Hence, Tolkien was able to explore themes that eventually required the insight of a Tom Shippey or Christopher Tolkien to understand. He adopted ideas into Middle-earth that previously did not fit well with the Middle-earth that was centered around Beleriand. The writing process naturally led Tolkien to add many new elements. In allowing himself to introduce each new aside, Tolkien stretched the fabric of the story further toward the world “into which the hobbit (had) intruded” and away from the “story about hobbits”. ![]() The story evolved because Tolkien could not resist the temptation to include more information about things that really weren’t connected with hobbits. That overwhelming desire was the passion that transformed Tolkien’s attempt to write what appears to have been a mediocre “story about hobbits” into The Lord of the Rings. In fact, it may be a fictitious work on another level, an example of how the English might have carried forward their heroic traditions, and adopted models from other traditions, had there been no 1066 invasion….įaced with a subsequent rejection of his Silmarillion mythology and a further request for more stories about hobbits, Tolkien set himself the task of writing about hobbits but he could not divorce himself from the desire to see the “greater story” find its way into print. Just as The Lord of the Rings is set in an imaginary time in our past, so it purports to be a translation of an ancient work, The Red Book of Westmarch. Especially not when England became the dominant power in the world, and the English provoked their thought with ideas from around the globe. Why not? Anglo-Saxon authors throughout the past 1,000 years would not have ignored so many important steps in the evolution. He could pick and choose from the best traditions that western literature has to offer. Eschewing the novel, he brought the heroic romance forward and gave it the framework that a rich literary tradition would have to provide. As Tolkien devised alternative plural forms for words such as “dwarf” (“dwarrows” and “dwarves” instead of the traditional “dwarfs”), so he may have sought to devise an alternative model for English literature. Anglo-Saxon authors would eventually have been introduced and reintroduced to the classics as the centuries unfolded. Such a tradition could not have helped avoid importing influences from abroad. The Lord of the Rings may be Tolkien’s attempt define the modern English heroic romance as it might have evolved from an uninterrupted Anglo-Saxon literary tradition. 10 years ago I wrote in an essay (“Tolkien’s Time Machine: When Literary Worlds Collide”): Tolkien wanted to resurrect a lost form of literature that has since been partially resurrected, partially re-evaluated, and partially transformed into a modern interpretation of Great Myths. The preamble to Letter 19 explains what happened: Novel is not quite the right word, though, for what Tolkien wanted to bring to print was The Silmarillion, which is anything but a novel. Flush with the success of having published The Hobbit (which he never would have submitted to a publisher had it not been secretly shared with a family friend who had a connection in the publishing industry), Tolkien was beginning to dream the dream of publishing the Great English Novel. That world was not the Middle-earth that we have come to know but it was an earlier Middle-earth that had begun to take shape only a few years before. But I have only too much to say, and much already written, about the world into which the hobbit intruded…. Mr Baggins seems to have exhibited so fully both the Took and the Baggins side of their nature. I cannot think of anything more to say about HOBBITS. In fact, Tolkien had a more fully formed thought than that he could not write more about hobbits:Īll the same I am a little perturbed. Baggins seems to have exhibited so fully both the Took and the Baggins side of their nature” (Tolkien, “The Letters of J.R.R. When first told this by his publishers, Tolkien replied, “I cannot think of anything more to say about hobbits. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings was that his readers wanted to read more about hobbits. ![]() Q: Why Did Tolkien Write The Lord of the Rings?ĪNSWER: As I pointed out in “Hobbit Tales, Or Never There And Back Again”: The story of how ‘The Lord of the Rings’ came to be is itself an amazing biographical journey. Tolkien did not set out to write a masterpiece in modern fantasy fiction.
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