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Tolkien's Modern Sources
J. R. R. Tolkien derived the characters, stories, places, and languages of Middle-earth from J. R. R. Tolkien's influences, many sources, including numerous modern works of fiction. These include Adventure fiction, adventure stories from Tolkien's childhood, such as books by John Buchan and H. Rider Haggard, especially the 1887 ''She: A History of Adventure''. Tolkien stated that he used the fight with werewolves in Samuel Rutherford Crockett's 1899 historical fantasy Black Douglas (1899 novel), ''The Black Douglas'' for his battle with wargs. Tolkien appears to have made use, too, of early science fiction, such as H. G. Wells's subterranean Morlocks from the 1895 ''The Time Machine'' and Jules Verne's hidden runic message in his 1864 ''Journey to the Center of the Earth''. A major influence was the Arts and Crafts movement, Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris. Tolkien wanted to imitate his prose and poetry romances such as the 1889 ''The House of the Wolfings'', and read ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the '' Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf''. Middle-earth is the human-inhabited world, that is, the central continent of the Earth, in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'', are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium, his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world. Middle-earth is the main continent of Earth (Arda) in an imaginary period of the Earth's past, ending with Tolkien's Third Age, about 6,000 years ago. Tolkien's tales of Middle-earth mostly focus on the north-west of the continent. This part of Middle-earth is suggestive of Europe, the north-west of the Old World, with the environs of the Shire reminisce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo Baggins is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel ''The Hobbit'', a supporting character in ''The Lord of the Rings'', and the fictional narrator (along with Frodo Baggins) of many of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. The Hobbit is selected by the wizard Gandalf to help Thorin Oakenshield, Thorin and his party of Dwarf (Middle-earth), Dwarves to reclaim their ancestral home and treasure, which has been seized by the dragon Smaug. Bilbo sets out in ''The Hobbit'' timid and comfort-loving, and through his adventures grows to become a useful and resourceful member of the quest. Bilbo's way of life in the Shire, defined by features like the availability of tobacco and a postal service, recalls that of the English middle class during the Victorian era, Victorian to Edwardian eras. This is not compatible with the much older world of Dwarves and Elf (Middle-earth), Elves. Tolkien appears to have based Bilbo on the designer William Morris's travels i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beowulf, most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "''Beowulf'' poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf (hero), Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes (Germanic tribe), Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a The Dragon (Beowulf), dragon, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan (r. 927–939). It became part of the short-lived North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century. The Anglo-Saxons migrated to England from mainland northwestern Europe after the Roman Empire abandoned Britain at the beginning of the fifth century. Anglo-Saxon history thus begins during the period of sub-Roman Britain following the end of Roman control, and traces the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th and 6th centuries (conventionally identified as seven main kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex); their Christianisation during the 7th century; the threat of Viking invasions and D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early Early may refer to: History * The beginning or oldest part of a defined historical period, as opposed to middle or late periods, e.g.: ** Early Christianity ** Early modern Europe Places in the United States * Early, Iowa * Early, Texas * Early ..., High Middle Ages, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medievalist
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as star (as, for example, in ''the A* search algorithm'' or '' C*-algebra''). In English, an asterisk is usually five- or six-pointed in sans-serif typefaces, six-pointed in serif typefaces, and six- or eight-pointed when handwritten. Its most common use is to call out a footnote. It is also often used to censor offensive words. In computer science, the asterisk is commonly used as a wildcard character, or to denote pointers, repetition, or multiplication. History The asterisk has already been used as a symbol in ice age cave paintings. There is also a two thousand-year-old character used by Aristarchus of Samothrace called the , , which he used when proofreading Homeric poetry to mark lines that were duplicated. Origen i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as the study of literary texts as well as oral and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist. In older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative and historical linguistics. Classical philology studies classical languages. Classical philology principally originated from the Library of Pergamum and the Library of Alexandria around the fourth century BC, continued by Greeks and Romans throughout the Roman/Byzantine Empire. It was eventually resumed by European scholars of the Renaissance, where it was soon joined by philologies of other European ( Germanic, Celti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iris Murdoch
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch ( ; 15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, '' Under the Net'' (1954), was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Her 1978 novel '' The Sea, the Sea'' won the Booker Prize. In 1987, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. In 2008, ''The Times'' ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Her other books include '' The Bell'' (1958), ''A Severed Head'' (1961), '' The Red and the Green'' (1965), '' The Nice and the Good'' (1968), '' The Black Prince'' (1973), '' Henry and Cato'' (1976), '' The Philosopher's Pupil'' (1983), ''The Good Apprentice'' (1985), '' The Book and the Brotherhood'' (1987), '' The Message to the Planet'' (1989), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tolkien And The Modernists
J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the bestselling fantasy ''The Lord of the Rings'', was largely rejected by the literary establishment during his lifetime, but has since been accepted into the literary canon, if not as a modernist then certainly as a modern writer responding to his times. He fought in the First World War, and saw the rural England that he loved built over and industrialised. His Middle-earth fantasy writings, consisting largely of a legendarium that underlies ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion'' that was not published until after his death, embodied his realism about the century's traumatic events, and his Christian hope. Scholars have compared Tolkien to authors of the 19th and 20th centuries, writing that he fits into the romantic tradition of William Morris and W. B. Yeats; has some connection with the Celtic Revival and the Symbolist movement; can be likened to the romantic Little Englandism and anti-statism of George Orwell and G. K. Cheste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwin Muir
Edwin Muir CBE (15 May 1887 – 3 January 1959) was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. Born on a farm in Deerness, a parish of Orkney, Scotland, he is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry written in plain language and with few stylistic preoccupations. Biography Muir was born at the farm of Folly in Deerness, the same parish in which his mother was born. The family then moved to the island of Wyre, followed by a return to the Mainland, Orkney. In 1901, when he was 14, his father lost his farm, and the family moved to Glasgow. In quick succession his father, two brothers, and his mother died within the space of a few years. His life as a young man was a depressing experience, and involved a raft of unpleasant jobs in factories and offices, including working in a factory that turned bones into charcoal. "He suffered psychologically in a most destructive way, although perhaps the poet of later years benefitted from these experiences as much as from his Or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Reception Of The Lord Of The Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien's bestselling fantasy novel ''The Lord of the Rings'' had an initial mixed literary reception. Despite some enthusiastic early reviews from supporters such as W. H. Auden, Iris Murdoch, and C. S. Lewis, literary hostility to Tolkien quickly became acute and continued until the start of the 21st century. From 1982, Tolkien scholars such as Tom Shippey and Verlyn Flieger began to roll back the hostility, defending Tolkien, rebutting the critics' attacks and analysing what they saw as good qualities in Tolkien's writing. From 2003, scholars such as Brian Rosebury began to consider why Tolkien had attracted such hostility. Rosebury noted that Tolkien avoided calling ''The Lord of the Rings'' a novel, and that in Shippey's view Tolkien had been aiming to create a medieval-style heroic romance, despite modern scepticism about that literary mode. In 2014, Patrick Curry analysed the reasons for the hostility, finding it both visceral and full of evident mistakes, and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Lord Of The Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'', but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, ''The Lord of the Rings'' is one of the List of best-selling books, best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold. The title refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who, in an earlier age, created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power given to Men in Middle-earth, Men, Dwarves in Middle-earth, Dwarves, and Elves in Middle-earth, Elves, in his campaign to conquer all of Middle-earth. From homely beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land reminiscent of the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the quest to destroy the One Ring mainly through the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
