Background
Although a major work in itself, The Lord of the Rings was only the last movement of a much older set of narratives Tolkien had worked on since 1917 encompassing The Silmarillion,[9] in a process he described as mythopoeia.[e]
The Lord of the Rings started as a sequel to Tolkien's work The Hobbit, published in 1937.[11] The popularity of The Hobbit had led George Allen & Unwin, the publishers, to request a sequel. Tolkien warned them that he wrote quite slowly, and responded with several stories he had already developed. Having rejected his contemporary drafts for The Silmarillion, putting Roverandom on hold, and accepting Farmer Giles of Ham, Allen & Unwin continued to ask for more stories about hobbits.[12]
Writing
Navigable diagram of Tolkien's legendarium. The Lord of the Rings began as a sequel to The Hobbit but gradually took in elements of the legendarium, the mythology summarized in The Silmarillion.Persuaded by his publishers, he started "a new Hobbit" in December 1937.[11] After several false starts, the story of the One Ring emerged. The idea for the first chapter ("A Long-Expected Party") arrived fully formed, although the reasons behind Bilbo's disappearance, the significance of the Ring, and the title The Lord of the Rings did not come until the spring of 1938.[11] Originally, he planned to write a story in which Bilbo had used up all his treasure and was looking for another adventure to gain more; however, he remembered the Ring and its powers and thought that would be a better focus for the new work.[11] As the story progressed, he brought in elements from The Silmarillion mythology.[13]
Writing was slow, because Tolkien had a full-time academic position, marked exams to bring in a little extra income, and wrote many drafts.[11][T 4] Tolkien abandoned The Lord of the Rings during most of 1943 and only restarted it in April 1944,[11] as a serial for his son Christopher Tolkien, who was sent chapters as they were written while he was serving in South Africa with the Royal Air Force. Tolkien made another major effort in 1946, and showed the manuscript to his publishers in 1947.[11] The story was effectively finished the next year, but Tolkien did not complete the revision of earlier parts of the work until 1949.[11] The original manuscripts, which total 9,250 pages, now reside in the J. R. R. Tolkien Collection at Marquette University.[14]
Poetry
Unusually for 20th century novels, the prose narrative is supplemented throughout by over 60 pieces of poetry. These include verse and songs of many genres: for wandering, marching to war, drinking, and having a bath; narrating ancient myths, riddles, prophecies, and magical incantations; and of praise and lament (elegy).[15] Some, such as riddles, charms, elegies, and narrating heroic actions are found in Old English poetry.[15] Scholars have stated that the poetry is essential for the fiction to work aesthetically and thematically, as it adds information not given in the prose, and it brings out characters and their backgrounds.[16][17] The poetry has been judged to be of high technical skill, reflected in Tolkien's prose; for instance, he wrote much of Tom Bombadil's speech in metre.[18]
Illustrations
Tolkien's calligraphy of the Ring Verse was one of the few illustrations in the first edition. It is written in the Black Speech of Mordor using the Tengwar script.Tolkien worked on the text using his maps of Middle-earth as a guide, to ensure the elements of the story fitted together in time and space.[T 5] He prepared a variety of types of illustration – maps, calligraphy, drawings, cover designs, even a facsimile painting of the Book of Mazarbul – but only the maps, the inscription on the Ring, and a drawing of the Doors of Durin were included in the first edition.[19][T 6]
The hardback editions sometimes had cover illustrations by Tolkien,[f] sometimes by other artists. According to The New York Times, Barbara Remington's cover designs for Ballantine's paperback editions "achieved mass-cult status in the 1960s, particularly on college campuses" across America.[20]
Influences
Beowulf's eotenas [ond] ylfe [ond] orcneas, "ogres [and] elves [and] devil-corpses" helped to inspire Tolkien to create the Orcs and Elves of Middle-earth.[21]Tolkien drew on a wide array of influences including language,[T 7] Christianity,[T 8] mythology and Germanic heroic legend including the Norse Völsunga saga,[22] archaeology, especially at the Temple of Nodens,[23] ancient and modern literature, like Finnish 19th-century epic poetry The Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot,[24] and personal experience. He was inspired primarily by his profession, philology;[T 9] his work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings.[21] He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Celtic,[25][22] Finnish,[26] Slavic,[27] and Greek language and mythology.[28] Commentators have attempted to identify literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings; he acknowledged that he had enjoyed adventure stories by authors such as John Buchan and Rider Haggard.[29][30][31] The Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris was a major influence,[T 10] and Tolkien undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home.[32] Tolkien stated, too, that he had been influenced by his childhood experiences of the English countryside of Worcestershire near Sarehole Mill, and its urbanization by the growth of Birmingham,[T 11] and his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War.[33] Moreover, the militarization and industrialization inspired the character of Sauron and his forces. The Orcs represented the worst of it as workers that have been tortured and brutalized by the war and industry.[34]
Themes
Scholars and critics have identified many themes in the book with its complex interlaced narrative, including a reversed quest,[35][36] the struggle of good and evil,[37] death and immortality,[38] fate and free will,[39] the addictive danger of power,[40] 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.[41][42][43][44] There is a common theme throughout the work of language, its sound, and its relationship to peoples and places, along with hints of providence in descriptions of weather and landscape.[45] Out of these, Tolkien stated that the central theme is death and immortality.[T 12] To those who supposed that the book was an allegory of events in the 20th century, Tolkien replied in the foreword to the Second Edition that it was not, saying he preferred "history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers."
Some commentators have criticized the book for being a story about men for boys, with no significant women; or about a purely rural world with no bearing on modern life in cities; of containing no sign of religion; or of racism. Other commentators responded by noting that there are three powerful women in the book, Galadriel, Éowyn, and Arwen; that life, even in rural Hobbiton, is not idealized; that Christianity is a pervasive theme; and that Tolkien was sharply anti-racist both in peacetime and during the Second World War, while Middle-earth is evidently polycultural.[46][47][48]
