Aplicatie elev.pdf

8/18/2019 Aplicatie elev.pdf

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THE BOOK OF THE CENTURYTHE BOOK OF THE CENTURYTHE BOOK OF THE CENTURYTHE BOOK OF THE CENTURY - -- - THE LORDTHE LORDTHE LORDTHE LORD

OF THE RINGS OF THE RINGS OF THE RINGS OF THE RINGS


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TOLKIEN AND HIS LANGUAGES TOLKIEN AND HIS LANGUAGES TOLKIEN AND HIS LANGUAGES TOLKIEN AND HIS LANGUAGES

Tolkien was a scholar with deep knowledge of languages both modern and ancient. His motherintroduced him to the study of languages and cultures by teaching him Latin, French, and German athome; he expanded into others when he entered grammar school. He continued to learn many otherlanguages throughout his schooling and career, including Welsh, Finnish, and Old Norse.

Tolkien's fascination with language and culture resonates throughout The Lord of the Rings. Professorof English Jane Chance explains that Tolkien was enchanted by language and by the power oflanguage:

“Tolkien well understood the power of the written and spoken word, philologist that he was—heknew that words were magic. ... For Tolkien, words provide the means to unify and extend thesocial community, to understand the various species of nature, and to cross the boundaries of time(past and present) and space (the equivalent of earthly supernal, and infernal in Middle-earth).”

One of the most vivid expressions of Tolkien's ability and interest in languages was the creation ofhis own. Over the course of his life he invented several languages, such as Elvish (including Quenyaand Sindarin), Dwarvish (Khuzdul), Entish, and Black Speech.

For Tolkien, language was the beginning of a culture rather than merely a product of it. "Theinvention of languages," he wrote, "is the foundation. The 'stories' were made rather to provide aworld for the languages than the reverse."


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TOLKIEN’S CHARACTERS AND PLACES NAMES TOLKIEN’S CHARACTERS AND PLACES NAMES TOLKIEN’S CHARACTERS AND PLACES NAMES TOLKIEN’S CHARACTERS AND PLACES NAMES

• Many character and place names in The Lord of the Rings are related to words from old and modernlanguages. In his book Hobbits, Elves, and Wizards, Michael N. Stanton provides examples of thehistorical links for some of Tolkien's characters and settings. A few examples follow:

• Saruman's name derives from the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, root "searu-" for "treachery" or"cunning."

• "Sauron" is linked to the Old Norse or Icelandic stem meaning "filth" or "dung" or "uncleanness."

• "Mordor" derives from the Old English word "morthor," which means "murder."• "Middle-earth" is related to the name "middan-geard," which was the name for the Earth itself in

Old English poetry and was considered to be the battleground between the forces of good and evil.

• Tolkien's High Elvish language, Quenya, was inspired by Finnish. Tolkien taught himself Finnish inorder to read the Kalevala, a 19th-century compilation of old Finnish songs and stories arranged by

Elias Lönnrot into a linear epic poem and completed in 1835 and revised in the mid-1800s.


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• Tolkien created the mythology and history of Middle-earth to serve as the poetic legend he felthis homeland, England, lacked.

• After the last Roman rulers left present day England in about A.D. 400, a series of migrationsand invasions altered England's cultural landscape. First came the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes;then the Danish and Norwegian Vikings; and finally the Normans from France in 1066. As aresult, many of the oral histories and legends of previous eras were lost.

• In part to make up for this loss, Tolkien spent years developing and fine-tuning the historyand mythology of Middle-earth. He meticulously detailed the tales of Middle-earth in hisbook The Silmarillion, which he began writing during World War I.

• The Lord of the Rings books, published in the 1950s, draw on the mythology Tolkien detailed inThe Silmarillion, though The Silmarillion was not released to the public until 1977.

CREATING A MYTHOLOGICAL IDENTITY CREATING A MYTHOLOGICAL IDENTITY CREATING A MYTHOLOGICAL IDENTITY CREATING A MYTHOLOGICAL IDENTITY


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THE MYTHS THAT INSPIREDTHE MYTHS THAT INSPIREDTHE MYTHS THAT INSPIREDTHE MYTHS THAT INSPIRED THE LORD OFTHE LORD OFTHE LORD OFTHE LORD OF

THE RINGS THE RINGS THE RINGS THE RINGS • Tolkien gave one of his most influential lectures on Beowulf, and he incorporated some of the

ideological conflicts present in this poem into his mythology.

• Beowulf is a blend of historical events and Nordic legend. The poem was probably composed in theseventh or eighth century and spread primarily through song or spoken verse.

• A manuscript of the poem, written around A.D. 1000, has preserved the poem, making Beowulf theearliest surviving epic work of northern European literature.

• Beowulf tells of the adventures of a Scandinavian hero, Beowulf, who saves the Danes from theseemingly invincible monster Grendel, then from Grendel's mother. Beowulf finally returns to hisown country, where he perishes in a vivid fight against a dragon.

• Tolkien infused The Lord of the Rings with the physical and spiritual conflict evident in Beowulf, as Jane Chance, a professor of English, writes in Tolkien's Art:

• “Because the Fellowship is burdened with the responsibility of bearing the Ring and because its presence attracts evil, the greatest threat to the Fellowship and its mission comes not from withoutbut within. The hero must realize that he can become a monster. The two books of the Fellowshiptrace the process of this realization: the first book centers on the presentation of evil as external and physical, requiring physical heroism to combat it; and the second book centers on the presentation of

evil as internal and spiritual, requiring a spiritual heroism to combat it. The hero matures bycoming to understand the character of good and evil—specifically, by descending into anunderworld and then ascending into an overworld, a natural one in the first book and asupernatural one in the second. These two levels correspond to the two levels—Germanic andChristian—of Beowulf and The Hobbit. For Frodo, as for Beowulf and Bilbo, the ultimate enemy ishimself.”


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INFLUENCES ON THE LORD OF THE RINGS INFLUENCES ON THE LORD OF THE RINGS INFLUENCES ON THE LORD OF THE RINGS INFLUENCES ON THE LORD OF THE RINGS

• INDUSTRIALIZATION AND POLLUTION INDUSTRIALIZATION AND POLLUTION INDUSTRIALIZATION AND POLLUTION INDUSTRIALIZATION AND POLLUTION

•The industrial revolution, a period of rapid change beginning in Britain around 1750 and lastingwell into the 1800s, transformed the cultural and physical landscape of England.

• Handmade products crafted in small-town shops gave way to urban factories and mechanizedproduction. Textiles, shipbuilding, iron, and steel emerged as important industries, and thecountry's population increasingly migrated to urban areas to work in the factories. Coal fueled these

industries, polluting the air with black smoke and dotting the countryside with mining spoil.

• Although born well after the industrial revolution, Tolkien witnessed the lasting effects of industryon the environment, first as a child in Birmingham and later as an adult in Oxford.

• Tolkien's concern for nature echoes throughout The Lord of the Rings. Evil beings of Middle-earthdominate nature and abuse it to bolster their own power. For example, Saruman, the corrupt

wizard, devastates an ancient forest as he builds his army.

• The Elves, in contrast, live in harmony with nature, appreciating its beauty and power, andreflecting a sense of enchantment and wonder in their artful songs.


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• WORLD WAR I AND WORLD WAR II WORLD WAR I AND WORLD WAR II WORLD WAR I AND WORLD WAR II WORLD WAR I AND WORLD WAR II

•World War I broke out while Tolkien was a student at Oxford University. After finishing his degree, Tolkien joined the Lancashire Fusiliers as a second lieutenant.

• In 1916 Tolkien was sent to France, where he and his fellow soldiers faced the terrifying new mechanisms ofmodern warfare—machine guns, tanks, and poison gas—fighting in some of the bloodiest battles known tohuman history. Tolkien fought in the Battle of the Somme, a vicious engagement in which over a million peoplewere either killed or wounded.

• In the trenches of World War I, Tolkien began recording the horrors of war that would later surface in The Lordof the Rings. Later that year he caught trench fever, an illness carried by lice, and was sent back to England.During his convalescence, he began writing down the stories and mythology of Middle-earth, which wouldform the basis for The Silmarillion.

• "An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience," Tolkien acknowledged, but hestrongly denied that his story was an allegory for World War I or II.* Although The Lord of the Rings was writtenduring World War II and follows the rise of a great evil threatening to envelop the world, the ring was notmeant to symbolize the atomic bomb. Likewise, the characters Sauron and Saruman, although both tyrants, areimaginary characters and are not meant to represent Hitler or Stalin.

• In the foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wrote, "By 1918, all but one of my closefriends were dead." The reader cannot help but notice that the Dead Marshes of Mordor is eerily reminiscent ofWorld War I's Western Front and its utter devastation of life.


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THE IMPACT OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS THE IMPACT OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS THE IMPACT OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS THE IMPACT OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS

• While recent opinion polls have ranked The Lord of the Rings as one of the most popular literaryworks of this century, Tolkien's publisher initially thought this "work of genius" would lose money.And when Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy initially appeared in 1954-55, they received mixed

critical response.

• Some commentators, such as C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden, declared the trilogy a masterpiece.Others, such as Mark Roberts and Edmund Wilson, thought it was juvenile trash. Auden remarkedthat people seemed to either love Tolkien's work or hate it. Although there were opposing views,the books sold reasonably well and exceeded the publisher's initial expectations.

• In the 1960s the popularity of The Lord of the Rings exploded when a pirated version becameavailable in America and as themes of resisting political corruption and preserving the naturalenvironment resonated with the challenges readers faced in their own lives. Moreover, a sort of cultappeared, with people wearing buttons labeled FRODO LIVES or GANDALF FOR PRESIDENT.Many clubs, specialty journals, and other fantasy books appeared.

• The enduring appeal of the books is obvious today. As in the 1960s, people are reading The Lord ofthe Rings in cafés, in subways, and at bus stops; and millions worldwide continue to be enchanted

and inspired by Tolkien's massive work.

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Aplicatie elev.pdf