My Thoughts on J. R. R. Tolkien

        Hello! This is Quintus, and I decided for my first blog post, I'd write about my favorite author of all time. Most know Tolkien for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which is perfectly reasonable, since these classic books are absolutely amazing. Here, though, I'd like to share with you the real reason I love Tolkien. 

        For most of his adulthood, Tolkien (1892 - 1973) taught English language and literature at the University of Leeds and Oxford respectively. He specialized in Old and Middle English. In private, Tolkien wrote an elaborate series of fantasy tales, which were usually dark and sad, set in a world he created. Eventually, this series of tales became The Silmarillion. He created a few stories for his children, which were lighter and funnier, most notably The Hobbit, which he ended up publishing in 1937. It was so popular that the publisher asked for a sequel, which Tolkien provided in The Lord of the Rings 17 years later. 

        Tolkien didn’t just make settings in his world that would be needed for his books. He created the most elaborate geographies of his world, built detailed civilizations, and told a great number of stories of his world’s history, myths, and legends. He even put effort into the floral diversity of his world, some plants relevant to the stories, others, not so much. 

        Similarly, he created languages. No, I don’t mean created specific words and sentence structures that would specifically apply to the books he wrote. He meticulously wrote his languages. 2 of them are even considered functional languages, albeit lacking specific terms. Most authors write languages they can incorporate into their books. Tolkien did the opposite; he created languages to privately express his own linguistic aesthetic, then wrote the stories to house characters which spoke the languages he made. Tolkien created a large family of Elvish languages, which included Quenya and Sindarin, the most developed and well-known of his languages. He also sketched Mannish languages (languages of Men), Dwarvish, Entish, and Black Speech. 

        But Tolkien didn’t just create his languages, settings, and novels out of nothing. Lots of his work is inspired by England’s history. In fact, “The Shire” (the home of the Hobbits) is based on the suffix "shire”, which refers to English counties (e.g. Worcestershire, Yorkshire). In addition, the contrast between Mordor and Isengard’s exploitation of nature for their own goals and the Elves and Hobbits’ coexistence with nature can be interpreted as what Tolkien experienced growing up. Tolkien loved how rural his home was when he was growing up, but he saw industrialization intruding on the way he lived as a child. 

        Tolkien was a world-renowned author for good reason. He crafted an intricate world with many myths, legends, and histories. He created entire languages, some of which were even functional. He created everything from dragons, to elves, to hobbits, to plants. Some criticize Tolkien for putting so much effort into making parts of his world that weren’t particularly significant to most of his books. I, however, find it amazing and fascinating that he was able to create a more detailed imaginary world than most other authors, if not the most detailed imaginary world ever made.

        Don’t let me make you think all of Tolkien’s works were boring and dragged on forever. Those who like epic fantasies should try reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, in that order. Those who find themselves enjoying Tolkien’s works who would like a more challenging book to read may want to try his other novels, such as The Silmarillion (a notoriously difficult read), or Tolkien’s works that were finished and edited by his son Christopher Tolkien, such as Beren and Luthien and the 12-volume series The History of Middle Earth. Thank you for reading my blog.