Some concepts and ideas become so widely regarded and synonymous within the culture that it seems impossible to imagine where they came from or, indeed, anybody actually dreaming them up. They simply seem to exist, ingrained into the shared cultural psyche. This is true in the case of most of the product of JR.R. Tolkien’s imagination. If not for the works of high fantasy written by the academic in his spare time, it’s fair to say that the fantasy genre as we know it today wouldn’t exist. Tolkien’s work has had a profound influence on the likes of J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, Terry Pratchett and Stephen King, and Middle Earth remains the template for fantasy worlds in literature, movies, video games and the like. Indeed, you could argue that before Tolkien published The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, nobody had created such widely regarded and popular immersive works of fantasy, which could be enjoyed by both children and adults equally.

Tolkien wrote both The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings while he was a Professor at Oxford, between 1932 and 1949. He began his career as a philologist, though, right here at the University Of Leeds, as a Professor and Teaching Fellow in the School Of English from 1920 to 1925. Tolkien’s academic work – in particular his work while he was at Leeds on the Middle English Arthurian poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and his published lecture on the Old English epic poem Beowulf, titled ‘The Monsters and the Critics’ – are widely considered to have had an impact on his writing. Beowulf in particular seems to have influenced Tolkien’s work; in his academic criticism he defended the elements of fantasy in the poem which had been previously dismissed as frivolous by other critics. Tolkien’s position as a linguistic historian also without a doubt played a key role in making his fantasy world tangible. Consider the entire Elvish languages he constructed, for which he made and published a complete etymological dictionary. This is just one of the many areas in which Tolkien made Middle Earth a living and breathing world, with a rich and detailed fictional history. A mythology within a myth, made legible by the fierce consistency of Tolkien’s invented geography and taxonomy. But this level of detail is not the real reason Tolkien’s works became and remained so beloved and popular. Tolkien’s stories aren’t just documents of a mythopoeia, but transportive adventures. The real value of Tolkien’s work is that he populates his invented landscape with memorable and, crucially, believable characters. Even though few of the characters in the novels are strictly human, a beating heart is always present. Tolkien’s experience of living through two World Wars (much of The Lord Of The Rings was written during the second) undoubtedly informed his tale of unlikely people being torn away from their idyllic, pastoral lives by forces beyond their control or comprehension. It’s the bravery and defiance shown in the face of insurmountable odds that still resonates in the hearts and minds of readers everywhere.

Sean Hayes