English 2321

May, 4, 2009

The Lord of Fantasy

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, poet and philologist. He is best

known as the author of the classic high fantasy works: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and

The Silmarillion. He lived from 1892 to 1973, was married and had four children. He was also a

Professor of Anglo-Saxon back in Oxford University. Tolkien’s fist major work was The Hobbit

and when this was received with success, he started on a sequel. The sequel eventually

developed into a much larger work, it was titled The Lord of the Rings. He wrote this book as a

mythic prehistory, it was intended to come about in a long forgotten dark age of Europe. The

people and places of Middle-Earth are deeply rooted in Tolkien’s love of old languages and

cultures. This is what makes The Lord of the Rings feel like authentic history instead of another

invented fantasy. Tolkien was involved in World War 1 and was writing the trilogy during the

Second World War. Because of this first hand connection to the cruelty of war and terror of

looming death, Tolkien was aware of huge events and huge themes in which small people can

take part. This theme is dominant in the trilogy. Tolkien considered his major work to be not

The Lord of the Rings but The Silmarillion. In this dense and amazingly detailed book, he

attempted to replace England’s lost mythology by himself. Since their completion, the novels

have been reprinted innumerable times and translated into many languages, becoming one of the

most popular and influential works in 20th century literature. Why does the work of J.R.R.

Tolkien move so many people around the world?

Tolkien created a multitude of diverse characters in his novels, each with their own

different journey towards something, that each reader can relate to. The characters are some of
the most beloved in history and their excursions some of the most remarkable. In his epics he

writes of good and evil. His tales intertwine so many different personalities, that readers can see

themselves in at least some of them. In his writing he is careful to balance the epic and personal

battles of the characters. Tolkien made the complex core of his writings to be made up of the

same emotions that are important in life: friendship, loyalty, compassion, and love. This is why

his stories are still relevant in our time. In Tolkien’s form of writing, so many human experiences

were intertwined into his work, that it seemed ahead of it’s time. His characters are universal

and real. He made them easy to be identified with, and if your audience can identify with your

story, you have an appealing book. There are profound human elements in the story that draw

people in.

Tolkien was a devout Catholic. He used his worldview to influence his work including its

foundations and themes. Of his book The Lord of the Rings, he wrote it was “of course a

fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the

revision.” (Breakpoint Mag.) This theme can be seen throughout his work. In Rings, Tolkien

delineates good and evil, he stresses the importance of individual moral choices (Fellowship of

the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien). He makes heroes out of humble characters like Frodo and Sam, who

sacrifice themselves for the greater good and carry out their duties with no reasonable hope of

reward. He uses the image of the ring to explore the attraction of power and the perils of

infatuation with it. His characters are susceptible to sin and urgently in need of a Savior. He

fabricated tales with human characters. The small morals he intertwined through the storylines

make his writings significant today.

Tolkien's choice of the fantasy genre accounted for much of his style of stories. This is

where he made the greatest impact. He revolutionized modern fantasy; the reach of Tolkien’s
works is so wide that the use of the words “Tolkienian” and “Tolkienesque" have been included

in the Oxford English Dictionary (The Ring of Words, Gulliver).The long-term popularity of

Tolkien’s works has led to numerous allusions in popular culture as well as the publication of

numerous books about Tolkien and his work. His work was deliberately outside the fashionable

currents of his day. Because of Tolkien, the demand for fantasy fiction exploded and continued

to grow during the 1960’s, paving the way for other future writers, as well as expanding a new

field. It is of no surprise then that Tolkien has been titled as the Father of Modern Fantasy (Our

Greatest Writers, Carrington). The storyline Tolkien presented has much often been incorporated

into other stories: A group of adventurers who embark on a quest to save a fantasy world from

the armies of an evil dark lord. Tolkien’s writing has a lot of depth to it which is what separates

him from other writers.

Tolkien produces a light interweaving of literary references—specifically, links to

Shakespeare's King Lear in both style and thematic essence—with grammatical, syntactic,

lexical, and even aural effects. Thus, his writing achieves “a stylistic consistency and

communicative economy that rivals his Modernist contemporaries” (Tolkien Studies, Drout). At

the same time, the way in which he involves Lear demonstrates his engagement with the ideas

that have long been considered among the great themes of English literature. Tolkien was

engaged directly in a continuing evaluation and elaboration of some of these great themes. In his

presentation of the dangers, virtues, and duties of kingship, Tolkien has advanced Shakespeare's

discussion and raised issues as important in the twenty-first century as they were in the

seventeenth. His writing style has been hailed as “remarkably rich and successful not only in his

own terms but also in terms of the stylistic canons of Modernist Literature in which, supposedly,

form follows function” (Tolkien Studies, Drout). Most of the great attraction of Tolkien’s novels
is in part from his ability to “produce aesthetic effects simultaneously on multiple levels, so that

the effects created by, say, the use of Anglo-Saxon syntax and lexicon are connected with the

themes of cultural interaction and individual morality that are integral to Tolkien's vision.”

J. R. R. Tolkien’s influence in English Literature can be felt even today. His

analysis in his seminal essays, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" and "On Faerie Stories"

continues to be used today, as well as his discussion of light and dark imagery. His style of

writing was also unique. He was a man of Antitheses: always placing light against dark, setting

peace against danger. Contrasts abound in Tolkien's fiction. They are fundamentally significant

in The Silmarillion, where the differences between the natures of elves and men are used to

highlight a range of contrasting ideas (Splintered Light, Flieger). Tolkien uses historical

narrative and an archaic writing style. His signature combination of epic and earthiness is

conveyed by language of biblical gravity. His style is inimitable by its shifts of moods. What is

medieval in Tolkien’s visualization is his set of organizing principles, his symbols and his

patterns of legends and events. During his life he made a greater impact on the resulting fantasy

genre, as well as on the whole of English Literature than what he could have known. This Father

of Fantasy gave 4 major definitions that he deemed necessary for a successful fantasy tale:

Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, and Consolation. He combines the art of languages and of world

wisdom in his work. The charm of Tolkien’s stories comes not only from those lovable hobbits,

but also from the mystical world of Middle-earth.

 Works Cited
The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien, J.R.R., Published by Allen & Unwin, 1954
Breakpoint Magazine, April, 19, 2002, Colleen Carroll, Tolkien: Transformer of Culture
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Director Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, 2003
The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary, Gilliver, Peter, Oxford
University Press, 2006
Tolkien Studies, Michael D. C. Drout, West Virginia University Press, 2004
Our Greatest Writers: And Their Major Works, Carrington, John, Published by How to Books
Ltd, 2003
Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World, Flieger, Verlyn, William B. Erdmans
Publishing, 1983