Professor of literature and English, who became famous with his trilogy THE LORD OF THE RINGS (1954-55). From the mid-1960s Tolkien's work started its world-wide triumph. Especially it appealed to young people. Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis at University of Oxford also achieved fame as fantasy writer with his Narnia series.

"Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
--Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
--One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadow lie.
--One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
--One Ring to bring the all in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadow lie."
(from The Lord of the Rings)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born of British parents in Bloemfontein, South Africa, but moved with his mother, Mabel Tolkien, to England when he was three. In 1904 Tolkien’s mother died, and the young John Ronald Reuel moved with his brother Hilary to aunt’s home in Birmingham. He studied at Oxford from 1908 and was awarded First Class Honours degree in English Language and Literature in 1915. Next year Tolkien married Edith Bratt, whom he had met in 1908. During WW I Tolkien served in the army and saw action on the Somme. He returened home suffering from shell shock, and while convalescing he started to study early forms of language and work on SILMARILLION (published 1977). For the rest of his life, Tolkien expanded the mythology of his fantasy worlds.

In 1918 Tolkien joined the staff of New English Dictionary and in 1919 he was a freelance tutor in Oxford. Tolkien then worked as a teacher and professor at the University of Leeds, and in 1925 he became Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. He was appointed Merton Professor of English at Oxford in 1945, retiring in 1959. His scholarly works included studies on Chaucher (1934) and an edition of Beowulf (1937). He was also interested in the Finnish national epos Kalevala, from which he found ideas for his imaginary language guenya and which influenced several of his stories. Most of the inhabitants of Tolkien’s imaginary Middle-Earth are derived from English folklore and mythology, or from an idealized Anglo-Saxon past.

“‘The Lord of the Rings’ is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out practically all references to anything like ‘religion,’ to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism.” (from a letter in 1953 to Robert Murray, a Jesuit priest, in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1981)
With C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams and other friends, Tolkien formed an informal literary group called The Inklings, which took shape in the 1930s. They all had an interest in storytelling and their Tuesday lunchtime sessions in the Bird and Baby pub became well known part of Oxford social life. At their meetings the Inklings read aloud drafts of fiction and other work. Williams died in 1945 and the meetings faded out in 1949. - Other members of the club included Christopher Tolkien, JRRT’s son, and Owen Barfield.

In the mid-1960s American paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings started to gain cult fame. The Tolkiens moved in 1968 to Poole near Bournemouth but after the death of his wife in 1971, Tolkien returned to Oxford. In 1972 he received CBE from the Queen. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” (from The Hobbit, 1937)

While THE HOBBIT (1937) is said to be a work of fantasy for children - originally it was written to the author’s children - the epic The Lord of the Rings has a depth that fascinate adult readers. The title of the book refers to Sauron, the embodiment of evil in Middle-Earth. Sauron created the Rings of Power, and the One Ring, which rules the other rings and thus makes him the Lord of the Rings. Actually the story depicts different reactions of its characters, from men to hobbits, elves and other beings, to evil forces. This is why the work is not an fantasy version of WW II, the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but more related to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Sauron manifests himself in the form of a lidless Eye, which sees nearly everything.

The plot is simple: in order to save the world from the Dark Lord, Sauron, a young hibbit called Frodo must return the mythical ring, a kind of wedding ring between world and evil, to the Mount Doom, where it was forged. A coalition is formed among the races of Middle-Earth to help him and to battle the armies of Sauron. What becomes of sexual relationships between the characters of different races, Tolkien’s world is nearly Victorian, which also is typical for fantasy literature in general. Sometimes, like through the history of Ents, Tolkien dealt with gender roles. Ents are half men, half trees. Entwives loved the open lands where they might tend the fruit trees, flowers and grasses; the male Ents loved the trees of the forests. After the departure of Entwives, no new Entings were born.

The Hobbit takes the reader to a long journey from the safety of the Hill, where the Bagginses live, to look for their stolen treasure. The story introduces Gandalf, a wandering wizard, Bilbo, a brave hobit, Gollum, a small slimy creature, who likes goblin meat and throttled them behind, and other characters whom Tolkien developed further in The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf had “a tall pointed blue hat, a long cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.” With his wisdom and advices, he comes and goes, like a teacher who enters and leaves a class room.

“S-s-s-s-s,” said Gollum more upset than ever. He thought of all the things he kept in his own pockets: fish-bones, goblins’ teeth, wet shells, a bit of bat-wing, a sharp stone to sharpen his fangs on, and other nasty things. He tried to think what other people kept in their pockets.” (from The Hobbit)
Although critics have seen in The Lord of the Rings allegoric allusions to World War II, Tolkien repeatedly rejected all this kind of explanations. He insisted that the story was a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work.” “As for any inner meaning or ‘message’, it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical… It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted.” However, Tolkien’s Catholicism does not appear overtly in the book. Biblical use of language, on the other hand, gives the work archaic flavor. The Hobbit was published when the author was 45 years old. He developed further the history of Middle-Earth in The Lord of the Rings. It was published when Tolkien was over 60. His motivation for creating a new mythical world arose from his fascination in myths and folklore: “I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own, not of the quality that I sought, and found in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish, but nothing English, save impoverished chapbook stuff.” Another motivation was his rejection of modern England. He rarely watched a film, busied himself with the early English dialects of the West Midlands, and enjoyed the company of other professors.

Tolkien’s epic world is populated by elves, dwarves, magicians, and evil monsters. He saw himself as a Hobbit: “I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food....” Tolkien made up languages for the races that inhabit his Middle-earth and created for the background of his stories a complex history, geography, and society. But he also wished that the stories leave scope for other minds to develop his ideas further. Since the publication of The Lord of the Rings, a whole industry of fantasy literature, computer games, and other by-products, have been created by a worldwide community of Tolkien’s fans to continue his work. 

Tag: J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)