John Ronald Reuel Tolkien 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973 Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (South Africa)

J.R.R. Tolkien English writer poet philologist university professor author of the classic high fantasy works, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion

Family origins Tolkien’s paternal ancestors were craftsmen roots in Lower Saxony, living in England since the 18th century surname Tolkien - German word tollkühn (foolhardy) maternal grandparents John and Edith Jane Suffield - Baptists from Birmingham, run various businesses (Lamb House, drapery, hosiery business) father: Arthur Reuel Tolkien English bank manager mother: Mabel, née Suffield younger brother: Hilary Arthur Reuel

Childhood father died in South Africa of rheumatic fever when he was 3 years old mother took him to live with her parents in Birmingham Mabel Tolkien herself taught her two sons - Botany, Latin very early, reading many books Ronald was a keen pupil by the age of four reading writing fluently soon afterwards stories about „Red Indians” and the fantasy works by George MacDonald

Education King Edward’s School, Birmingham St. Philip’s School Exeter College, Oxford - Classics and English Language and Literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours

„line the route” for the coronation parade of King George V Mabel Tolkien died of acute diabetes when Tolkien was 12 guardianship of her sons to Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory Living in Perrott’s Folly and the Victorian Tower of Edgbaston Waterworks - the images of the dark towers within his works Other influence: romantic medievalist paintings of Edward Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood At King Edward’s School in Birmingham forming of a semi-secret society the T.C.B.S. standing for Tea Club and Barrovian Society

Edith at the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt his guardian, Father Francis Morgan prohibited him from meeting, talking to, or even corresponding with her until he was 21 they married at Warwick, 1916, she was converting to Catholicism

World War I In 1914 Britain entered WW1 second Lieutenant then he was transferred to the 11th battalion arriving in France. departure from England on a troop transport inspired him to write his poem The Lonely Isle In 1916 trench fever, a disease carried by the lice He was invalided to England, suffered trench foot and was removed from front line combat. During his recovery working on „The Book of Lost Tales”, promoting to Lieutenant

Academic and writing career Oxford English Dictionary - worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds as the youngest professor A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E.V. Gordon - academic standard works in 1925 he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon with a fellowship at Pembroke College – writing of The Hobbit and the first 2 volumes of The Lord of the Rings philological essay „Nodens”

In 1945 Merton College, Oxford - the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature external examiner for University College, Dublin completing The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches translating the Book of Jonah for the Jerusalem Bible, published in 1966.

The Tolkien Family four children: John Francis Reuel Tolkien, Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien, Christopher John Reuel Tolkien Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien The Father Christmas Letters fantasy stories to entertain his children, sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas

Religion, politics, race devout Roman Catholic, but conservative in his religious and political views dislike for the side effects of industrialization, disdainful of cars preferring to ride a bicycle, attitude can be seen in The Lord of the Rings his love of myths and his devout faith came together that he believed mythology supporting the Nationalists led by Franco during the Spanish Civil War He was contemptuous of Joseph Stalin – hope that the United States would overthrow both Stalin and the CPSU after Hitler’s defeat

The Lord of the Rings as an anti-communist parable and identified the Dark Lord with Stalin disgust of racial segregation in South Africa and opposed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party prior to the Second World War objecting to a description of Middle-earth as Nordic because of its association with racialist theories criticizing Allied use of total war tactics against civilians from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan

Writing Tolkien devised several themes in the drafts of his legendarium Beren and Lúthien - in his Middle-earth legendarium, Lúthien the most beautiful child forseeking her immortality for her love of the mortal warrior Beren Tolkien engraved on Edith’s tombstone the name Lúthien and he was buried in the same grave with Beren

Influences He was much inspired by early Gemanic, Old English literature, poetry and mythology Old English literature such as Beowulf. Norse sagas (Volsunga saga) Hervarar saga, the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Niebelungenlied. Volunga saga and the Niebelungenlied were the basis for Richard Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Niebelungen. Tolkien dismissed critics’ direct comparisons to Wagner. non-Gemanic influences: Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King, the Finnish national epic the Kalevala Celtic (Irish, Scottish and Welsh) history and legends

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics most significant influences with major details of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem. Tolkien found most ispiring, prominently the role of monsters in literature

The Silmarillion Tolkien started it three times but never published by him He appointed his son Christopher as literary executor and he organized his father’s unpublished material into a single coherent volume Published in 1977, Locus Award to Best Fantasy novel in 1978

The Hobbit Originally it was written for his own children, the book attracted adult readers as well as children

The Lord of the Rings the most famous work, ten years writing a children’s tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious fantasy genre, became popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since most popular work of fiction of the 20th century Big Read survey found it the Nation’s Best-loved Book, Australians voted it My Favourite Book in 2004, Amazon.com book of the millenium

Linguistic career Tolkien’s academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. specialized in English philology at university with Old Norse as special subject. work for the Oxford English Dictionary, Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts. Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic and Medieval Welsh

Languages Learning of Latin, French and German from his mother and at school he learned Middle English, Old English, Finnish, Gothic, Greek, Italian, Old Norse, Spanish, Welsh and Medieval Welsh. He was also familiar with Danish, Dutch, Lombardic, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian Creating of Middle-earth as a home for his invented languages Constructing of languages: Quenya and Sindarin (Elvish) languages are inseparable from the mythology

Languages in the Lord of the Rings • Black Speech: "Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul — One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them" • Quenya: "Elen sila lûmenn' omentielvo — A star shines on the hour of our meeting" • Dwarvish: "Khazâd-ai-mênu! — The Dwarves are upon you!"

Many character and place names in The Lord of the Rings are related to words from old and modern languages: Saruman's name derives from the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, root "searu-" for "treachery" or "cunning." "Sauron" is linked to the Old Norse or Icelandic stem meaning "filth" or "dung" or "uncleanness." "Mordor" derives from the Old English word "morthor," which means "murder." "Middle-earth" is related to the name "middan-geard," which was the name for the Earth itself in Old English poetry and was considered to be the battleground between the forces of good and evil

Attention and fame During his life in retirement: increasing public attention and literary fame he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, a seaside resort patronized by the British upper class He was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1972, receiving the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace Died: 2 September 1973

Memorials named after Tolkien Tolkien Road in Eastbourne, East Sussex Asteroid 2675 Tolkien Passenger cruise on the Baltic Sea J.R.R. Tolkien Tolkien Way in Stoke-on-Trent after Tolkien’s eldest son John Francis Tolkien who was the priest J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language – professorship at Oxford an entire new neighbourhood in a Dutch town of Geldrop – Tolkien (Laan van Tolkien) In the Hall Green and Moseley areas of Birmingham parks and walkways dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien In the Silicon Valley towns of California two housing developments with street names drawn from Tolkien’s works

The Hobbit - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien - Genre: Fantasy Novel Fantasy: a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena. Novel: a book of long narrative in literary prose.

The Hobbit Published: on 21 September 1937. Background: Tolkien began work on The Hobbit in the early 1930s. By late 1932 he had finished the story.

The Hobbit Story: - Bilbo Baggins goes for the treasure guarded by Smaug the dragon. - Gandalf saves the company from trolls. - Bilbo gets separated from the others then stumbles across a mysterious ring and meets with Gollum. - With the help of the ring Bilbo rejoines the dwarves.

The Hobbit Bilbo saves the dwarves from giant spiders and Wood-elfs. Weakness in Smaug's armour - Bard Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army. Battle of Five Armies Thorin dies and Bilbo returns home as a wealthy and mature hobbit.

The Lord of the Rings - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien - Genre: Epic High Fantasy Epic: High Fantasy: - the action takes - subgenre of fantasy place on a grand scale - set in invented or parallel worlds

The Lord of the Rings Background: The story began as a sequel to The Hobbit (1937) It is written in stages between 1937 and 1948 It is the third best-selling novel ever written. the first chapter ("A Long-Expected Party") arrived in early 1937.

The Lord of the Rings Influences: George MacDonald - Scottish author, poet Famous for for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels William Morris - an English textile designer, artist, writer, and utopian socialist. Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf

The Lord of the Rings Publication details: Publisher: George Allen & Unwin The Fellowship of the Ring - 21 July 1954, The Two Towers - 11 November 1954, and The Return of the King -20 October 1955

Tolkien vs. Peter Jackson: The Lord of the Rings Tolkien vs. Peter Jackson: - Differences Between Story and Screenplay - ”Presenting, the historical background of a story was outside the scope of the movie…” (Peter Jackson, director)

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