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. [1]
Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic to the level of romantic fairy-story... The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.
— J. R. R. Tolkien [2]
The earliest illustrations of Tolkien's works were drawn by the author himself. The 1937 American edition of The Hobbit was illustrated by professional draughtsmen. Tolkien was very critical of this work, and in 1946 he rejected illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of the Hobbit as "too 'Disnified' for my taste: Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of". [3]
In 1948, Milein Cosman was invited by Tolkien's publishers to submit illustrations for Farmer Giles of Ham . Tolkien felt her impressionistic style did not suit the story, and she was replaced by Pauline Baynes, who later also supplied the illustrations for The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962) and Smith of Wootton Major (1967). In 1968, Tolkien was sent a number of a suite of illustrations of The Lord of the Rings, mostly in coloured ink, by the English artist Mary Fairburn; Tolkien said of her pictures: "They ... show far more attention to the text than any that have yet been submitted to me.... I am beginning to ... think that an illustrated edition might be a good thing." For various reasons the project went no further, and Fairburn's illustrations were unknown until 2012. [4] Crown Princess Margrethe (now Queen Margrethe II) of Denmark, an accomplished and critically acclaimed painter, was inspired to create illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. [5] In 1977, Queen Margrethe's drawings were published in the Danish translation of the book, redrawn by the British artist Eric Fraser. [6]
Tim and Greg Hildebrandt, usually called the Brothers Hildebrandt, were Tolkien illustrators in the 1970s, known especially for their Middle-earth calendars. [8] The British artist Jimmy Cauty created a best-selling poster of The Lord of the Rings (1976) and The Hobbit (1980) for the retailer Athena. [9] [10]
Well-known Tolkien illustrators of the 1990s and 2000s are John Howe, Alan Lee, and Ted Nasmith — Lee for illustrated editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Nasmith for illustrated editions of The Silmarillion, and Howe for the cover artwork to several Tolkien publications. Howe and Lee worked as concept artists in the creation of Peter Jackson's film trilogy. In 2004, Lee won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction on the film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King . [11]
Other artists who have found inspiration in Tolkien's works include Inger Edelfeldt who illustrated the covers of Swedish translations of several of his books, [12] Anke Eißmann, [13] Michael Hague, [14] Tove Jansson (of Moomin fame, illustrator of Swedish and Finnish translations of The Hobbit ), [7] Paul Raymond Gregory, [15] Tim Kirk, [16] Angus McBride who illustrated Iron Crown's Tolkien-based role-playing games, [17] Jef Murray, [18] Colleen Doran, [19] Jenny Dolfen who has made watercolour paintings of scenes from The Silmarillion, [20] Alexander Korotich, who made a series of scraperboard engravings of The Lord of the Rings, [21] and Peter Xavier Price. [22] Works of several of these artists were exhibited in an "Images of Middle-earth" exhibition of some 170 artworks organised by Davide Martini of the Greisinger Museum of Switzerland; it toured Italy between 2003 and 2005. [23] [24]
The Narnia film trilogy adapted from the novel series by Tolkien's friend C. S. Lewis were produced due to the popularity of The Lord of the Rings. George R. R. Martin acknowledged Tolkien influenced his Game of Thrones TV series and novels about medieval fantasy, while speaking about a movie about Tolkien's life. [25] [26]
An early draft for George Lucas's 1977 Star Wars film is said to have included an exchange of dialogue between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker taken directly from the conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo in Chapter 1 of The Hobbit, where Gandalf/Kenobi says "Good morning!" and Bilbo/Luke replies asking whether he means he's having a good morning, or is wishing him one, or that all mornings are good. Gandalf/Kenobi answers "All of them at once". [27] [28] [29] The plagiarised dialogue was dropped, but Lucas modelled the monk-like Kenobi on Gandalf; the film author Chris Taylor identifies several further elements of Star Wars that in his view could have been modelled on Middle-earth. [27]
Element | Star Wars 1977 | The Lord of the Rings 1954–55 |
---|---|---|
Wise old man | Obi-Wan Kenobi sacrifices himself fighting Darth Vader, then guides Luke through the Force | Gandalf dies saving Fellowship from the Balrog, then guides Frodo telepathically |
Innocent protagonists | R2-D2 and C-3PO, carrying stolen data tapes, supported by the team | Frodo and Sam, carrying the One Ring, supported by the Fellowship |
"Hellish war machine" | Death Star | Mordor |
Enemy troops | Stormtroopers | Orcs |
Evil wizard | Grand Moff Tarkin | Saruman |
Dark Lord | Darth Vader | Sauron |
While working on a Star Wars animated series, Dave Filoni noted that Peter Jackson visited him and his mentor George Lucas to discuss Tolkien's works and to ask for advice. According to the Star Wars website, Darth Vader is compared by Filoni to the Balrog rather than Sauron, and the Prancing Pony bar may have inspired the Mos Eisley cantina, the introduction of Han Solo suggestively matching that of Strider (Aragorn). As for the prequel trilogy, it notes that Saruman influenced Count Dooku, and volcanic Mordor, whether Tolkien's or Jackson's, influenced the volcanic planet Mustafar. [29] [30]
As early as 1984, Diana Paxson argued in Mythlore that Tolkien had founded a new literary tradition. [32] Since then, many authors have found inspiration in Tolkien's work. Following the success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the 1960s, publishers were quick to try to meet a new demand for literate fantasy in the American marketplace. [31]
Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series, beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea in 1968, was one of the first fantasy series influenced by Tolkien. [33] [34] [a] Among the Tolkienian archetypes in the Earthsea books are wizards (including the protagonist, Ged), a disinherited prince (Arren in The Farthest Shore ), a magical ring (the ring of Erreth-Akbe in The Tombs of Atuan ), a Middle-earth style quest (in The Farthest Shore), and powerful dragons (like the dragon of Pendor, in A Wizard of Earthsea). [32]
Patricia A. McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Jane Yolen's The Magic Three of Solatia were Tolkien-inspired fantasies for young adults written in the mid-1970s. [36] Ballantine, under the direction of editor Lin Carter, published public domain and relatively obscure works under the banner of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, aimed at adult readers who enjoyed Tolkien's works. [31] Lester del Rey, however, sought for new books that would mirror Tolkien's work, and published Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara , David Eddings's Belgariad , and Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever . [31] Guy Gavriel Kay, who had assisted Christopher Tolkien with the editing of The Silmarillion, later wrote his own Tolkien-influenced fantasy trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry , complete with dwarfs and mages. [31] Dennis L. McKiernan's Silver Call duology was intended to be a direct sequel to The Lord of the Rings but had to be altered. The Iron Tower trilogy, highly influenced by Tolkien's books, was then written as backstory. [37] Fantasy series such as Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Orson Scott Card's The Tales of Alvin Maker were "undoubtedly" influenced by Tolkien. [38]
Due to a loophole in Russian copyright law, Russian writers were able to publish fantasy novels set in Tolkien's Arda. Nick Perumov's The Ring of Darkness (Russian Кольцо Тьмы ) takes place after the events of The Lord of the Rings. [39]
From 1980, the term "fantasy" became synonymous with the general aspects of Tolkien's work: multiple races including dwarves and elves, a quest to destroy a magical artifact, and an evil that seeks to control the world. The plot of Pat Murphy's 1999 There and Back Again intentionally mirrors that of The Hobbit, but is transposed into a science-fiction setting involving space travel. J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has been seen as having been influenced by Tolkien's work; in particular, the wizard Dumbledore has been described as partially inspired by Tolkien's Gandalf. [40] S.M. Stirling's "Emberverse" series, published starting in 2004, includes a character obsessed with The Lord of the Rings who creates a post-apocalyptic community based upon the Elves and Dúnedain of Middle-earth. The same plot point was used by the Russian writer Vladimir Berezin in his novel Road Signs (from the Universe of Metro 2033). Stephen King, best known as a horror writer, has acknowledged Tolkien's influence on his novel The Stand as well as his fantasy series The Dark Tower . Other prominent fantasy writers including George R. R. Martin, Michael Swanwick, Raymond E. Feist, Poul Anderson, Karen Haber, Harry Turtledove, Charles De Lint, and Orson Scott Card have acknowledged Tolkien's work as an inspiration. [31]
The cartoonist Jeff Smith was influenced by Tolkien, and the mythologies that inspired his works. He has characterized his epic 1,300-page graphic novel Bone as "Bugs Bunny meets The Lord of the Rings. It's a really long fairy tale with some fantasy elements but a lot of comedy." [41]
The first commercially published parody of Tolkien's work was the 1969 Bored of the Rings , by The Harvard Lampoon . [42] The BBC produced a parody radio serial, Hordes of the Things, in 1980. [43] The Last Ringbearer is a 1999 fantasy novel by the palaeontologist Kirill Eskov in the form of a parallel novel showing the war from the perspective of the people of Sauron's land of Mordor, under the notion that the original is a "history written by the victors". [44] [45]
Three radio plays based on The Lord of the Rings have been made, broadcast in 1955–1956, 1979 and 1981 respectively. [46] [47] The first and last ones were produced by the BBC. Tolkien heavily criticised the 1955-56 production. [46]
Numerous songs and other musical works, in a wide range of idioms, have been inspired by Tolkien's fiction.
Jack Bruce wrote a song called "To Isengard" on his first solo album "Songs for a Tailor" (1969). [48]
Progressive rock acts which have composed songs based on Tolkien's characters and stories include Rush ("Rivendell"), [49] Camel ("Nimrodel", "The White Rider"), [50] Mostly Autumn (Music Inspired by The Lord of the Rings CD, 2001), [51] Glass Hammer ( The Middle-Earth Album , 2001), [52] Bo Hansson ( Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings , 1970), [53] and the indie rock band Gatsbys American Dream. [54]
The hard rock and classic metal band Led Zeppelin wrote several songs inspired by Tolkien's works including "The Battle of Evermore", "Misty Mountain Hop", "Ramble On", and "Over the Hills and Far Away" (with debate about some parts of "Stairway to Heaven"). [55] [56] [57] [58] Tom Rapp set most of The Verse of the One Ring ("Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky...") to music as "Ring Thing" in Pearls Before Swine's second album, Balaklava (1968). [59] Bob Catley, lead singer of the British prog rock band Magnum, released a solo album titled Middle Earth . Punk quartet Thrice released a song called "The Long Defeat" about Tolkien's philosophies. The East Texas-based rock band Hobbit has produced multiple albums inspired by Tolkien's work. [60]
Among the heavy metal artists influenced by Tolkien are Blind Guardian, who composed numerous songs relating to Middle-earth, including the whole of the concept album Nightfall in Middle Earth , based on The Silmarillion . [55] [61] The album was "adored" by fans of Tolkien and metal, but despised as escapist by grunge fans. [57]
Many black metal bands, at least 85 specifically, out of 151 "metal bands" in a 2015 search, have made use of Middle-earth themes in their lyrics, artwork, and band names. [62] One such is Black Breath, named for the terror-inducing Black Breath of the Nazgûl. [63]
The symphonic black metal band Summoning states that most of its songs are based on Middle-Earth, with focus on the orcs and dark forces. [64] Battlelore's lyrics are about Middle-earth characters and events in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, as well as medieval literature and the Kalevala, [65] as is their pseudo-medieval stage show, in which each member is dressed as "ferocious warriors", "dirty thieves" or "beautiful female elves". [66] The Italian group Ainur (named for Tolkien's Ainur) released Middle-earth themed albums named Children of Hurin (2007) and Lay of Leithian (2009). [57]
Bands and musicians who have used Tolkien's legendarium for their stage names include the progressive rock band Marillion (from The Silmarillion). [67] Gorgoroth take their name from an area of Mordor, Burzum take their name from the Black Speech of Mordor, [62] [68] Cirith Ungol take their name from the pass on the western path of Mordor, the dwelling of the spider Shelob [69] and Amon Amarth take their name after an alternative name for Mount Doom. [70] Lead singer of Dimmu Borgir, Shagrath, takes his stage name from The Lord of the Rings, after an orc captain. [71]
Australian jazz musician and composer, John Sangster, made six albums of musical responses to Tolkien's work. He recorded The Hobbit Suite (1973, Swaggie Records – S1340), and Double Vibe: Hobbit (1977); the first of these, with a selection from the second, was released on CD in 2002 (Swaggie CD 404). The later four double albums, The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Interpretation, v. 1, 2 and 3 (1975–77), and Landscapes of Middle-earth (1978), have been re-released on CD, 2002-06: Move Records MD 3251, 3252, 3253, and 3254. [72]
Sally Oldfield's first solo album, Water Bearer (1978) was inspired by Tolkien's works, particularly "Songs of the Quendi", which quote from his poems. [73]
The folk group The Hobbitons, part of the Dutch chapter of the Tolkien Society, released a CD in 1996 with 16 tracks of settings of Tolkien's poems. [74]
The Irish singer Enya contributed a song "May it Be" for The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) movie soundtrack. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. She released a song entitled "Lothlórien", on her 1991 album Shepherd Moons .
In 2001, bluegrass and anti-folk artist Chris Thile released an instrumental album titled Not All Who Wander Are Lost , referencing Gandalf's words to Bilbo and Bilbo's poem about Aragorn. One of the songs on the album is "Riddles in the Dark", sharing the title of one of the chapters in The Hobbit. [75] The Celtic foursome Broceliande's album The Starlit Jewel sets to music selected songs by Tolkien. [76] [74] Other folk rock and new age musicians inspired by Tolkien include Za Frûmi (singing in Orkish), Nickel Creek, David Arkenstone and Lyriel, among others. The Spanish Neoclassical Dark Wave band Narsilion derived its name from Tolkien's song "Narsilion" about the creation of the Sun and Moon. [77]
Donald Swann set music in the British art-song tradition to a collection of seven of Tolkien's lyrics and poems, published as The Road Goes Ever On . The work was approved by Tolkien himself, who collaborated on the published book, to which he provided notes and commentary. [78] The songs were recorded by William Elvin (bass-baritone) with Swann on piano, and released in 1967 on an LP by Caedmon Records. [79]
The Norwegian classical composer Martin Romberg has written three full-scale symphonic poems, Quendi (2008), Telperion et Laurelin (2014), and Fëanor (2017), inspired by passages from the Silmarillion. The works were premiered in Southern France. [80] [81] [82] Romberg has also set Tolkien's Elven language poems to music in his work "Eldarinwë Liri" for girls' choir. The work premiered in 2010 with the Norwegian Girls Choir and Trio Mediæval at the Vestfold International Festival. [83]
Johan de Meij's Symphony No. 1, "The Lord of the Rings", for concert band, is in five movements, each illustrating a personage or an important episode from the novel: Gandalf, Lothlorien, Gollum, Journey in the Dark (The Mines of Moria /The Bridge of Khazad-Dum), and Hobbits. The symphony was written between March 1984 and December 1987, and was premièred in Brussels on 15 March 1988. It has been recorded four times, including in an orchestral version, orchestrated by Henk de Vlieger. It won Sudler Composition Award in 1989. [84]
Jacqueline Clarke's setting Tinuviel (1983), for countertenor solo, SATB choir, and piano accompaniment has been published in score. [85]
Leonard Rosenman composed music for the Ralph Bakshi animated movie, while Howard Shore composed the music of The Lord of the Rings film series. [86]
Paul Corfield Godfrey has written a large number of works based on Tolkien, the most significant of which is the four-evening cycle on The Silmarillion but also including three operas based on The Lord of the Rings: Tom Bombadil (one act), The Black Gate is closed (three acts) and The Grey Havens. as well as several sets of songs. His third symphony, Ainulindalë, is based on the opening chapter of The Silmarillion, and there is a half-hour setting of The Lay of Eärendil based on Bilbo's song at Rivendell. [87] [88]
The Tolkien Ensemble published four CDs from 1997 to 2005 with the aim to create "the world's first complete musical interpretation of the poems and songs from The Lord of the Rings". The project was given approval by both the Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins Publishers. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark gave permission to use her illustrations in the CD layout. [89] [90] [91]
Aulis Sallinen, one of the leading classical music composers of Finland, composed his Seventh Symphony named "The Dreams of Gandalf" in 1996, from music initially meant to accompany a ballet. [92]
The Australian musician, Patrick Flegg, late husband of Tolkien illustrator Mary Fairburn, composed a piano suite, Anduin: The Mighty River, recorded by Wendy Rowlands (2001). [93]
The Canadian composer Glenn Buhr has written a three-movement tone poem Beren and Lúthien which he has recorded with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra as part of his CD Winter Poems. [94]
Many model-based games, trading card games, board games and video games are set in Middle-earth, most depicting scenes and characters from The Lord of the Rings. In a broader sense, many fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and DragonQuest feature Tolkienesque creatures and were influenced by Tolkien's works. The Legend of Zelda was inspired by The Lord of the Rings books, [95] [96] [97] as were other dungeon crawler and action-adventure games. The books themselves have been reproduced in video game form repeatedly, though without necessarily reflecting the power of Tolkien's storytelling. [98]
Early miniature wargames include The Ringbearer (1975). Games Workshop have made The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (2001), which, while part of the film trilogy's merchandise, combines elements from both the books and films. [99]
Early board games included Battle of Five Armies (1975) and the series of Middle Earth Games from Simulations Publications, Inc. in 1977, containing the games War of the Ring (strategic, covering all three books), Gondor (tactical, covering the siege of Minas Tirith) and Sauron (covering the decisive battle of the Second Age). More recent games include a game simply entitled Lord of the Rings (2000) and War of the Ring (2004, strategic, covering all three books). [99]
Among role-playing and card games based on Middle-earth, Iron Crown Enterprises made Middle-earth Role Playing game (1982–1999) and Middle-earth Collectible Card Game (1995–1999). Decipher, Inc. created The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game (2001) [100] and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game (2002), both based on the Jackson films. [99] The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (2011) is made by Fantasy Flight Games under their "Living Card Game" line. [99] Adventures in Middle-earth (2016) is a D&D-compatible role-playing game released by Cubicle 7. [101]
The first piece of Middle-earth fan fiction was published in 1959. [102] Fanzines started to be produced soon after Tolkien fans formed "The Fellowship of the Ring" on 4 September 1960 at the Pittsburgh Worldcon. That group's magazine was I Palantir, edited by Ted Johnstone. Its British members had their own fanzine, Nazgul's Bane. [103] Ed Meskys published his science fiction fanzine Niekas from 1962, including at least one piece on Tolkien per issue. [104] By 1964, there were dozens of Tolkien fanzines across the US, and several in England. [103] In 1969, Glen GoodKnight founded Mythlore as the fanzine of his Mythopoeic Society. Always serious, it transformed into a peer-reviewed journal in 1999. [105] The Winter 1976 issue of Evermist was a special Tolkien edition, in a fanzine not otherwise dedicated to his work. [106] [107]
Broadening Internet access and a surge of interest driven by the Jackson films resulted in the production of a large amount of Tolkien fan fiction and Tolkien artwork in online communities, beginning in the early 2000s. [108] Tolkien-inspired fan works include the fan films The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope , the novel The Last Ringbearer , and over 80,000 others listed in 2022. [109] In 2004, sites for Tolkien-derived works were estimated to be 10% of all fan fiction websites, and, in 2019, Tolkien fan fiction was one of the most popular categories for works based on books on both Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net. [110]
The study of Middle-earth fan works has been largely neglected by Tolkien scholars [111] and fan studies scholars alike. [110] Many studies have been qualitative, focusing on a few selected fan works. [108]
The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
Rivendell is a valley in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, representing both a homely place of sanctuary and a magical Elvish otherworld. It is an important location in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, being the place where the quest to destroy the One Ring began.
Bilbo's Last Song is a poem by J. R. R. Tolkien, written as a pendant to his fantasy The Lord of the Rings. It was first published in a Dutch translation in 1973, subsequently appearing in English on posters in 1974 and as a picture-book in 1990. It was illustrated by Pauline Baynes, and set to music by Donald Swann and Stephen Oliver. The poem's copyright was owned by Tolkien's secretary, to whom he gave it in gratitude for her work for him.
Trolls are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and feature in films and games adapted from his novels. They are portrayed as monstrously large humanoids of great strength and poor intellect. In The Hobbit, like the dwarf Alviss of Norse mythology, they must be below ground before dawn or turn to stone, whereas in The Lord of the Rings they are able to face daylight.
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 term Middle-earth canon, also called Tolkien's canon, is used for the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien regarding Middle-earth as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fictional canon within a given subset of Tolkien's writings.
Scholars and critics have identified many themes of The Lord of the Rings, a major fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, including a reversed quest, the struggle of good and evil, death and immortality, fate and free will, the danger of power, and various aspects of Christianity such as the presence of three Christ figures, for prophet, priest, and king, as well as elements like hope and redemptive suffering. There is also a strong thread throughout the work of language, its sound, and its relationship to peoples and places, along with moralisation from descriptions of landscape. Out of these, Tolkien stated that the central theme is death and immortality.
The History of The Hobbit is a two-volume study of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 children's fantasy novel The Hobbit. It was first published by HarperCollins in 2007. It contains Tolkien's unpublished drafts of the novel, with commentary by John D. Rateliff. It details Tolkien's various revisions to The Hobbit, including abandoned revisions for the unpublished third edition of the work, intended for 1960, as well as previously unpublished original maps and illustrations drawn by Tolkien.
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.
Mirkwood is any of several great dark forests 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.
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.
Aragorn is a fictional character and a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Aragorn is a Ranger of the North, first introduced with the name Strider and later revealed to be the heir of Isildur, an ancient King of Arnor and Gondor. Aragorn is a confidant of the wizard Gandalf and plays a part in the quest to destroy the One Ring and defeat the Dark Lord Sauron. As a young man, Aragorn falls in love with the immortal elf Arwen, as told in "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen". Arwen's father, Elrond Half-elven, forbids them to marry unless Aragorn becomes King of both Arnor and Gondor.
Tolkien's Middle-earth family trees contribute to the impression of depth and realism in the stories set in his fantasy world by showing that each character is rooted in history with a rich network of relationships. J. R. R. Tolkien included multiple family trees in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion; they are variously for Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Men.
Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. A professional philologist, J. R. R. Tolkien prepared a wide variety of materials to support his fiction, including illustrations for his Middle-earth fantasy books, facsimile artefacts, more or less "picturesque" maps, calligraphy, and sketches and paintings from life. Some of his artworks combined several of these elements.
"The Shadow of the Past" is the second chapter of J. R. R. Tolkien's bestselling fantasy work, The Lord of the Rings, which was published in 1954–1955. Tolkien called it "the crucial chapter"; the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey labelled it "the vital chapter". This is because it represents both the moment that Tolkien devised the central plot of the book, and the point in the story where the protagonist, Frodo Baggins, and the reader realise that there will be a quest to destroy the Ring. A sketch of it was among the first parts of the book to be written, early in 1938; later that year, it was one of three chapters of the book that he drafted. In 1944, he returned to the chapter, adding descriptions of Gollum, the Ring, and the hunt for Gollum.
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.
The music of Middle-earth consists of the music mentioned by J. R. R. Tolkien in his Middle-earth books, the music written by other artists to accompany performances of his work, whether individual songs or adaptations of his books for theatre, film, radio, and games, and music more generally inspired by his books.
Although fantasy had long existed in various forms around the world before his time, J. R. R. Tolkien has been called the "father of fantasy", and The Lord of the Rings its centre. That novel, published in 1954–5, enormously influenced fantasy writing, establishing in particular the form of high or epic fantasy, set in a secondary or fantasy world in an act of mythopoeia. The book was distinctive at the time for its considerable length, its "epic" feel with a cast of heroic characters, its wide geography, and its battles. It involved an extensive history behind the action, an impression of depth, multiple sentient races and monsters, and powerful talismans. The story is a quest, with multiple subplots. The novel's success demonstrated that the genre was commercially distinct and viable.
Since the publication of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit in 1937, artists including Tolkien himself have sought to capture aspects of Middle-earth fantasy novels in paintings and drawings. He was followed in his lifetime by artists whose work he liked, such as Pauline Baynes, Mary Fairburn, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, and Ted Nasmith, and by some whose work he rejected, such as Horus Engels for the German edition of The Hobbit. Tolkien had strong views on illustration of fantasy, especially in the case of his own works. His recorded opinions range from his rejection of the use of images in his 1936 essay On Fairy-Stories, to agreeing the case for decorative images for certain purposes, and his actual creation of images to accompany the text in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Commentators including Ruth Lacon and Pieter Collier have described his views on illustration as contradictory, and his requirements as being as fastidious as his editing of his novels.
The fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien have had a huge popular impact. His Middle-earth books have sold hundreds of millions of copies. The Lord of the Rings transformed the genre of fantasy writing. It and The Hobbit have spawned Peter Jackson's Middle-earth films, which have had billion-dollar takings at the box office. The books and films have stimulated enormous Tolkien fandom activity in meetings such as Tolkienmoot and on the Internet, with discussion groups, fan art, and many thousands of Tolkien fan fiction stories. The mythology's Orcs, Trolls, Dwarves, Elves, Wizards, and Halflings are firmly established in popular culture, such as in the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and in Middle-earth video games. Individual characters like Gollum, too, have become familiar popular figures, for instance featuring in a song by Led Zeppelin.
2014 Jenny Dolfen, Eärendil the Mariner
The exhibition presents individual illustrations for "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien, created by artist Alexander Korotich from the second half of the 1980s until mid-1997, when the folder with most of the sheets was lost, as well as a number of illustrations for the book J. R. R. Tolkien. Fairy tales by the publishing house "Ural market", released in 1993.
His one-man Black Metal band was called Burzum, this being the Black Speech word for "darkness", taken from the inscription on the Ring: ...agh burzum-ishi krimpatul, "and in the darkness bind them".
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ignored (help)Symphony No. 7, subtitled "The Dreams of Gandalf", arose out of music intended for a ballet based on The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps because the music was intended for the dance, it's the most energetic and impulsive piece on the disc, full of captivating tunes cloaked in absolutely magical orchestration (Sallinen is particularly adept in his use of tuned percussion). It would be a hit at any concert and at 25 minutes it's not a moment too long.
[The two program designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka were responsible for the game, who set themselves the goal of developing a fairytale adventure game with action elements... ...Takashi Tezuka, a great lover of fantasy novels such as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, wrote the script for the first two games in the Zelda series].
All ideas for The legend of Zelda were mine and Takashi Tezukas... ...Books, movies and our own lives.
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