1. Biography, Bibliography, and Legacy
Who Tolkien Is, What He Has Done, and Why We Should Care

2. New Historicism
Try to recall why we should care to learn about the author and his life before we read his work
Particularly, love, death, war, and suffering are hugely influential

3. For your consideration
Why are love, death, war, and suffering particularly important influences in terms of what authors write?
How might these kinds of experiences show up in authors’ fictional writing?

4. Biography Documentary
This is a good but rather long documentary containing some of the information that we will be covering together in class
Watch on your own time for review before we close up our unit

5. Themes Messages implied by authors’ writing
Readers infer these through understanding of authors’ circumstances and close reading strategies
Theme = Message about idea, not just idea
For example, the idea might be love
The theme might be, “Successful people love all others, even their enemies,” or “Love of enemies leads to betrayal and failure.”

6. For your consideration
Has anything ever happened in your life that you can’t get out of your head?
How might that impact you if you became a professional writer?

7. Escapism
Many authors write fiction to deal with intense issues in the real world
Similarly, many readers read fiction in order to escape from the troubles of the world around them.

8. Childhood Thematic Impacts
Spiders → Fear
Nature vs. Technology
Philology
Catholicism
Materialism/Wealth → Evil
Natural Imagery
Born in 1892 in South Africa to British parents

9. Trauma and Relocation Father died in 1896
Family returns to West Midlands in England
Possible root of idea of Middle Earth, the setting for all of his later stories
Middle Earth is ancient religious term depicting world between Heaven above and Hell below

10. Writing and Journeying
As teenager, he and some friends begin writing poetry
Poetic language and songs in writing
Eventually become created languages
At 19, takes rough journey through mountainous and treacherous terrain
Influences imagery of Misty Mountains

11. Vision of Love
Tolkien met, fell in love with, and married Edith Mary Bratt very quickly.
She gave up her faith to marry Tolkien.
This inspired the stories of Beren and Luthien and Aragorn and Arwen.

12. World War I Tolkien enlisted for Britain in 1914
Almost whole battalion and many friends die
War and violence bad in writing
Theme of power being corrupting influence from here
Thematic preoccupation with grief and loss

13. World War I (continued)
England, France, USA, Russia, Italy, etc. vs. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria
In writing, Shire associated with good Allied Powers
Usually, West is good and South and East are bad
Shire, Valinor vs. Dol Goldur, Mordor

14. World War I (continued)
Mechanistic and chemical warfare introduced in World War I destroy much of countryside and ruin people’s lives
Theme of nature (good) vs. technology (bad)
Begins writing fiction in earnest during war
The Book of Lost Tales: “The Fall of Gondolin”

15. More Philology
Tolkien worked for OED and at some universities, reinforcing his philological interests

16. Kids and the Inklings His children inspired him to write fiction
Also inspired by membership in literary club that called themselves the Inklings

17. In Defense of Nonsense
“Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” was a lecture he delivered basically claiming that myth and fiction should be studied as places where culture can speak to us
Led him to incorporate much Norse and Germanic mythology into his writing

18. For your consideration
If you want to make a difference or draw attention to an issue, should you write in fiction or nonfiction?

19. Production in Lifetime
1937- The Hobbit
Commercially successful; mixed critical reviews
The Silmarillion rejected as not commercially publishable
1948- Lord of the Rings Trilogy completed as sequel to The Hobbit
More mixed reviews and commercial success

20. Fame, Fortune, and Retreat
Hippy and alternative movements in 1960’s loved his work as escapist literature
He became rich and famous
He and his wife live out rest of lives in English countryside to maintain some privacy
Produced some scholarly writing, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and some other Middle Earth work
Intense dislike for technology and industry heightened toward end of life (1973)

21. Posthumous Publications and Influence
Helped create and revitalize fantasy genre
Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, etc.
Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion and twelve-volume History of Middle Earth
Peter Jackson’s movies were huge successes