[25] The question is answered in different ways: the monster Gollum is weak, quickly corrupted, and finally destroyed; Boromir, son of the Steward of Gondor, begins virtuous but like Plato's Gyges is corrupted "by the temptation of power"[25] from the Ring, even if he wants to use it for good, but redeems himself by defending the hobbits to his own death; the "strong and virtuous"[25]Galadriel, who sees clearly what she would become if she accepted the ring, and rejects it; the immortal Tom Bombadil, exempt from the Ring's corrupting power and from its gift of invisibility; Sam who in a moment of need faithfully uses the ring, but is not seduced by its vision of "Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age"; and finally Frodo who is gradually corrupted, but is saved by his earlier mercy to Gollum, and Gollum's desperation for the Ring. Katz concludes that Tolkien's answer to Plato's "Why be moral?" is "to be yourself".[25]
Elena Capra writes that Tolkien made use of the medieval poem Sir Orfeo, based on the classical tale of Orpheus and Eurydice but transposed to England, both for The Hobbit's Elvish kingdom, and for his story in The Silmarillion of Beren and Lúthien. That in turn influenced his "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen". In Capra's view, Sir Orfeo's key ingredient was the political connection "between the recovery of the main character's beloved and the return to royal responsibility."[26]
Peter Astrup Sundt draws parallels between Beren and Orpheus, or rather between both Beren and Lúthien and the classical character, as it is Lúthien not Beren who has magical powers, and far from playing a passive Eurydice, she too goes to sing for Mandos, the Vala who watches over the souls of the dead.[27]
Peter Astrup Sundt's parallels between Beren/Lúthien and Orpheus[27]
Ben Eldon Stevens maps out similar parallels, but adds that Tolkien's retelling contrasts sharply with the myth. Where Orpheus nearly manages to retrieve Eurydice from Hades, Lúthien rescues Beren three times – from Sauron's fortress-prison of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, involving singing; from Morgoth's Angband, with the Silmarils; and by getting Mandos to restore both of them to life. Stevens comments that in the original myth, Eurydice meets "a second death", soon followed by the griefstruck Orpheus, whereas Tolkien has Lúthien and Beren enjoy "a second life". Stevens notes that Tolkien evidently agreed that this version, ending with a resurrection, embodied a "religious difference" from the Greek myth, as he had described this in one of his letters as "a kind of Orpheus-legend in reverse, but one of Pity not of Inexorability".[28][T 9]
In the classical myth, Orpheus nearly rescues Eurydice from Hades, only for her to die a second death. In Tolkien's version, Lúthien plays Orpheus rather than Eurydice, three times rescuing Beren, and they enjoy a second life together.
Other influences
Tolkien related the Haradrim's mûmakil in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to Pyrrhus of Epirus's war elephants in his 3rd century BC invasion of ancient Rome.[29]
Charles Oughton likens Tolkien's Battle of Helm's Deep to Livy's account of Horatius Cocles's heroic defence of Rome's Pons Sublicius bridge. The heroes Aragorn, Éomer, and Gimli hold off the army of Orcs; Horatius holds off the army of Etruscans at the bridge. Oughton finds multiple matches between the two accounts. Several of these are not present in Thomas Babington Macaulay's poem "Horatius" which retells Livy's tale, though Oughton suggests that Tolkien did make additional use of Macaulay for some details.[30]
The scholar of English literature Charles A. Huttar compares the combination of a tentacled monster, the Watcher in the Water, and the "clashing gate" when the Fellowship pass through the Doors of Durin, only to have the Watcher smash the rocks behind them, to Greek mythology's Wandering Rocks near the opening of the underworld, and to Odysseus's passage between the devouring Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis.[31]
Verlyn Flieger has called Fëanor "a Promethean figure ... [an] overreacher whose excess is punished, yet whose accomplishments succeed in bringing ... a spark which can elevate humankind".[32]
Newman compares the myth of Elendil and the defeat of Sauron with Jason's taking of the Golden Fleece. In both, a golden prize is taken; in both, there are evil consequences – Elendil's son Isildur is betrayed and the Ring is lost, leading to the War of the Ring and Frodo's quest; Medea murders Jason's children.[4]
Julian Eilmann argues that the tale of Túrin, often vaguely described as "tragic", fits the pattern of Aristotle's theory of tragedy, as described in his Poetics, and accordingly arouses "strong emotional responses of pity and shock".[33] Aristotle's elements of peripeteia or reverse of circumstances, anagnorisis or moments of critical discovery, and pathos or emotional appeal are all present, confirming that the tale is indeed tragic.[33]
John Garth likens the earthly paradise of Valinor, shielded by the mountainous wall of the Pelóri, to the Greek paradise of Hyperborea, protected "at the back of the north wind behind a huge mountain range".[34]
Gloria Larini compares the Trolls of The Hobbit to the one-eyed giantPolyphemus in Homer's Odyssey.[35][36] Hamish Williams argues that Tolkien's ideas on Trolls shifted from Norse myth to Polyphemus-like monster as he came to see brute strength as the opposite of the civilized use of culture and magic, in the framework of likening The Hobbit's "hospitality journey" to that of the Odyssey.[37]
An arctic continent at the north pole, shielded by a ring of mountains, in this 1623 map, like the Greek Hyperborea or Tolkien's Valinor with its Pelóri mountain wall[34]
Philip Burton, examining philological and botanical aspects of Tolkien's works, concludes that Tolkien appears consistently to stress "underlying oneness of the Mediterranean and northern European worlds", and that he repeatedly displays interest in "things associated with the Mediterranean but not distinctly 'classical'".[38] A clear example is the Mediterranean vegetation of the southern province of Ithilien:[38]
Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness. Many great trees grew there, ... and groves and thickets there were of tamarisk and pungent terebinth, of olive and of bay; and there were junipers and myrtles; and thymes that grew in bushes, ... sages of many kinds putting forth blue flowers, or red, or pale green; and marjorams and new-sprouting parsleys, and many herbs of forms and scents beyond the garden-lore of Sam. The grots and rocky walls were already starred with saxifrages and stonecrops. Primeroles and anemones were awake in the filbert-brakes; and asphodel and many lily-flowers nodded their half-opened heads ... Great ilexes of huge girth stood dark and solemn in wide glades ... and there were acres populous with the leaves of woodland hyacinths:[T 10]
Resemblances of Ithilien to Italy
Tolkien alludes to dryads, classical tree-nymphs, in his description of Ithilien
Asphodel, one of the Mediterranean herbs found in Ithilien
Burton grants that the mention of dryads (tree-nymphs) is "certainly ... strikingly classical", and cites Richard Jenkyns's identification of the described landscape as Mediterranean: "Ithilien is Italy, as the name implies".[38][39] All the same, Burton comments, many of the plant names, seemingly "a parade of Greek and Latin lexis", actually "point beyond the strictly 'classical'." Thus, the -nth- element in "terebinth" and "hyacinth" has been claimed to precede Greek, coming from Asia Minor. "Lily" has an Egyptian origin, and had arrived in England by the 10th century. Many of the plants are, Burton writes, familiar enough in northern Europe that they may "lose their foreign associations altogether."[38]
According to Philip Burton, Tolkien's Ithilien has Mediterranean and Classical connections.
In Burton's view, Tolkien, "an Indo-Europeanist by training", is unable to treat classical Greece or Rome as "the fountainhead of Western civilization", since they are part of a Eurasian culture. Further, Tolkien's Catholicism leads him to focus on Christ's incarnation, not on some secular tradition of civilization. Burton comments that since the incarnation is situated in the classical world, that world "has a peculiar claim on our interest", but Tolkien was equally attracted to echoes of the story in other "mythical traditions".[38] Garth, one of Tolkien's biographers, comments that Tolkien was seeking to create a mythology for England which would be "redolent of our 'air' ... not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East",[40][T 11] and that in doing this he managed to "borrow classical ideas without borrowing the atmosphere."[40]
The effect of Jackson's The Lord of the Rings on cinematic Greece and Rome
Antony Keen, an author on the reception of the classics in film and science fiction, writes that Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 films of The Lord of the Rings have had a powerful influence on the portrayal of the classical era in film. One effect, he argues, has been a focus on heroes of Greek mythology, with a move away from Rome, seen as a historical setting, towards Greece, seen as more mythical. Another effect is the addition of monsters; a third, the imitation of Jackson's battle scenes; and a fourth, the use of Jackson's stars in films of the classical world. Keen sees the 2004 film Troy as an early instance, with Orlando Bloom, who had played the Elf-archer Legolas for Jackson, appearing again as "an accomplished archer", Paris. Further, its battles make use of "wide aerial pans of CGI armies" and "an assault upon a defended wall", like Jackson's portrayal of the Battle of Helm's Deep.[41]
Keen comments that four films set at least partly in Roman Britain all make use of something much like Jackson-style "aerial footage, taken from helicopters, showing parties of characters striding across the landscape".[41] These are the 2004 King Arthur; the 2007 The Last Legion; the 2010 Centurion; and the 2011 The Eagle.[41] The films also use "a certain degree of Celtic-style non-verbal singing", which Keen supposes is imitative of Howard Shore's music for The Lord of the Rings films.[41] He suggests in addition that such films have taken on some of Jackson's tropes, such as that the story should be somewhat mythological or fantastical.[41]
The use of monsters, too, has become available to film directors; Keen mentions the "Immortals" in the 2006 film 300 as "echo[ing] the Orcs", while its "Uber Immortal", a departure from the comic on which the film was based, reminds him of Jackson's cave troll.[41]
Gondor is a fictional kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, described as the greatest realm of Men in the west of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age. The third volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, is largely concerned with the events in Gondor during the War of the Ring and with the restoration of the realm afterward. The history of the kingdom is outlined in the appendices of the book.
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 A, 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. Through their progeny, Eärendil and Elwing became the ancestors of the Númenorean, and later Dúnedain, royal bloodline.
Elendil is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. He was the father of Isildur and Anárion, last lord of Andúnië on the island of Númenor, and having escaped its downfall by sailing to Middle-earth, became the first High King of Arnor and Gondor. In the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, Elendil and Gil-galad laid siege to the Dark Lord Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr, and fought him hand-to-hand for the One Ring. Both Elendil and Gil-galad were killed, and Elendil's son Isildur took the Ring for himself.
Lúthien and Beren are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth. Lúthien is an elf, daughter of the elf-king Thingol and goddess-like Melian. Beren is a mortal man. The complex tale of their love for each other and the quest they are forced to embark upon is a story of triumph against overwhelming odds but ending in tragedy. It appears in The Silmarillion, the epic poem The Lay of Leithian, the Grey Annals section of The War of the Jewels, and in the texts collected in the 2017 book Beren and Lúthien. Their story is told to Frodo by Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings.
In J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium, Gondolin is a secret city of Elves in the First Age of Middle-earth, and the greatest of their cities in Beleriand. The story of the Fall of Gondolin tells of the arrival there of Tuor, a prince of Men; of the betrayal of the city to the dark Lord Morgoth by the king's nephew, Maeglin; and of its subsequent siege and catastrophic destruction by Morgoth's armies. It also relates the flight of the fugitives to the Havens of Sirion, the wedding of Tuor and the Elf Idril, and the childhood of their son Eärendil.
Tuor Eladar and Idril Celebrindal are fictional characters from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. They are the parents of Eärendil the Mariner and grandparents of Elrond Half-elven: through their progeny, they become the ancestors of the Númenóreans and of the King of the Reunited Kingdom Aragorn Elessar. Both characters play a pivotal role in The Fall of Gondolin, one of Tolkien's earliest stories; it formed the basis for a section in his later work, The Silmarillion, and was expanded as a standalone publication in 2018.
Alan Lee is an English book illustrator and film conceptual designer. He is best known for his artwork inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels, and for his work on the concept design of Peter Jackson's film adaptations of Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.
In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, the Eagles or Great Eagles, are immense birds that are sapient and can speak. The Great Eagles resemble actual eagles, but are much larger. Thorondor is said to have been the greatest of all birds, with a wingspan of 30 fathoms. Elsewhere, the Eagles have varied in nature and size both within Tolkien's writings and in later adaptations.
A half-elf is a mythological or fictional being, the offspring of an immortal elf and a mortal man. They are often depicted as very beautiful and endowed with magical powers; they may be presented as torn between the two worlds that they inhabit. Half-elves became known in modern times mainly through J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings but have origins in Norse mythology. A half-elf appeared in Lord Dunsany's 1924 book The King of Elfland's Daughter.
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.
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.
In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, the Dúnedain were a race of Men, also known as the Númenóreans or Men of Westernesse. Those who survived the sinking of their island kingdom and came to Middle-earth, led by Elendil and his sons, Isildur and Anárion, settled in Arnor and Gondor.
Númenor, also called Elenna-nórë or Westernesse, is a fictional place in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings. It was the kingdom occupying a large island to the west of Middle-earth, the main setting of Tolkien's writings, and was the greatest civilization of Men. However, after centuries of prosperity many of the inhabitants ceased to worship the One God, Eru Ilúvatar, and rebelled against the Valar, resulting in the destruction of the island and the death of most of its people. Tolkien intended Númenor to allude to the legendary Atlantis. Commentators have noted that the destruction of Númenor echoes the Biblical stories of the fall of man and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and John Milton's Paradise Lost.
Isildur is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, the elder son of Elendil, descended from Elros, the founder of the island Kingdom of Númenor. He fled with his father when the island was drowned, becoming in his turn King of Arnor and Gondor. He cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, but instead of destroying it, was corrupted by its power and claimed it for his own. He was killed by orcs, and the Ring was lost in the River Anduin. This set the stage for the Ring to pass to Gollum and then to Bilbo, as told in The Hobbit; that in turn provided the central theme, the quest to destroy the Ring, for The Lord of the Rings.
Sauron is the title character and the primary antagonist, through the forging of the One Ring, of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, where he rules the land of Mordor and has the ambition of ruling the whole of Middle-earth. In the same work, he is identified as the "Necromancer" of Tolkien's earlier novel The Hobbit. The Silmarillion describes him as the chief lieutenant of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth. Tolkien noted that the Ainur, the "angelic" powers of his constructed myth, "were capable of many degrees of error and failing", but by far the worst was "the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron". Sauron appears most often as "the Eye", as if disembodied.
The Silmarillion is a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited 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.
"The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" is a story within the Appendices of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It narrates the love of the mortal Man Aragorn and the immortal Elf-maiden Arwen, telling the story of their first meeting, their eventual betrothal and marriage, and the circumstances of their deaths. Tolkien called the tale "really essential to the story". In contrast to the non-narrative appendices it extends the main story of the book to cover events both before and after it, one reason it would not fit in the main text. Tolkien gave another reason for its exclusion, namely that the main text is told from the hobbits' point of view.
J. R. R. Tolkien built a process of decline and fall in Middle-earth into both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien and the Classical World is a 2021 scholarly collection of essays on the influence from ancient Greek and Roman civilisations on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, especially The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. It is edited by Hamish Williams, with an afterword by Graham Shipley that comments on the book and its themes. The essays explore different aspects of classical thought, not just looking for direct sources but for parallels and possibly unconscious influences. One area where Tolkien explicitly acknowledged classical influence was in his use of Plato's Atlantis legend in his tale of Númenor, the island civilisation that is lost beneath the waves.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Pezzini, Giuseppe. The Gods in (Tolkien's) Epic: Classical Patterns of Divine Interaction. pp.73–103. in Williams 2021
↑ Delattre, Charles (March 2007). "Númenor et l'Atlantide: Une écriture en héritage". Revue de littérature comparée (in French). 323 (3): 303–322. doi:10.3917/rlc.323.0303. ISSN0035-1466. Il est évident que dans ce cadre, Númenor est une réécriture de l'Atlantide, et la lecture du Timée et du Critias de Platon n'est pas nécessaire pour suggérer cette référence au lecteur de Tolkien
1 2 3 Kleu, Michael. Plato's Atlantis and the Post-Platonic Tradition in Tolkien's Downfall of Númenor. pp.193–215. in Williams 2021
↑ Neubauer, Lukasz. Less Consciously at First but More Consciously in the Revision: Plato's Ring as a Putative Source of Inspiration for Tolkien's Ring of Power. pp.217–246. in Williams 2021
1 2 3 4 5 6 Burton, Philip. 'Eastwards and Southwards': Philological and Historical Perspectives on Tolkien and Classicism. pp.273–304. in Williams 2021
1 2 Jenkyns, Richard (1980). The Victorians and Ancient Greece. Oxford: Blackwell. p.49.
Arduini, Roberto; Canzonieri, Giampaolo; Testi, Claudio A., eds. (2019). Tolkien and the Classics. Zurich. ISBN978-3-905703-42-9. OCLC1107816986.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) (contains 4 essays on "Tolkien and Authors from Antiquity", also covers medieval and modern "classics")
Matz, Alicia; Paprocki, Maciej, eds. (2022). "There and Back Again: Tolkien and the Greco-Roman World (whole issue)". Thersites. Journal for Transcultural Presences & Diachronic Identities from Antiquity to Date. 15. doi:10.34679/THERSITES.VOL15.
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