Misplaced Pages

The fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien have had a huge popular impact. His Middle-earth books have sold hundreds of millions of copies. The Lord of the Rings transformed the genre of fantasy writing. It and The Hobbit have spawned Peter Jackson's Middle-earth films, which have had billion-dollar takings at the box office. The books and films have stimulated enormous Tolkien fandom activity in meetings such as Tolkienmoot and on the Internet, with discussion groups, fan art, and many thousands of Tolkien fan fiction stories. The mythology's Orcs, Trolls, Dwarves, Elves, Wizards, and Halflings are firmly established in popular culture, such as in the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and in Middle-earth video games. Individual characters like Gollum, too, have become familiar popular figures, for instance featuring in a song by Led Zeppelin.

Context

J. R. R. Tolkien was an English author and philologist of ancient Germanic languages, specialising in Old English; he spent much of his career as a professor at the University of Oxford. He is best known for his novels about his invented Middle-earth, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and for the posthumously published The Silmarillion which provides a more mythical narrative about earlier ages. A devout Roman Catholic, he described The Lord of the Rings as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work", rich in Christian symbolism. His Middle-earth books have sold hundreds of millions of copies.

Media

Fantasy fiction

The Lord of the Rings transformed the genre of fantasy writing. Tolkien has been called the "father" of modern fantasy. The author and editor of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Brian Attebery, writes that fantasy is defined "not by boundaries but by a centre", which is The Lord of the Rings.

Many later fantasy writers have either imitated Tolkien's work, or have written in reaction against it. One of the first was Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series of novels, starting in 1968, which used Tolkienian archetypes such as wizards, a disinherited prince, a magical ring, a quest, and dragons. A publishing rush followed. Fantasy authors including Stephen R. Donaldson and Philip Pullman have created intentionally non-Tolkienian fantasies, Donaldson with an unloveable protagonist, and Pullman, who is critical of The Lord of the Rings, with a different view of the purpose of life.

Artwork

Since the publication of The Hobbit in 1937, artists have sought to capture aspects of Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy novels in paintings and drawings. He liked the work of Cor Blok, Mary Fairburn, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, and Ted Nasmith, but not the illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of The Hobbit.

After Tolkien's death in 1973, many artists have created illustrations of Middle-earth characters and landscapes, in media ranging from Alexander Korotich's scraperboard depictions, to Margrethe II of Denmark's woodcut-style drawings, Sergey Yuhimov's Russian Orthodox icon-style representations, and Donato Giancola's neoclassical oil paintings. Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings, and later of The Hobbit, made use of concept art by John Howe and Alan Lee; the resulting images of Middle-earth and the story's characters have strongly influenced subsequent representations of Tolkien's work. Jenny Dolfen has specialised in making watercolour paintings of The Silmarillion, winning three awards from The Tolkien Society.

Motion pictures

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have spawned Peter Jackson's Middle-earth films, which have had billion-dollar takings at the box office.

Music

A substantial body of music has been created on the basis of Tolkien's works, in a wide range of genres from classical to many kinds of popular music including jazz, blues, country and western, new age, heavy metal, and psychedelic. Donald Swann's 1967 song cycle The Road Goes Ever On sets six of Tolkien's songs to music. The Danish group The Tolkien Ensemble set all the poetry in The Lord of the Rings to music, publishing it on four CDs – An Evening in Rivendell (1997), A Night in Rivendell (2000), At Dawn in Rivendell (2002), and (with Christopher Lee) Leaving Rivendell (2005). Classical music inspired by Middle-earth includes Johan de Meij's Symphony No. 1 "The Lord of the Rings" and Aulis Sallinen's Symphony No. 7 The Dreams of Gandalf. Among many works of popular music that reference Tolkien's works is the Led Zeppelin song "Ramble On", in which Gollum and the Dark Lord (Sauron) get up to some surprising things.

Games

The mythology's Orcs, Trolls, Dwarves, Elves, Wizards, and Hobbits (or Halflings) are firmly established in popular culture, such as in the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and in Middle-earth video games.

Fandom

Tolkien's books and Jackson's films have stimulated enormous Tolkien fandom activity in meetings such as Tolkienmoot, in Tolkien Societies in many countries, and on the Internet, with discussion groups, fan art, and many thousands of Tolkien fan fiction stories. Individual characters like Gollum have become familiar popular figures. Tolkien tourism has become commercially important, especially to some of Jackson's film locations in New Zealand, such as the Hobbiton film set.

Fan films

Tolkien fan films cannot be released commercially as the rights remain private, but some non-commercial films with small budgets and good production standards have been released on the Internet. These include Chris Bouchard's The Hunt for Gollum and Kate Madison's Born of Hope.

Fan art

Tolkien fan art consists of Middle-earth-themed artworks created by fans, using any media, but usually shared online in digital form, typically on specialist websites. Fan art elicits abundant responses from other fans. Such responses can be grouped as praise; challenge and multi-person discussion of interpretation; discussion of (romantic) relationships; and references to Tolkien's original text, as authority. People involved in such discussions have nearly always read Tolkien's Middle-earth books. Artworks may feature well-known or minor characters, or may depict dramatic moments from Tolkien's stories.

Fan fiction

Tolkien fan fiction is fantasy writing by Tolkien fans, usually women, on some aspect of Middle-earth, often shared on the Internet; it exists in enormous quantities. It is based either on Tolkien's books or on a depiction of Middle-earth, especially Peter Jackson's films. Authors may seek to fill in gaps, such as events in the lives of characters before the main action described by Tolkien. Alternatively they may write about the daily lives of minor characters; or they may invent characters in a suitable Middle-earth setting. The types of writing that have resulted include homoerotic slash fiction and several strands of feminist storytelling.

Research

Much early literary comment on Tolkien's fantasy writings, especially The Lord of the Rings, was hostile. Other scholars, including Paul H. Kocher in 1972, Jane Chance in 1979, Tom Shippey in 1982, and Verlyn Flieger in 1983, began a process of rehabilitation, which has enabled the discipline of Tolkien studies to develop.

The scope of Tolkien research encompasses all aspects of his published novels, along with his legendarium that remained unpublished until after his death, and his constructed languages, especially the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin. Scholars from different disciplines have examined the linguistic and literary origins of Middle-earth, and have debated the themes of his writings from Christianity to feminism and race. Several journals specialise in the publication of Tolkien research.

Popular culture

Out of Tolkien's writings, The Lord of the Rings in particular has had a profound and wide-ranging impact on popular culture, especially during the 1960s and 1970s when young people embraced it as a countercultural saga. The phrase "Frodo Lives!" became popular at that time. The words "Tolkienian" and "Tolkienesque" have entered the Oxford English Dictionary, and many of his fantasy terms, such as "Hobbit", "Orc", and "Warg", formerly little-known, have become widespread. Among its effects are numerous parodies, especially Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings, which has had the distinction of remaining continuously in print from its publication in 1969, and of being translated into at least 11 languages. Outside commercial exploitation from adaptations, from the late 1960s onwards there has been an increasing variety of original licensed merchandise, with posters and calendars created by illustrators such as Barbara Remington. The Lord of the Rings was named Britain's best novel of all time in the BBC's The Big Read. In 2015, the BBC ranked it 26th on its list of the 100 greatest British novels. It was included in Le Monde's list of "100 Books of the Century".

References

Primary

1. Carpenter 2023, letter #142 to Robert Murray, 2 December 1953
2. Carpenter 2023, #107 to Sir Stanley Unwin, 7 December 1946

Secondary

1. ^ Wagner 2007.
2. ^ BBC 2008.
3. ^ Yolen 1992.
4. ^ Box Office Mojo (LOTR) 2024.
5. ^ Box Office Mojo (Hobbit) 2024.
6. ^ Tolkienmoot 2024.
7. ^ Walls-Thumma 2015.
8. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 350–351.
9. ^ Ewalt 2013.
10. ^ VentureBeat 2017.
11. ^ Arvidsson 2010.
12. ^ Meyer & Yri 2020, p. 732.
13. Carpenter 1977, pp. 111, 200, 266.
14. Schlagwein 2022.
15. Hunt 2013, p. 33.
16. James 2012, pp. 62–78.
17. Paxson 1984.
18. Clute 1997, p. 82.
19. Fultz 2013.
20. Butler & Pullman 2007.
21. Collier 2011.
22. Tankard 2017.
23. ^ Thygesen 1999.
24. Radio Rivendell 2012.
25. Uraic 2013.
26. Lebedev 2016.
27. LaSala 2019.
28. Svitil 2007, pp. 75–76.
29. Tolkien Society 2016.
30. Eden 2013, pp. 501–513.
31. Swann & Tolkien 2002.
32. Burdge & Burke 2013.
33. Bratman 2010.
34. Gilsdorf 2006.
35. Hobbiton 2024.
36. Masters 2009.
37. Ide 2010.
38. Li 2023.
39. Silmarillion Writers Guild 2024.
40. Walls-Thumma 2019.
41. Viars & Coker 2015.
42. Shippey 2005, pp. 66–74.
43. Shippey 2001, p. 88.
44. ^ Timmons 1998.
45. Bradfield 2021.
46. Drout 2006.
47. Croft 2016.
48. Feist 2001.
49. Roszak 1995, p. 40.
50. Gilliver 2006, pp. 174, 201–206.
51. Bratman 2013.
52. Carmel 2020.
53. Ezard 2003.
54. Ciabattari 2015.
55. Savigneau 1999.

Sources

• Arvidsson, Stefan (2010). "Greed and the Nature of Evil: Tolkien versus Wagner". Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. 22 (2): 7. doi:10.3138/jrpc.22.2.007.
• BBC (18 March 2008). "Tolkien's Hobbit fetches £60,000". BBC News. Retrieved 6 June 2008.
• Box Office Mojo (LOTR) (2024). "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
• Box Office Mojo (Hobbit) (2024). "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
• Bradfield, Julian (2021). "The Tolkien Language List". Quettar.org. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
• Bratman, David (2013) . "Parodies". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 503–504. ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
• Bratman, David (2010). "Liquid Tolkien: Music, Tolkien, Middle-earth, and More Music". In Eden, Bradford Lee (ed.). Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien. McFarland. pp. 140–170. ISBN 978-0-7864-5660-4.
• Burdge, Anthony; Burke, Jessica (2013) . "Popular Music". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 538–540. ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0.
• Butler, Robert; Pullman, Philip (3 December 2007). "An Interview with Philip Pullman". Intelligent Life Magazine. Archived from the original on 5 December 2007.
• Carmel, Julia (15 February 2020). "Barbara Remington, Illustrator of Tolkien Book Covers, Dies at 90". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
• Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-04-928037-3.
• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) . The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Ciabattari, Jane (7 December 2015). "The 100 greatest British novels". BBC. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
• Clute, John, ed. (1997). "Ballantine Adult Fantasy series". The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. Orbit Books. ISBN 978-1-85723-368-1.
• Collier, Pieter (8 March 2011). "A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings". Tolkien Library. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
• Croft, Janet Brennan (2016). "Bibliographic Resources for Literature Searches on J.R.R Tolkien". Journal of Tolkien Research. 3 (1). Article 2.
• Drout, Michael D. C., ed. (2006). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. New York City: Routledge. pp. xxix–xxx. ISBN 0-415-96942-5.
• Eden, Bradford Lee (2013). "Music". In Lee, Stuart D. (ed.). A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien. Wiley Blackwell. pp. 501–513. ISBN 978-1-119-65602-9.
• Ewalt, David M. (2013). Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 103–104. ISBN 978-1-4516-4050-2. OCLC 800031925.
• Ezard, John (15 December 2003). "Tolkien runs rings round Big Read rivals". The Guardian.
• Feist, Raymond (2001). "Our Grandfather: Meditations on J.R.R. Tolkien". In Haber, Karen (ed.). Meditations on Middle-earth. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-30290-8.
• Fultz, John R. (7 January 2013). "In the Master's Shadow: Epic Fantasy in the Post-Tolkien World". Orbit Books. Retrieved 9 July 2023.
• Gilliver, Peter (2006). The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-861069-6.
• Gilsdorf, Ethan (9 November 2006). "Cities both big and small are offering tours of film locations". The Christian Science Monitor via USA Today. Retrieved 26 March 2010.
• Hobbiton (2024). "Experience the Magic of Hobbiton Movie Set". Retrieved 7 September 2024.
• Hunt, Peter (2013). J.R.R. Tolkien. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-26399-5.
• Ide, Wendy (12 February 2010). "Born of Hope". Times Online. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
• James, Edward (26 January 2012). "Tolkien, Lewis and the explosion of genre fantasy". The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/ccol9780521429597.007. ISBN 978-0-52142959-7.
• LaSala, Jeff (22 April 2019). "Donato Giancola Is the Caravaggio of Middle-earth". Tor.com. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
• Lebedev, Dmitry Leonidovich (2016). "Visualizations of John Tolkien's fantasy world". Yearbook of Eastern European Studies (6): 106–116.
• Li, Yijia (17 May 2023). "The Silmarillion, Fan Art, and A Typology of Fandom Comments: A Qualitative Analysis of Fan Fiction Comments Posted on Deviantart Platform". Communications in Humanities Research. 3 (1): 833–840. doi:10.54254/2753-7064/3/2022734.
• Masters, Tim (30 April 2009). "Making Middle-earth on a shoestring". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 1 May 2009.
• Meyer, Stephen C.; Yri, Kirsten (2020). The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism. Oxford University Press. p. 732. ISBN 978-0-19-065844-1.
• Savigneau, Josyane (15 October 1999). "Écrivains et choix sentimentaux" [Authors and sentimental choices]. Le Monde (in French). Archived from the original on 27 May 2012.
• Paxson, Diana (1984). "The Tolkien Tradition". Mythlore. 11 (1). Article 19.
• Radio Rivendell (25 April 2012). "Ted Nasmith". Radio Rivendell. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
• Roszak, Theodore (1995). The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20122-4.
• Schlagwein, Felix (1 March 2022). "How Tolkien became the father of fantasy". Deutsche Welle.
• Shippey, Tom (2001) . J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0261-10401-3.
• Shippey, Tom (2005) . The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Third ed.). HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-261-10275-0.
• Silmarillion Writers Guild (2024). "The Ruling Queens of Númenor by Himring: Fanwork Notes". Retrieved 7 September 2024. (Page links to multiple related pages about fan art and fan fiction on the site.)
• Svitil, Torene (2007). So You Want to Work in Animation & Special Effects?. Enslow Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7660-2737-4.
• Swann, Donald (music); Tolkien, J. R. R. (poems) (2002) . "Foreword to the Second Edition". The Road Goes Ever On (2nd ed.). HarperCollins. p. 5. Book with CD
• Tankard, Paul (2017). ""Akin to my own Inspiration": Mary Fairburn and the Art of Middle-earth". Tolkien Studies. 14 (1): 133–154. doi:10.1353/tks.2017.0010. S2CID 171811464 – via Project Muse.
• Thygesen, Peter (Autumn 1999). "Queen Margrethe II: Denmark's monarch for a modern age". Scandinavian Review. Archived from the original on 26 May 2021. Retrieved 12 March 2006.
• Timmons, Daniel (1998). "J.R.R. Tolkien: The "Monstrous" in the Mirror". Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 9 (3 (35) The Tolkien Issue): 229–246. JSTOR 43308359.
• Tolkienmoot (2024). "Tolkienmoot". Tolkienmoot.org. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
• Tolkien Society (29 October 2016). "Awards - Previous Winners". The Tolkien Society. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
• Uraic (2013). "Александр Коротич. Иллюстрации к произведениям Дж" [Р. Р. Толкина Alexander Korotich. Illustrations for the works of J. R. R. Tolkien]. Uraic.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 18 October 2016. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
• VentureBeat (15 June 2017). "Warner Bros. Games are coming out of the shadow of its movies". Archived from the original on 4 July 2017. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
• Wagner, Vit (16 April 2007). "Tolkien proves he's still the king". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 9 March 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
• Viars, Karen; Coker, Cait (2015). "Constructing Lothiriel: Rewriting and Rescuing the Women of Middle-Earth from the Margins". Mythlore. 33 (2): 35–48.
• Walls-Thumma, Dawn M. (2015). Transformative Works as a Means to Develop Critical Perspectives in the Tolkien Fan Community (PDF). Mythmoot III: Proceedings of the 3rd Mythgard Institute Mythmoot, BWI Marriott, Linthicum, Maryland, 10-11 January 2015.
• Walls-Thumma, Dawn M. (2019). "Affirmational and transformational values and practices in the Tolkien fanfiction community". Journal of Tolkien Research. 8 (1). article 6.
• Yolen, Jane (1992). "Introduction". In Martin H. Greenberg (ed.). After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tor Books. pp. vii–ix. ISBN 978-0-765-30207-6.

v t e J. R. R. Tolkien
Bibliography Letters
Poetry and songs	Songs for the Philologists (1936) "Bagme Bloma" The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (1953) "A Walking Song" (1954) The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962) "Errantry" "Fastitocalon" "The Sea-Bell" "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" The Road Goes Ever On (1967) Bilbo's Last Song (1974) The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009) The Fall of Arthur (2013) The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024) List of Tolkien's alliterative verse
Fiction	The Hobbit (1937) "Leaf by Niggle" (1947) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945) Farmer Giles of Ham (1949) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) The Two Towers (1954) The Return of the King (1955) Tree and Leaf (1964) The Tolkien Reader (1966) Smith of Wootton Major (1967)
Posthumous fiction	The Father Christmas Letters (1976) The Silmarillion (1977) Unfinished Tales (1980) Mr. Bliss (1982) The History of Middle-earth (1983–1996) The Book of Lost Tales The Lays of Beleriand The Shaping of Middle-earth The Lost Road and Other Writings The History of The Lord of the Rings Morgoth's Ring The War of the Jewels The Peoples of Middle-earth Roverandom (1998) The Children of Húrin (2007) The History of The Hobbit (2007) The Story of Kullervo (2015) Beren and Lúthien (2017) The Fall of Gondolin (2018) The Nature of Middle-earth (2021) The Fall of Númenor (2022)
Academic works	Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English text, 1925) "The Devil's Coach Horses" (1925) "Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad" (1929) "Sigelwara Land" (1932–34) "Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale" (1934) "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936) "On Fairy-Stories" (1939) Eucatastrophe "On Translating Beowulf" (1940) Sir Orfeo (1944) Ancrene Wisse (1962) "English and Welsh" (1963) Jerusalem Bible (as translator and lexicographer, 1966)
Posthumous academic	Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (translations, 1975) Exodus (1981) Finn and Hengest (1982) The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays (1983) Beowulf and the Critics (2002) Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary with "Sellic Spell" (2014) A Secret Vice (2016)
Scholars	Biographers Humphrey Carpenter J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977, authorized biography) John Garth Tolkien and the Great War The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien Catherine McIlwaine Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth Charles Moseley Christian Stratford Caldecott Matthew T. Dickerson Colin Duriez Peter Kreeft Holly Ordway Joseph Pearce Fleming Rutledge Ralph C. Wood Literary critics Douglas A. Anderson Nicholas Birns Bradley J. Birzer Janice Bogstad & Philip Kaveny Picturing Tolkien David Bratman Janet Brennan Croft Tolkien on Film Patrick Curry Bradford Lee Eden Dimitra Fimi Tolkien, Race and Cultural History Jason Fisher Verlyn Flieger Interrupted Music A Question of Time Splintered Light Michael Foster Nick Groom Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide Randel Helms Thomas Honegger Charles A. Huttar Paul H. Kocher Master of Middle-Earth Stuart D. Lee The Keys of Middle-earth Jared Lobdell A Tolkien Compass John D. Rateliff Robin Anne Reid Brian Rosebury Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon Amy H. Sturgis Anna Vaninskaya Richard C. West Elizabeth Whittingham Rose Zimbardo Understanding The Lord of the Rings Linguists Anthony Appleyard Helge Fauskanger Carl F. Hostetter Tom Loback David Salo Arden R. Smith Allan Turner Medievalists, Classicists Marjorie Burns Perilous Realms Jane Chance Tolkien and the Invention of Myth Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England' Michael D. C. Drout J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia Jonathan Evans Vincent Ferré Gergely Nagy Tom Shippey J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century The Road to Middle-Earth Elizabeth Solopova Sandra Ballif Straubhaar Hamish Williams Tolkien and the Classical World Popular Lin Carter Robert Foster Glen GoodKnight Michael Martinez Charles Noad J. E. A. Tyler
Related	Family Francis Xavier Morgan Influences Artwork Languages constructed by Tolkien Impact of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings Inklings Mythlore Mythopoeic Society Elvish Linguistic Fellowship Tolkien's impact on fantasy Tolkien and the modernists Tolkien Estate Tolkien fandom Tolkien fan fiction The Tolkien Society Awards Tolkien Studies Memorials Reception Tolkien research Works inspired by Tolkien Tolkien (biographical film) Poems and Songs of Middle Earth (album) Language and Human Nature The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary

v t e The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien Constructing The Lord of the Rings
About	Volumes The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King Stories "The Shadow of the Past" "The Council of Elrond" "The Scouring of the Shire" "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" Translating List of translations Swedish Reception Impact Literary Fandom Fan fiction Oxonmoot Tolkienmoot Works inspired Tolkien's impact on fantasy
Analysis	Elements Artwork Company of the Ring Family trees Heraldry Languages Black Speech Elvish Quenya Sindarin Khuzdul Maps Poetry A Elbereth Gilthoniel Namárië Song of Eärendil The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late The Road Goes Ever On A Walking Song Proverbs Themes Addiction to power Ancestry as guide to character Architecture Christianity Death and immortality Decline and fall Dreams and visions Economy England Environmentalism Evil Forests Hell Heroism Luck and fate Magic Mental illness Moral dilemma Music Naming of weapons Northern courage Paganism Plants Psychological journeys Quests Race Sexuality Sound and language Time Trees Women Influences Antiquarianism Beowulf Celtic Classical world First World War Norse Medieval Modern sources Modernism A mythology for England Philology Shakespeare Techniques Anachronism Character pairing Editorial framing Frame stories Pseudotranslation Impression of depth Narrative structure Interlacing Storytelling Prose style Ambiguity Epic Pooh
Peoples	Maiar Balrogs Sauron Wizards Gandalf Radagast Saruman Free peoples Dwarves Balin Gimli Elves Galadriel Glorfindel Half-elven Arwen Elrond Legolas Thranduil Ents Treebeard Hobbits Bilbo Frodo Merry Pippin Sam Men Beornings Drúedain Dúnedain Aragorn of Gondor Boromir Denethor Faramir of Rohan Éomer Éowyn Théoden Wormtongue Monsters Barrow-wight Gollum Nazgûl Witch-king of Angmar Old Man Willow Orcs Shelob Trolls Wargs Watcher in the Water Other Eagles Goldberry Tom Bombadil
World	Geography Eriador Bree Old Forest Rivendell The Shire Bag End Gondor Harad Lothlórien Mirkwood Moria Mordor Rohan Isengard Battles Helm's Deep Pelennor Fields Morannon Things Mithril Oliphaunts Palantírs Phial of Galadriel Rings of Power One Ring List of weapons and armour
Related works	The Hobbit The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Errantry Fastitocalon The Sea-Bell The Road Goes Ever On Bilbo's Last Song The Silmarillion Unfinished Tales The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien The History of Middle-earth The Children of Húrin The History of The Hobbit Beren and Lúthien The Fall of Gondolin The Nature of Middle-earth
Adaptations and derivative works Books Bored of the Rings (1969) The Last Ringbearer (1999) Muddle Earth (2003) Illustrations A Map of Middle-earth Pauline Baynes Barbara Remington John Howe Alan Lee Margrethe II of Denmark Ted Nasmith Theatre Fellowship! (2005) Lord of the Rings (2006) Music Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings (1972) Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings (1988) Led Zeppelin "Ramble On" (1969) "Misty Mountain Hop" (1971) "The Battle of Evermore" (1971) Radio The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1955) The Lord of the Rings (NPR, 1979) Hordes of the Things (1980) The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1981) Der Herr der Ringe (1992) Film Animated The Lord of the Rings (Bakshi, 1978) The Return of the King (Rankin/Bass, 1980) The War of the Rohirrim (Kamiyama, 2024) Peter Jackson series The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) The Two Towers (2002) The Return of the King (2003) Music "Concerning Hobbits" "Into the West" "May It Be" Approach Production Hobbiton Movie Set Peter Jackson's interpretation Picturing Tolkien Tolkien on Film Other Sagan om ringen (1971) Khraniteli (1991) Hobitit (1993) The Rings of Power (2022) music Fan-made The Hunt for Gollum (2009) Born of Hope (2009) Video games Journey to Rivendell Game One Game Two: Shadows of Mordor War in Middle Earth Vol. I (1990) Vol. I (SNES) Riders of Rohan Elendor Vol. II: The Two Towers The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King War of the Ring The Third Age Game Boy Advance The Battle for Middle-earth Tactics The Battle for Middle-earth II The Rise of the Witch-king Conquest Aragorn's Quest War in the North Lego The Lord of the Rings Guardians of Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor Shadow of War Gollum Return to Moria The Lord of the Rings Online Mines of Moria Siege of Mirkwood Rise of Isengard Riders of Rohan Helm's Deep Mordor Minas Morgul War of Three Peaks Fate of Gundabad Before the Shadow Tabletop role- playing games Middle-earth Role Playing The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game The One Ring Roleplaying Game Adventures in Middle-earth Board games Middle Earth War of the Ring Gondor: The Siege of Minas Tirith Sauron Lord of the Rings War of the Ring Card games Middle-earth Collectible Card Game The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Other games Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Lego The Lord of the Rings

• Middle-earth