The Lord of the rings

See also: the Lord of the rings (homonymy)

the Lord of the rings ( The Lord off the Boxing rings ) is a Romance in three volumes of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien published in 1954 - 1955.

Though the two stories can be read independently, it is the continuation of Bilbo the Hobbit , continuation which its editor had requested from Tolkien. During the twelve years of its drafting, it attempts to make live the world of which he is the creator, the Ground of the Medium, by truffant his new work of references and of allusions which connect it to the world Silmarillion , on which he works since 1917 and in which Bilbo the Hobbit was attracted “against the intention first” of its author.

It is one of fundamental works of the literature known as of Fantasy , term that Tolkien clarifies in its test of 1939 “Of the fairy tale” ( One Fairy-Stories ), published in various collections ( Faërie and other texts , Monsters and criticisms and other tests ). Tolkien itself regarded its book as “a fairy tale for adults”, written “for to amuse (with the noble direction): to be pleasant to read”.

This work is made up of six books, which do not carry titles. In the beginning, Tolkien wishes to publish the Lord of the Rings in only one volume, but the price of paper being too prohibitory in this period of post-war period, work is divided into three volumes: the Community of the ring ( The Fellowship off the Boxing ring ), the Two Turns ( The Two Towers ), and the Return of the king ( The Return off the King ). One often refers to this work as with “the Trilogie of the Seigneur of the Rings ”, technically incorrect term because work was written and conceived of only one holding. Nevertheless, Tolkien itself includes in its letters, of time to others, the term of “trilogy” when it is employed by its correspondents.

Summary

the Community of the ring

After a short prolog describing the Hobbit S and their manners, Book I opens out of the hundred eleventh birthday of Bilbon Sacquet (on September 22nd of year 3001 of the Third Age), sixty years after the events described in Bilbo the Hobbit . During the reception, Bilbon eclipses thanks to the invisibility which its magic ring confers to him and leaves Hobbitebourg, leaving all its goods, the ring included/understood, with its nephew and designated heir, Frodon Sacquet.

After seventeen years of research, their old friend the magician Gandalf the Gray reveals in Frodon that its ring is actually the Single Anneau, instrument of the capacity of Sauron, the Dark Lord, that he seeks for a long time. Gandalf presses Frodon to leave the Comté, which is not sure any more for him, and to get under way for the refuge which is Fondcombe, the residence of Elrond the Semi-elf.

Frodon leaves Cul-de-Sac accompanied by its gardener Sam Gamegie and by a young friend, Peregrin Touque (Pippin) in September 3018 T.A.; they escape from accuracy on several occasions from the Cavaliers Blacks, servants of Sauron charged to find the Single one. They reach the Country of Goat, in the east of the County, where Meriadoc Brandebouc (Merry) joined them. The four hobbits carry on their road towards the east, escaping the dangers from the Vieille Forest and the High from Galgals thanks to enigmatic the Tom Bombadil. With Bree, strange the Large-Not, a friend of Gandalf, joint with them; later, it will be revealed that it is about Aragorn wire of Arathorn, heir to Isildur. The Black Riders, always to their cases, manage to wound Frodon close to the Windy Mont, but thanks to the assistance of the Elfe Glorfindel, he manages to cross the ford of the Bruinen. The Riders, which follow it closely, are carried by a sudden rising of the river, and Frodon disappears.

At the beginning of Book II, Frodon awakes: it is in Fondcombe, where Elrond looked after it. It there finds Bilbon and sees Arwen, girl of Elrond and promised of Aragorn. The Council of Elrond follows, to which assist representatives of the principal races of the Ground of the Medium (Elfe S, Nain S and Hommes). Gandalf teaches them treason from Saroumane, its superior in the Order of the Mages, which seeks the Single one for itself. After having examined all the possibilities which are offered to them, the participants in the Council decide that the only means of overcoming Sauron is to destroy the Ring by bringing it in the middle of the Mordor, country of Sauron, and by throwing it in the lava of the Mountain of the Destiny, where it was forged. Frodon is stated voluntary to achieve this task, and the “Community of the Ring” is formed to accompany it and help it: she includes/understands hobbit Frodon and her three companions, Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir of Gondor, Gimli the dwarf and Legolas the elf.

The company travels through the deserted Eregion, but fails to cross the Misty Monts by the snow-covered collar of Caradhras. Gandalf leads it in the mines of the Moria, old dwarf city from now on populated by Orque S, but it falls into the abyss by facing the Balrog, a démoniaque creature responsible for the ruin of Moria. The Community, from now on carried out by Aragorn, leaves Moria and enters the country elfic of Lothlórien, controlled by Celeborn and Galadriel. There, Frodon and Sam look in the mirror of Galadriel and see visions of the past, present and future. Terrified by the Eye of Sauron, Frodon proposes to give the Ring to Galadriel, but this one overcomes temptation and refuses. The Community leaves Lórien on board three boats and descends the large river Anduin. Arrived at height of the falls of Rauros, this one is attacked by Orcs and dissolves: Frodon and Sam only leave in direction Mordor, Merry and Pippin is removed by the Orcs of Saroumane, after Boromir was killed while trying to defend them; Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli leave to their cases.

the Two Turns

The second volume follows the ways borrowed by the members of the Community. To the beginning of Book III, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli track the Orcs of Saroumane through the plains of the Rohan; with the accesses of the Forest of Fangorn, they find Gandalf, which is from now on Gandalf the White, returned out of Ground of the Medium to complete its mission after having perished by overcoming Balrog. The four companions then Edoras will release the king to Théoden of the influence of its adviser Gríma Language-of-Snake, a puppet of Saroumane. They take part in the war of Rohan against the armies of Saroumane, which are overcome at the time of the Bataille of Extremely-the-Horn while Orthanc, the fortress of Saroumane, is taken by the Ent S of Fangorn, accompanied by Merry and Pippin, which find their companions after the battle. Refusing repentance of its errors, Saroumane is excluded about the Magi by Gandalf.

Book IV follows Frodon and Sam on the road of Mordor. They manage to capture and tame Gollum, the former owner of the Ring, which followed them since Moria; this one the guide towards a secret entry of Mordor, in the valley of Undermined Morgul. Crossing the Ithilien, they are captured by Faramir, the brother of Boromir, which slackens them when he learns the importance from their mission. At the end of the book, Gollum betrays Frodon by carrying out it in the den of Arachne, the giant spider. He survives, but is captured by the Orcs of Cirith Ungol, after Sam took the Ring to him, the dead believer poisoned by the venom of Arachne.

the Return of the king

The Book V reports the fight between the Gondor and Mordor, seen by Pippin with Minas Tirith and Merry at the sides of the king Théoden of Rohan. The White City, besieged, is saved by the arrival of the riders of Rohan, then by that of Aragorn aboard ships of Umbar, this last having released the south of Gondor thanks to the army of Deaths. The Bataille of the Fields of Pelennor is thus concluded by a defeat from Sauron, but the forces available to this last are still extraordinary. In order to divert its attention of the search of Frodon, Aragorn carries out an army in front of the Morannon, the Black Door of Mordor, and delivers to it a desperate battle.

In Book VI, Tolkien returns then to Sam, who releases Frodon of the Orcs of Cirith Ungol. The two hobbits cross to large-sorrow the desert which is the plate of Gorgoroth and reach the Mont of the Destiny, Gollum close on their heels. Temptation appears too strong then for Frodon, which asserts the Ring for itself and passes it to its finger. A short fight between him and Gollum follows, which slices the finger to him to recover the Single one before falling in the flames of the mountain by celebrating its triumph.

The destroyed Ring, Sauron is definitively overcome. Aragorn is crowned king of Gondor and Arwen wife. After several weeks of festivities, the members of the Community turn over on their premises. Of return in the County, the four hobbits find it devastated by human brigands and semi-orcs. In Cul-de-Sac, after having put the gangsters in rout, they discover that Saroumane is the person in charge of this chaos. Frodon requires so that one let it leave freely, but he is assassinated by Gríma Language-of-Snake, his servant.

The County knows a great clearing then, but Frodon, physically wounded and mentally, cannot appreciate this revival. It ends up setting sail towards the West with Bilbon to find peace there, accompanied by the carriers of the Three rings of the Elves, Galadriel, Elrond and Gandalf, on September 29th, 3021 T.A. The Third Age of the Sun and the Lord of the Rings are completed then.

The account itself is followed of six appendices, which are not always present in the French editions of the book:

• the Appendix has briefly recalls the history of the kingdoms of the Dúnedain (Arnor and Gondor), of the Rohirrim and the Nain S of the People of Durin.
• the Appendix B is a chronology of the Second and Third Age S.
• the Appendix C contains the family trees of the principal Hobbits of the account (Sacquet, Touque, Brandebouc, Gamegie).
• the Appendix D studies the various calendars employed by the Elves, the Men and the Hobbits.
• the Appendix E presents the two principal alphabets used out of Ground of the Medium: the Tengwar and the Cirth .
• the Appendix F, finally, counts the languages of the various people appearing in the Lord of the Rings .

Drafting

One month after the publication of Bilbo the Hobbit , the September 21st 1937, Stanley Unwin, the editor of Tolkien, writes to him that “many people would claim with horn and cry as of the following year that he says some to them more about the Hobbits! ”, it with what Tolkien, “anxious”, answers that it “will be able only to say moreover in connection with the Hobbits ”, but that it has “on the other hand only too many things to say in connection with the world in which this Hobbit made intrusion”: indeed, that made twenty years that he works on the texts of the “Silmarillion”. After an encouraging answer of Unwin, Tolkien promises that it will begin something as soon as possible. December 19th, he writes with A.C. Furth, of Allen & Unwin: “I wrote the first chapter of a new history on the Hobbits - " A reception for a long time attendue". ”. In this chapter, the hero is still Bilbon Sacquet, which disappears from Hobbitebourg at the time of the reception given for its seventieth birthday: the treasure which it brought back of Erebor is exhausted, and it tests the desire to set out again with the adventure.

After several false starts, Tolkien decides to place the ring found by Bilbo at the time of its adventure in the center of this continuation: in the beginning simple magic object, it becomes with the wire of the rewritings terrible the Single Anneau forged by Sauron. The history is set up slowly: the Hobbit Bingo, Frodo and Odo leave for Fondcombe, in an account with the tone still good child, near to that of Bilbo the Hobbit , which will remain mainly in the final version. On their road, the hobbits cross a rider entirely draped in a coat. After one brief moment of anguish, the rider bursts of laughing: it is about the magician Gandalf. But Tolkien gives up at once this idea with the profit of an other, much more sinister: Bingo and its companions from now on are continued by Cavaliers Blacks. In a letter with Stanley Unwin, Tolkien indicates whereas the history took “an unexpected turn”.

Mid-September 1938, the account reaches the medium of the conversation between Bingo, shortly after renamed Frodo, and the dwarf Glóin with Fondcombe. Tolkien stops then a moment and works over again the first chapters, because the history evolves/moves while at the same time he writes it, requiring frequent corrections to grant the oldest passages with most recent. The book covers 300 manuscript pages then and Tolkien, optimist, estimate that one will need of them 200 more to finish it. The account is however still far from its final version: for example, the foreigner that the hobbits meet with Bree is not yet Aragorn, Rôdeur downward of the kings of formerly, but Trotter , a simple adventurous hobbit which carries wood shoes.

1939 are one year difficult for Tolkien: an accident which has occurred during the summer shows a concussion, and the beginning of the Second world war involves an increase in its responsibilities with Oxford. It however continues to work on the Lord of the Rings , who reaches the chapter “the mines of Moria” (finally “a voyage in the darkness”, Livre II, chapter 4) in December. It there does not return before August 1940, but is devoted to corrections in the already existing text, and starts again to write only with the end of the year 1941. It then finishes the Book II and begins III, whose four chapters are written at the end of January. With the autumn, Book III is finished.

The book does not progress any more before spring 1944, when Tolkien starts “in the pain” Book IV. Tolkien writes the chapters and the fact lira progressively with his/her friend C.S. Lewis and with his son Christopher, then in South Africa to involve itself with the Royal Air Force. Both are very enthusiastic, which justifies Tolkien: it completes Book IV at the end of May, before stopping again. August 12th, he writes in Christopher: “Any inspiration for Seigneur of the Rings '' was completely dried up, and I am at the same point as in spring, with all inertia to be surmounted again. Which relief would be to finish some. ”.

Tolkien begins the Book V, persuaded which it will be about the last, in October. But it hardly advances, and it is only in September 1946 that it progresses truly, after a long moment without to have worked on the account. It is completed a little more than one year later, in October 1947, having in the same time brought the usual batch of corrections to the first books. Finally, the drafting of the Seigneur of the Rings is completed, at least with the draft, between mid-August and mid-September 1948. The book then includes an epilog centered on Sam and his children, but Tolkien is let convince to omit it.

The drafts of the Seigneur of the Rings were published and studied by Christopher Tolkien in volumes 6 to 9 of sound Histoire of the Earth of the Medium , not translated into French: The Return off the Shadow , The Treason off Isengard , The War off the Boxing ring and Sauron Defeated .

Influences of Tolkien

the Lord of the Rings was born from passions of Tolkien: the Philology, the fairy tales as well as the sagas norroises, in particular Beowulf and the Eddas, and the Kalevala , the national epopee Finnish. The idea of the Single Anneau which controls the world and misleads its carrier is present in the cycle of the Nibelungen, saga Germanic medieval recovery by Richard Wagner in his tetralogy of the Ring of Nibelung . Tolkien denies this influence however: “These two rings are round, and it is their only resemblance there”, answers it the introduction of the Swedish translation of the Seigneur of the Rings which affirms that “the Ring is, in a certain manner, " der Nibelungen Ring" ”.

In the same way, Tolkien refutes any allegorical interpretation vigorously of its work of the years of writing of the Seigneur of the Rings .

In a letter with the father Robert Murray, Tolkien described the Lord of the Rings like “a basically religious and catholic work; in an unconscious way initially, then in a conscious way when I worked it over again”. Several mythological and catholic topics underlie the narration: ennoblement of the humble , the Pity, the free will, as well as attraction for the To be able and the “temptation of the Good”, that which aims at reaching the Good while using of all the means, even worst, to which Gandalf and Galadriel miss succumbing. But for Tolkien, the element in the center of its book is not other than the Mort and the desire of immortality. This aspect is studied by Vincent Ferré in his book Tolkien: on the shores of the Earth of the Medium (Christian Bourgois, 2001).

Publication

the Lord of the Rings is overall completed in October 1949. In theory, it should be published by Allen & Unwin, with which Tolkien had promised to a continuation of Bilbo the Hobbit . However, the idea takes it to want to publish the Lord of the Rings with Silmarillion , which had been refused by Allen & Unwin in 1937, when Tolkien theirs had subjected - refusal which, in addition, gave birth to a certain resentment at his place.

During the autumn 1949, Tolkien becomes acquainted with Milton Waldman, the London publisher Collins. This last proposes in Tolkien to publish the two books together, offers that Tolkien hastens to accept. In February 1950, he writes in Stanley Unwin that it requires that Silmarillion be published with the Lord of the Rings . either it takes the two works, or it does not have any of it. Unwin can only refuse, not having even seen the manuscript of the Seigneur of the Rings .

Tolkien relies then on Waldman; this one ensures it that Collins will publish its two books during the autumn 1950. But Waldman, patient, are forced to make frequent stays in Italy, and its substitutes are much less enthusiastic about the two bulky books of Tolkien. With the beginning of the year 1952, nothing is still made, so that Tolkien summons Collins to publish the Lord of the Rings as soon as possible, without what it rapproprie the manuscript. The length of the text throws into a panic the editors, who refuse Net.

Does Rayner Unwin, with the current of its contentions with Hakes, then renew contact with Tolkien, which makes its mea culpa and asks whether it is still possible to do something “to unbolt the doors which I myself claquées? ”, it what Unwin answers: “We let us please absolutely publish you - in fact only the circumstances retained us. ” A long work of second reading and correction follows, during which it is finally decided to publish the book in three volumes. After much of hesitations, the titles the Community of the ring ( The Fellowship off the Ring ), the Two Turns ( The Two Towers ) and the Return of the king ( The Return off the King ) are chosen, this last against the opinion of Tolkien which prefers the War of the Ring , less revealing of the exit of the account.

the Community of the ring is published in the the United Kingdom by Allen & Unwin the July 29th 1954, followed by the Two Turns the November 11th 1954 and by the Return of the king the October 20th 1955, this volume having been delayed because of the difficulties of Tolkien to write the appendices. In the the United States, Houghton Mifflin publishes volume 1 the October 21st 1954, volume 2 the April 21st 1955 and volume 3 the January 5th 1956.

To the beginning of the Years 1960, Donald Wollheim, an author of Science fiction for the publisher Ace Books, realizes that the Lord of the Rings does not profit from the protection of the American Copyright inside the the United States, because of the edition in rigid cover ( hardcover ) of the book at Houghton Mifflin, which was compiled starting from pages printed with the the United Kingdom for the British edition. Ace Books publishes a pirate edition, without to have obtained authorization on behalf of Tolkien and without him to offer any compensation. Tolkien announces it clearly with the American fans who write to him and spends the summer 1966 to revise the text of the book, correcting the faults, adapting some elements of the always moving mythology of the Silmarillion and writing a new foreword, saying in connection with that of the first edition: “to confuse (like it does it) true personal elements with the " machinerie" tale is a serious error”. This second edition of the Seigneur of the Rings is published in the United Kingdom by Allen & Unwin the October 27th 1966, then in the United States by Houghton Mifflin the February 27th 1967. Ace Books ends by giving up the edition not - authorized and up signing an out-of-court settlement with Tolkien, paying him 4% of the benefit and committing themselves not reprinting their edition. Thereafter, Wollheim however continues to affirm that Ace Books was in its right by publishing this pirate edition. It is only into 1992 that this controversy is sliced by a legal decision, which rules that the first American edition of the Seigneur of the Rings at Houghton Mifflin was well subjected to the American copyright.

At the time of the fiftieth birthday of the publication of the Lord of the Rings , a new edition of the book is appeared, under the direction of Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. A great number of shells are corrected there, like certain errors of the text itself. The list of the corrections is in the separate work The Lord off the Rings: In Reader' S Companion .

Translations

The book was translated into several languages. That in French is due to Francis Ledoux and is published by the editor Christian Bourgois in 1972 - 1973. The first volume receives the price of the best foreign book in 1973. This translation is prone to debate: if it is of a certain literary quality (Ledoux also translated Charles Dickens, Daniel Defoe, Edgar Allan Poe, inter alia), it is truffée shells and mistranslations, unquestionable ascribable with the fact that Ledoux did not have the Silmarillion , in particular for plurals Quenya S: the Valar is thus translated by “Valar” instead of “Valar”. A translation revised starting from the new English edition is in project in Christian Bourgois.

Professor of Philology, knowing a dozen languages (old and modern like the norrois, the Gotique, the Anglo-Saxon , the Latin , the Greek , the Spanish , the French, the Russian or the Italian ), Tolkien examines several of the translations of his book (Dutchwoman, Polish, Swedish) and emits several comments in order to clarify his intentions in the creation of such or such name, in particular the toponyms of the Comté, into which Tolkien slipped many jokes of philologist. Conscious of the difficulties raised by the proper names of its work, Tolkien tackles the question in a long test, Guide to the Names in The Lord off the Rings , published on a purely posthumous basis in the collection has Tolkien Compass (1975). The last editions of this collection do not contain any more the test of Tolkien, but an increased version is included in The Lord off the Rings: In Reader' S Companion . The problems arising from the translation of the books of Tolkien were tackled thereafter by other authors.

Critical reception

In the Anglo-Saxon world

With the publication of the Community of the ring , criticisms as a whole are mitigated. Most eulogistic is obviously that of C.S. Lewis, friend of Tolkien, which declares, in its criticism for Time and Tide :

This book is like a flash in a sunny sky: also different, as unexpected at our time as the Songs of Innocence were it with their. It is inadequate to say that inside the lovesong heroic, superb, eloquent, and virgin of any shame, suddenly reappeared during one time with the almost pathological antiromantism. For us, which live in these strange times, the return, and the pure relief which results from this, is without any doubt important thing. But in the history of the Novel itself, a history which goes up until the Odyssée and beyond, it is not a question of a retreat, but of a projection and a revolution: the conquest of new territories|C.S. Lewis, " The Gods Return to Earth", in Time and Tide , August 14th, 1954

Nevertheless, Lewis, discussed author, warn Tolkien which its support “can make more evil than of good”, and it is indeed what occurs: several critics prefer to make fun enthusiasm of Lewis and her comparison of the Seigneur of the Rings with Arioste, that to stick to the book of Tolkien. Much of them finds to repeat with the style: in the Daily Telegraph , Peter Green finds that it varies “Préraphaélite with the Boy' S Own Paper children's paper”, and adds that the book “should be immensely popular in the 10 year old children which does not prefer the science fiction”. Even thus, he recognizes that “this formless work exerts an undeniable fascination”, and the majority of criticisms agree with him: whatever the defects that they find to him, the Lord of the Rings has something of indefinable and outstanding, which makes that “even a simple reading will not be forgotten of as soon as”.

Criticisms of two other volumes follow the same model more or less, but the publication of the Retour of the King makes it possible to the journalists to finally apprehend the Lord of the Rings in his entirety. C.S Lewis publishes the one second criticism in Time and Tide , where he declares that, if he is still too early to judge the book, “he did something to us. We are not completely any more the same ones”. On the other hand the famous criticism of Edmund Wilson for The Nation is, according to which few things, in the book, “exceed the understanding of a seven year old child”, and which the compliments which are made to him are due only to the fact that “certain people - perhaps in particular in Great Britain - have all their life a taste for youthful waste”. In its clean criticism, W.H. Auden, which had already declared about the Community of the Ring that “no work of fiction gave me as much pleasure these five last years”, summarizes the reactions impassioned with the Seigneur of the Rings : “I hardly remember other delivers on the subject of which we had such violent arguments. Nobody seems to have a moderate opinion; maybe, like myself, people find that it is about a main work of its kind or they cannot support it”. Amused by these quarrels, Tolkien composes this small quatrain:

the Lord of the Rings

Is one of these things:

If you like it is well

If not you shout bah!

At the end of the 20th century, several surveys carried out with the the United Kingdom show the popular passion caused by the Lord of the Rings : a survey organized by the store chain Waterstone' S and chains it Chanel Four in 1996 elects this book “larger book of the century”, far in front of 1984 of George Orwell. This result is confirmed shortly after by surveys carried out by the Daily Telegraph and the Folio Society. In 2003, the Lord of the Rings arrives still at the head of a survey of the BBC concerning the favorite book of probed.

In France

In France, the first to evoke the novel in a publication is Jacques Bergier, in Admirations (1970), which will precisely bring the translation and the publication of the Seigneur of the Rings by Christian Bourgois. The reception of the press is then good, so much local ( the Lorraine Republican ) that main road: the Point , Le Figaro where Jean-Louis Curtis speaks in praise of a book which it had proposed with the publication at Julliard. Following the exit of film of Peter Jackson, many works thereafter were translated or published.

So before this occasion, criticisms remain rare (various articles in the press at the time of the exit of the various following translations, articles with accompanying notes by Vincent Ferré like full with errors, which answer of the specialists in Tolkien, speaking about “criticisms largely refuted”. Remainder, Le Figaro arts person does his one at the same time on “Tolkien: the last of the magicians” where Jean-Marie Rouart, of the French Academy affirms that:

With the return of Tolkien, whose success faces all the ukases of the experimental literature or minimalist, the romantic one takes again its revenge: an orgy of fairyhood, a bath in the imaginary one more unslung, an abandonment in the irrational one|Jean-Marie Rouart

Posterity

During the years 1960 and 1970, the Lord of the Rings becomes the base of a true phenomenon: the book is regarded as a symbol of the Contre-culture, and it is even question, a time, of a film adaptation where the Beatles would play. One can also quote the slogans " Frodo Lives! " (Frodo is alive) or " Gandalf for President" (Gandalf chair), very popular at the fans of Tolkien during these two decades, or the many parodies derived from the work, of which most known is undoubtedly Lord off the Ringards ( Bored off the Rings ), written by writers of the Harvard Lampoon and published in 1969.

The popular success of the Seigneur of the Rings causes to extend the request for the Science-fiction and the Fantasy . The evolution of this kind in the years 1960 and 1970 is largely due to the Seigneur of the Rings . A great number of books in the same vein are then published, as the cycle of Terremer of Ursula K. Guin or the books of Shannara of Terry Brooks.

The industry of the Roleplay also was strongly marked by the Lord of the Rings : Keeps and dragons , the ancestor of the kind, includes many races resulting from the novel: hobbits, elves, dwarves, half-elves, orcs and dragons. Gary Gygax, principal creator of the play, however maintains to be only little influenced by Tolkien, having included these elements only to make its play more popular.

The book also influenced many musicians. The English rock group Led Zeppelin composed several pieces which explicitly refer to the Seigneur of the Rings : Ramble One (on Led Zeppelin II ), The Battle off Evermore and Misty Mountain Hop (on Led Zeppelin IV ), and Over the Hills and Far Away (on Houses off the Holy ). Stairway to Heaven , the most famous composition of the group, is often known as to refer to the book, but Robert Plant declared that it of it was nothing . Mirage , the second album of the group Camel, contains three pieces inspired by the book ( Nimrodel , The Procession , and The White Rider ). The pseudonym of Steve Took, percussionnist of the group T.Rex, comes from the name of the Hobbit Peregrin Touque.

The work of Tolkien inspired much the groups of Metal. The near total of the discography of the group Summoning is based on this one. The group of Power German metal Blind Guardian composed a great number of pieces containing of the references to work of Tolkien; their album Nightfall in Middle-Earth is founded on the history of the Silmarillion . Several groups, like Burzum, Gorgoroth or Amon Amarth, draw their names from terms forged by J.R.R. Tolkien, in general associated with the Mordor: the term burzum (which appears in the worms engraved on the Single Anneau) would mean “darkness” in Noir speech, Gorgoroth is the name of an area of Mordor, and Amon Amarth is the name Sindarin Mont of the Destiny.

Universe

See also: Ground of the Medium

The history of the Seigneur of the Rings proceeds on the Earth of the Medium, principal unintermitting of Arda, universe created of all parts by the author. J.R.R. Tolkien calls this literary work “under-creation” (also translated by “subcreation”). Actually, the Lord of the Rings does not take place on another planet or in another dimension: it is simply about a “imaginary past” of the Ground:

I built, I believe it, a imaginary time , but as for the place I kept the feet on my own maternal Earth. I prefer that with the modern mode which consists in seeking remote planets in " the espace". Though curious, they are foreign for us, and one cannot like them with the love of those of which we divide blood|Letter n° 211 in Rhona Beare (October 14th, 1958)

This “imaginary past” is described with a surgical precision by its creator, who goes until rewriting whole passages of the Seigneur of the Rings so that the phases of the moon are coherent! The geography of the account was carefully worked out by the author: “I started, with wisdom, by a chart, to which I subordinated the history (overall while giving a meticulous attention to the distances). To make the reverse is source of confusion and contradictions…”. The three charts which includes/understands the Lord of the Rings (the general chart, that of the Comté and that representing Gondor, Rohan and Mordor with large scales) were drawn by Christopher Tolkien according to sketches of his/her father.

Tolkien equipped the Ground with the Medium of an own history, creation of the world to the birth of the men while passing by that of the Elfes and of the Nain S. This history hardly appears that makes in filigree some in the text of the book, through in particular the poems which enamel it, is detailed in the Appendices or Silmarillion . It underlies nevertheless the Lord of the Rings entire , conferring one great depth to him. As its author recognizes it itself:

Part of the attraction of the Lord of the Rings is due, I think, with saw of vast Histoire which is with the background: an attraction as that which has an inviolate island that one sees by far, or of the turns of a remote city gleaming in a fog lit by the sun. To go there, it is to destroy the magic, unless do not appear yet of new inaccessible visions|Letter n° 247 with the colonel Worskett (September 20th, 1963)

To maintain this fiction historical, Tolkien claims not to be the author of the Seigneur of the Rings , but simply its translator and editor, his source being the Red book of the Walk of the West , i.e. the memories of Bilbon, which form Bilbo the Hobbit , and of Frodon, which constitutes the Lord of the Rings . By a process of Put in abyme, the title page of this Red book is visible in the final chapter of the Seigneur of the Rings , “Gray Le Havre”: it is entitled the Fall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King .

The richness of the development of the Earth of the Medium is also seen in more unexpected fields. It is populated many more or less fantastic creatures, flies of the Mordor to the trolls of the caves. The author also worried about the flora of Arda whose Elanor or Mallorn is the most obvious examples. As regards the astronomy, if the visible constellations and planets in the night sky are the same ones as ours, they receive new names: for example, the Grande Ourse becomes Valacirca , the “Sickle of the Valar”, and the planet Mars becomes Carnil , “the Red”. This versatility does not go without posing some problems with Tolkien, in sorrow to answer well all the requests of its readers:

… much like you charts , others claim rather want indication on the geology than on the spot; many wants elfic grammars and phonologies and examples; some want the metric one and prosody the musicians want melodies and a musical notation; the archeologists want precise details on ceramics and the metallurgy. The botanists want a description more precise of the mallorn, elanor, niphredil, alfirin, mallos and symbelmynë; and the historians want more details on the social and political structure of Gondor; those which have more general questions want information on the People-of-carriages, Harad, the origins of the Dwarves, Deaths, Beornides and the two magi (out of five) disappeared|Letter n° 187 with H. Cotton Minchin (April 1956)

The work of Tolkien begin with creation from languages then the installation from a decoration and characters speaking these languages, elaborate during more than sixty years. At the beginning, the accounts are to some extent there to give credibility to the languages and to make their existence more probable: annoying, Tolkien answers that the Lord of the Rings is “an attempt to create a situation in which one could have like phrases usual greeting elen síla lúmenn' omentielmo , and that this sentence preceded by much the book”. Even if it is clearly about an exaggeration (the expression elen síla lúmenn' omentielmo , which means “star shines immediately of our meeting”, not having appeared that during the drafting of the book), this anecdote makes it possible to include/understand the importance of the languages in the work of Tolkien, that he describes itself “as basically linguistic inspiration ”.

Adaptations

Films

See also: the Lord of the Rings (films)

After a first project of Cartoon fallen through, whose scenario was abundantly commented on by Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings was adapted in cartoon by Ralph Bakshi in 1978. The New Zealand realizer Peter Jackson carried out one second adaptation, which the three shutters left in rooms between 2001 and 2003.

Radio

See also: the Lord of the Rings (radio)

Two radiophonic versions of the Seigneur of the Rings were produced by BBC: in 1956 and 1981. Third with the the United States in 1979 was carried out.

Plays

See also: List of plays on the Lord of the Rings

Many plays were adapted universe of the Seigneur of the Rings . Initially, several Roleplays of it was directly derived, in particular by Iron Crown Enterprises and Decipher. Thereafter, of many Video games was drawn from work, as well as board games and figurines. Years 2000 knew a stressing of the phenomenon, following the film adaptations of Peter Jackson.

See too

Related articles

• Inspirations:
• Beowulf
• the Song of Nibelungen (doubtful)
• the Eddas
• the Kalevala
• Crist of Cynewulf
• Posterity:
• Fantasy