What inspired Tolkien create Middle Earth?

Tolkien’s influences in creating his Middle-earth books included his profession, philology, studying medieval literature; his religion, Christianity; mythology and archaeology; Old English poetry, especially Beowulf; and his own experience of childhood in the English countryside, and as a soldier in the First World War …

What specific tales do you think inspired Tolkien when he created his creatures?

Iconic English literature may also have played a role in Tolkien’s first novel. He was a fan of William Morris, who translated Beowulf, and his creation of Smaug may have been inspired by the dragon in that ancient English poem. Tolkien often lectured on the tale while he was teaching at Pembroke College.

What did Tolkien do for fantasy?

Tolkien was not only writing amazing fantasy novels, he was also reflecting on his own work and on the fantasy genre itself. One of Tolkien’s famous essays is called On Fairy Stories (Tolkien called “fairy stories” what we would today call “fantasy”) – a speech he wrote and then later published.

How did Tolkien create Elvish?

By taking bits of his favourite real-world languages and splicing them together. Around a dozen languages are mentioned in the Lord of the Rings but Tolkien only properly developed two of them – Qenya and Sindarin, the languages used by the elves. …

Did Tolkien’s Catholicism influence his writing?

No one disputes that Tolkien’s Catholicism influenced his writing. Indeed, he held his conservative Catholic views rather fiercely — due in part to his conviction that his mother Mabel had been persecuted by her family for her conversion to Catholicism in 1900 (she died shortly afterward of diabetes).

Was Tolkien an evangelist?

He wasn’t, and they aren’t. Tolkien’s approach to evangelization was just as serious and ultimately is just as powerful as his friend C.S. Lewis’, but it is indirect. As Tolkien wrote in a letter, The Lord of the Rings is “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.

Is ‘The Lord of the Rings’ a Catholic work?

In a 1953 letter Tolkien described “The Lord of the Rings” as a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work.” But Tolkien’s views — on both religion and fiction — were complex.

Was Tolkien under the divine spell?

According to Peter Kreeft, a Catholic philosopher at Boston College, Tolkien was under the divine spell when he composed his sprawling trilogy.