It is easy to forget that The Lord of the Rings was not a pop culture phenomenon in the seventies and early eighties. Hyde because they were "true" classics), was suggested and sanctioned by my mother (for which I will always owe her deeply).īut The Lord of the Rings was mine and mine alone. Everything else I read, from DH Lawrence to Hemingway to Dickens to Shakespeare (and this also included Dracula and Dr. The only books that had been reached by me alone were books on mythology and horror. I came to Tolkien's masterpiece on my own, and that meant much to me at twelve. Twenty-five years ago I'd have given The Lord of the Rings my highest possible praise. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for adults. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on throughout his life. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past. Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal. Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam Gimli the Dwarf Legolas the Elf Boromir of Gondor and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider. When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.įrom Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
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