Monday 13 February 2012

J R R Tolkien's influences


In his writings, in particular the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings as well as the related novel The Hobbitand the posthumously published collection of stories The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien is cited as having had a number of influences. Several critics[1] have made the assumption that Tolkien’s novel was directly derived from Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Many parts of his work were, as he freely admitted, influenced by other sources.[2] Some of the influences include philology (his field), religion(particularly Roman Catholicism), fairy tales, Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology, and numerous sources from Finnish, Greek, Persian, Slavic, and Celtic mythology.
Tolkien was greatly inspired by early Germanic, especially Anglo-Saxon literature, poetry and mythology, which were his chosen and much-loved areas of expertise. These sources of inspiration included Anglo-Saxon literature such as Beowulf, Norse sagas such as the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga,[18] thePoetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Nibelungenlied and numerous other culturally related works.[19]

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