guest BLOGSTAR
10 Things You Should Know About J.R.R. Tolkien
by guest BLOGSTAR - September 18, 2010 - 8:00 AM

By Brian Gottesman

Most mental_floss readers probably know and love him best as the father of The Lord of the Rings. But there are plenty of things even the most ardent fans don’t know about John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Here are a couple of facts we think are precious.

1. He had a flair for the dramatic.

As a linguist and expert on Old English and Old Norse literature, Tolkien was a tenured professor at Oxford University from 1925 until 1959. He was also a tireless instructor, teaching between 70 and 136 lectures a year (his contract only called for 36). But the best part is the way he taught those classes. Although quiet and unassuming in public, Tolkien wasn’t the typical stodgy, reserved stereotype of an Oxford don in the classroom. He was known to begin classes by barging into the lecture hall, sometimes in era-appropriate chain mail armor, and bellowing the opening lines of Beowulf at the top of his lungs. As one of his students put it, “He could turn a lecture room into a mead hall.”

2. He didn’t share your enthusiasm for Hobbits.

Tolkien saw himself as a scholar first and a writer second. It always irked him that his scholarly works went largely unknown by the general public, who flocked to his fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were largely Tolkien’s attempt to construct a body of myth, and their success caught him largely unaware. In fact, he spent years rejecting, criticizing and shredding adaptations of his work that he didn’t believe captured its epic scope and noble purpose! He was also utterly skeptical of most LOTR fans, who he thought incapable of really appreciating the work, and he probably would have been horrified by movie fandom dressing up like Legolas.

3. He loved his day job.

To Tolkien, writing fantasy fiction was simply a hobby. The works he considered most important were his scholarly works, which included Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, a modern translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and A Middle English Vocabulary.

4. He was quite the romantic (and he’s got the nerdy gravestone to prove it).

At age 16, Tolkien fell in love with Edith Bratt, three years his senior. His guardian, a Catholic priest, was horrified that his ward was seeing a Protestant and ordered the boy to have no contact with Edith until he turned 21. Tolkien obeyed, pining after Edith for years until that fateful birthday, when he met with her under a railroad viaduct. She broke off her engagement to another man, converted to Catholicism, and the two were married for the rest of their lives. At Tolkien’s instructions, their shared gravestone has the names “Beren” and “Luthien” engraved on it, a reference to a famous pair of star-crossed lovers from the fictional world he created.

5. His relationship with C.S. Lewis was not all it’s cracked up to be.

Tolkien’s fellow Oxford don C.S. Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) is often identified as his best friend and closest confidant. But the truth is, the pair had a much more troubled relationship. At first, the two authors were very close. In fact, Tolkien’s wife Edith was reportedly jealous of their friendship. And it was Tolkien who convinced Lewis to return to Christianity. But their relationship cooled and ultimately soured over what Tolkien perceived as Lewis’s anti-Catholic leanings and scandalous personal life (he had been romancing an American widow at the time). Although the two did reconcile to some degree late in life, Tolkien never did learn to appreciate Lewis’s writings, which he thought were childish and poorly conceived.

6. He enjoyed clubbing.

Well, the extra-curricular, after-school sort. Wherever Tolkien went, he was intimately involved in the formation of literary and scholarly clubs. As a professor at Leeds University, for example, he formed the Viking Club. And during his stint at Oxford, he formed the Inklings — a literary discussion group.

7. He wasn’t blowing smoke about those war scenes.

Tolkien was a veteran of the First World War, and served as a second lieutenant in the 11th (Service) Battalion of the British Expeditionary Force in France. He was also present for some of the most bloody trench fighting of the war, including the Battle of Thiepval Ridge. The deprivations of Frodo and Sam on their road to Mordor may have had their origins in Tolkien’s time in the trenches, during which he contracted a chronic fever from the lice that infested him that forced him to return home. Many of his closest friends died in the war, giving him a keen awareness of its tragedy that shines through in his writings.

8. He invented languages for fun.

A philologist by trade, Tolkien kept his mind exercised by inventing new languages, many of which (like the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin) he used extensively in his writing. He even wrote songs and poems in his fictional languages. In addition, Tolkien worked to reconstruct and write in extinct languages like Medieval Welsh and Lombardic. His poem “BagmÄ“ Blomā” (“Flower of the Trees”) might be the first original work written in the Gothic language in over a millennium.

9. He’s been published almost as prolifically posthumously as alive.

Most authors have to be content with the works they produce during their lifetime, but not Tolkien. His scribblings and random notes, along with manuscripts he never bothered to publish, have been edited, revised, compiled, redacted, and published in dozens of volumes after his death, most of them produced by his son Christopher. While Tolkien’s most famous posthumous publication is Silmarillion, other works include The History of Middle Earth, Unfinished Tales, The Children of Hurin, and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun.

10. He wasn’t nearly as fond of Nazis as they were of him.

Tolkien’s academic writings on Old Norse and Germanic history, language and culture were extremely popular among the Nazi elite, who were obsessed with recreating ancient Germanic civilization. But Tolkien was disgusted by Hitler and the Nazi party, and made no secret of the fact. He considered forbidding a German translation of The Hobbit after the German publisher, in accordance with Nazi law, asked him to certify that he was an “Aryan.” Instead, he wrote a scathing letter asserting, among other things, his regret that he had no Jewish ancestors. His feelings are also evidenced in a letter he wrote to his son: “I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler … Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”

More from mental_floss…

10 Technologies We Stole From the Animal Kingdom
*
10 Things You Don’t Know About Starbucks (But Should!)
*
The Great Confederate Snowball Fight of 1863
*
What’s in a Nickname? The Origins of All 30 MLB Team Names
*
22 Great Photos Found in Presidential Libraries

twitterbanner.jpg

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (53)

  1. It’s awesome that he thought Hitler was a twit because he was besmirching Norse culture and that he regretted having no Jewish ancestry. Seeing more scholars angry at him might have dissuaded Hitler. Nothing worse than the ire of your peers.

    posted by Tim S. on 4-6-2010 at 2:08 pm

  2. chain mail armor is redundant.

    And for an excellent examination of Tolkien and Lewis’s working relationship, find a copy of Diana Pavlac Glyer’s excellent book The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community.

    posted by Steven on 4-6-2010 at 2:09 pm

  3. No, chain mail isn’t redundant. There is also Scale mail armor. You can say “mail armor”, but that still leaves the question of Scale vs. Chain to be answered.

    posted by Clarence on 4-6-2010 at 2:18 pm

  4. His translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is excellent, personally my favorite (having read all of 2 or 3 translations, ha).

    Being interested in the same types of scholarship but not nearly as talented, I would have LOVED to have him as a professor. Too bad I was born a few decades too late, on the wrong side of the pond….

    posted by Kate on 4-6-2010 at 2:23 pm

  5. Tolkien’s invented languages were a lot more important to him and to LOTR than #8 gives credit! I’d suggest reading A Secret Vice or checking out Ardalambion (http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/). Some have said that Tolkien created Middle-Earth so that there’d be a place for his conlangs…don’t know if it’s true, since I couldn’t find a quote, but still.

    posted by S on 4-6-2010 at 2:25 pm

  6. Ha! I knew all those things! (A few not in quite so much detail…) Of course, my eldest daughter is Arwen and my youngest son’s middle name is Reuel. “Chain mail” is not redundant; “chain mail armor” is.

    posted by Salome Ellen on 4-6-2010 at 2:50 pm

  7. In the midst of LOTR Mania when the movies were coming out. I was in our local bookstore and a teenager asked if they had anything by this “New” author Tolkien? We just about died laughing.
    The clerk than explained how long the author has been dead.

    posted by hockeyzombie on 4-6-2010 at 2:55 pm

  8. Clarence – I think he means that “chain mail” is sufficient since it is already assumed to be armor.

    posted by Bert on 4-6-2010 at 3:05 pm

  9. Great post! Love Tolkien!

    posted by ann on 4-6-2010 at 3:37 pm

  10. C.S. Lewis also volunteered for service in the British army in WWI. Like his (sometimes) friend Tolkien, Lewis experienced trench warfare, and was sent home to recover from wounds he received in battle.

    posted by rev on 4-6-2010 at 3:39 pm

  11. Great post! I took a “myth and Tolkien” class in college, and the prof. could speak Sindarin. I remember the class syllabus stated the lecture hall was in Lothlorian, and he gave extra credit to any student who composed an original song or poem in one of Tolkien’s languages. So, so nerdy, but I loved it.

    posted by Jenny on 4-6-2010 at 4:20 pm

  12. Hate to be a killjoy, but I found LOTR very tedious. The “songs”, which come off as beginner’s poetry, and having 5 different names for people and places and constantly switching which one you use drove me nuts. It’s ok to introduce a new name, but show some consistency.

    As I recall, he was so protective of his work, he wouldn’t allow it to be edited, which was his greatest failing as an author. LOTR could have been more concise, like the movies.

    posted by Big Jonny on 4-6-2010 at 4:23 pm

  13. Although a bigger fan of Charles Williams and Lewis, I will pass this on to several friends who were Tolkein fanatics!

    posted by Andy on 4-6-2010 at 4:34 pm

  14. In defense of Clarence, chain mail armor is not redundant, as it distinguishes from other chain mail uses, such as jewelry.

    posted by Barbara on 4-6-2010 at 5:27 pm

  15. Loved this article….very very interesting. Tolkien is in my top 10 favorite authors. What a mind!

    posted by adchick on 4-6-2010 at 8:39 pm

  16. the author is ignorant or misspeaks. E.g., #2, He didn’t share your enthusiasm for Hobbits – THAT isn’t about hobbits, that’s about fanac – in fact, JRRT described himself as a hobbit & early drafts included much more in the way of hobbity-interaction & puns & poems than the published book (the Inklings encouraged him to cut back in that area).

    #4 – who has read LOTR & *doesn’t* know JRRT was romantic?! sheeesh!

    #5 – this author knows *nothing* of the reality of JRRT & CSL – yes, it’s complex, but his representation is farther from reality than the stereotype! He should read THE COMPANY THEY KEEP: CS Lewis & JRR Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer.

    #9 – what Tolkien fan doesn’t know how extensive the posthumous publications are? sheesh, fans are the ones who buy those books – of course they know.

    posted by Lynn on 4-6-2010 at 11:05 pm

  17. Notes by Tolkien and Lewis were found about a year ago by Dr. Steven Beebe in which somewhat prove that they were indeed working on a book about language together.

    posted by jenacular on 4-7-2010 at 12:37 am

  18. And if you’re ever in Oxford, check out the Eagle and Child pub a couple of blocks from the University. Good food and drink and they might even let you set in the booth that was once reserved for Tolkien.

    posted by gwdMaine on 4-7-2010 at 12:05 pm

  19. Ok Lynn you win. You clearly know more about the subject than the post’s author. Happy now?

    Sheesh…

    posted by crocostimpy on 4-7-2010 at 1:17 pm

  20. Just chiming in my agreement with crocostimpy. Lighten up, Lynn! This was a great article.

    posted by sundance1028 on 4-7-2010 at 4:12 pm

  21. “this was a great article” – wow. Ok, if that’s the level of discourse and/or “scholarship” that you find worthwhile, enjoy.

    posted by Lynn on 4-7-2010 at 4:59 pm

  22. #2 His day job was being a lecture. There is plenty of evidence that he didn’t always love it. See his letters, or more specifically, Diane Wynn Jones comments on how, when she attended, it was very obvious that we would rather be home finishing his book (RotK) than lecturing his class. The other works you mentioned were done 20-30 years before LotR, I believe.

    #3 Tolkien LOVED LotR (The Hobbit, less so, but mainly because of the “childish voice” he used for the book). He doted over and made editing adjustments to the book for most of his life. And his “dislike of LotR fans” is way overblown in the press. He corresponded with many fans, even giving one man ideas for naming his cows on his “Rivendell” farm. Tolkien disliked having fans of HIMSELF, as opposed to the books. His views that you should study the story, not the author, are well known.

    posted by David Bunnell on 4-7-2010 at 6:27 pm

  23. Lecturer not lecture, fool of a Took!

    posted by David Bunnell on 4-7-2010 at 6:32 pm

  24. Wow, Lynn, since you have such an issue with mental_floss, it’s possibly a good idea for you to stop reading these articles and visit another site instead – seeing as you’re such a better published and more popular writer. Oh. Wait. You’re not.

    posted by Luis on 4-8-2010 at 12:48 am

  25. Having multiple names for a place is only realistic. Especially when you’re dealing with historical times, but it’s still true today.

    As for Tolkien and Lewis, this is slightly misrepresented. It’s true that they had a falling out, but that happened a long time after Lewis was converted to Christianity. There was a long span of time between these two events, in which they met at the Eagle and Child almost nightly and read their works aloud to each other, along with other scholars and writers (e.g., Charles Williams). Also, the article misrepresents Tolkien’s feelings about Lewis’ writings. It says he thought they were childish; that line should have specified that it was only the Narnia books he thought this about. And it wasn’t so much that he thought them childish, as much as disorganized and jumbled. (Michael Ward’s new book Planet Narnia has only just recently discovered the real artistic unity underlying the seven books.)

    posted by Michael on 4-8-2010 at 11:30 am

  26. Addendum:
    He was born in south Africa and bitten by a poisonous spider there, though he claimed not to have any recollection of it, before his mother moved back to England.

    posted by paul on 4-8-2010 at 1:11 pm

  27. #11 He was a devout Catholic and considered LOTR a Catholic work.

    posted by David B. on 4-8-2010 at 3:05 pm

  28. Nonetheless, thanks for the good post!

    posted by David B. on 4-8-2010 at 3:06 pm

  29. Item dropped in “11th (Service) Battalion of the British Expeditionary Force”. It should read “11th (Service) Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers of the British Expeditionary Force”. Knowing a soldier’s regiment is very very important.

    posted by Joseph T Major on 4-8-2010 at 7:04 pm

  30. This article has some very good things in it, but some errors also, some of which Lynn has caught. (Despite the sneers of Luis, professional publication does not necessarily make one more knowledgeable about a subject.)

    Mostly these are problems of emphasis.

    #2. “It always irked him that his scholarly works went largely unknown by the general public.” His scholarly writings are mostly technical, and not intended for the general public. What irked him was readers who considered LOTR entirely original and unprecedentedly imaginative, when they did not know the myths that were Tolkien’s own inspiration, and the great fantasies that preceded him.

    #3. “writing fantasy fiction was simply a hobby.” He did love his day job, but his fiction was not merely a hobby, but a different way of expressing the same serious themes as his scholarship.

    #5. “His relationship with C.S. Lewis was not all it’s cracked up to be.” True, but it also wasn’t the seething jealousy that it’s often pictured as today. “Tolkien never did learn to appreciate Lewis’s writings, which he thought were childish and poorly conceived.” True of some of Lewis’s works, but Tolkien greatly admired others, especially Out of the Silent Planet.

    #9. “He’s been published almost as prolifically posthumously as alive.” Almost? No, more so!

    posted by DB on 4-9-2010 at 10:50 am

  31. @ “DB”

    “Despite the sneers of Luis, professional publication does not necessarily make one more knowledgeable about a subject”

    That’s not really the point. The point is more the fact that Lynn was so entirely derogatory of the article, writer and the people that enjoyed the article that I pointed out that if she thought it was so poorly written, perhaps it was a good idea that she go elsewhere.

    Also, to point out that someone with a website of her quality really had no place to talk about either the quality of this site, its writers nor its readers.

    posted by Luis on 4-10-2010 at 3:48 am

  32. You know, people should not go on and on about something on a website. For goodness sake! Don’t you realize how many people read these things?? You, Luis, and you, Lynn, both need to stop. You are acting like children, arguing over something that is really not worth arguing over. I am not, N-O-T, NOT degrading Tolkien, just saying that you two immature people need to stop.

    Anyway, I love Tolkien. He has actually inspired me to write my own books. I currently am working on three books, and one is my own version of elves and their language. You could call it a modern twist on elvendom.

    posted by M.B. on 4-10-2010 at 9:03 pm

  33. @ M.B – seriously, how is it that someone else insults this magazine, its readers and the article writer, I call them out on it, and you;re the one telling ME to not be immature?

    posted by Luis on 4-11-2010 at 3:43 am

  34. He’s like a witch too, or at least likes magic, alchemy and romanticism. Bad catholic.

    posted by Adriano on 4-11-2010 at 2:07 pm

  35. @Adriano: Catholicism does not preclude one from enjoying myth and fairy-tale. Tolkien was engaging in what he called “subcreation”, which he saw as a fitting occupation for man’s God-given intellect.

    Where did Tolkien ever suggest in his books that magic were not of Eru, but rather of Morgoth (the first being a parallel to the Christian God, and the second to Satan)? Where did Tolkien ever in LOTR write of alchemy at all? And why are Catholics not allowed to be romantic?

    posted by Sam. on 4-11-2010 at 5:23 pm

  36. I don’t know how this missed the top-ten: JRR was V.S. Naipaul’s tutor, when the latter studied English literature at Oxford.

    posted by Aloysius Trebeck on 4-13-2010 at 4:57 am

  37. Curiously, I’ve heard that Lewis thought Tolkien a dull lecturer.

    I’m unsure if the author meant Joy in #5. If so, Joy wasn’t a widow, she was a divorcee — that was the point of departure between the Catholic Tolkien and the Anglican Lewis. Even before that matter came up, however, Lewis’ friendship with Williams baffled Tolkien, who thought Williams odd.

    posted by Sean on 4-13-2010 at 1:06 pm

  38. 1.) Most of this is true and attested, including the part about beginning his “Beowulf” lectures by declaiming the poem’s opening lines (but he would have winced at the description “shouting,” since he was one of the early scholars to insist on the poetic, metrical meritis of “Beowulf”). But the part about entering the lecture hall in chain-mail is one of the most blatantly absurd things I have ever read. This sounds like the creation of fantasy fandom. Oxford University was (and is) extremely conservative and traditional; you did not, in the 1920s-40s, enter into lecture halls wearing chain mail.

    2.) No. In fact Tolkien is remembered for neglecting publication of many scholarly works he might have otherwise gotten published. There is no record of him stating that he was “irked” by his relatively few scholarly publications going unnoticed by the public (if anything I think Tolkien would have been surprised at the suggestion that the general public ought to take notice of his highly erudite, academic works: I just don’t think he would expect them to).

    3.) “Tolkien never did learn to appreciate Lewis’s writings.” Amend to “SOME of Lewis’ writings.” Tolkien was very enthusiastic about a number of them.

    8.) In fact he considered “The Lord of the Rings,” and all of his invented mythology, to be (in his own words) “fundamentally linguistic” works.

    10.) An important point. Much of what Tolkien tried to take from old Germanic myth and legend was run through the Nazi propaganda machine to promote a “might makes right” philosophy alongside its racial superiority ethic. Tolkien was disgusted by the perversion of the Germanic myths, which are neither racial nor emphasizing a “might makes right” philosophy — as C.S. Lewis pointed out in an article during WWII, “the whole point about Odin [i.e. in genuine Norse mythology] was that he had the right but not the might.” Lewis went on to point out that the real “spirit” of old Germanic myth was that of fighting on the side of good even when the _stronger_ side was destined to prevail: that is, the forces of evil — the giants and monsters — defeat the gods at Ragnarok, yet it is virtuous in these myths to be on the side of the gods: the _losing_ side. So much for might makes right, then, and Tolkien was deeply distressed to see this very moving quality of the myths so perverted.

    posted by Joseph on 4-13-2010 at 6:50 pm

  39. Seriously, how do most of you people actually know you’re right when you’re correcting the author of the article? DId you know Tolkien? Are you Tolkien scholars? I doubt it. I dare-say you’ve heard things, seen rumours and espouse it as fact.

    posted by BL on 4-14-2010 at 5:58 am

  40. Always good to see more about Tolkien! One thing though -

    “To Tolkien, writing fantasy fiction was simply a hobby.”

    Not necessarily. If you look at Tolkien and the Great War, for example, you see that his poetry was consciously the attempt to carry through the mission of a small group of friends, the TCBS, who were determined to change the world. While he may have lost some of the fervor by the time he published LotR, it was definitely more than a hobby (though the books themselves originated from the mythical history he considered to be more important).

    Tolkien and the Great War is a phenomenal book for anyone interested in Tolkien. Highly recommended.

    posted by Michael O. on 4-14-2010 at 2:26 pm

  41. BL: I make it a habit not to espouse rumors as fact. My information comes from Tolkien himself (i.e. his published writings and his letters, the latter edited and published by his son, Christopher Tolkien, and Humphrey Carpenter); and from the official Tolkien biographies, “Tolkien and the Great War” (prepared by John Garth from Tolkien’s unpublished letters, diaries, etc. with permission of the Tolkien estate) and “JRR Tolkien: A Biography,” by Humphrey Carpenter with assistance from Tolkien’s son, Christopher.

    posted by Joseph on 4-14-2010 at 11:06 pm

  42. @ Luis Hey, sorry, I apologize. I got carried away. Forgive me?

    posted by M. B. on 4-17-2010 at 12:25 pm

  43. wow, i never knew so much about him

    posted by sir jorge on 4-20-2010 at 10:40 pm

  44. Good content, hideous web page. I beg you to remove the roll-over ads…

    posted by Rock on 4-27-2010 at 9:44 am

  45. Wow! I got a bigger kick out of reading the comments than usual. Loved the article.

    posted by old hippy chick on 9-18-2010 at 7:03 pm

  46. this was posted a while ago, but doesn’t mention that. is there a reason it’s up again?

    posted by _flossfan on 9-19-2010 at 1:01 am

  47. My favorite part of the letter he wrote to his German publishers:

    “I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects.”

    posted by Macho Business Donkey Wrestler on 9-19-2010 at 2:00 am

  48. That last fact’s what’s always endeared him to me :-)

    posted by MetFanMac on 9-19-2010 at 4:06 am

  49. Am I the only one wondering which two of these 10 “facts” about JRRT are the “couple” reffered to in the intro paragraph???
    (SIC)”Here are a couple of facts we think are precious.”

    posted by linkscat on 9-20-2010 at 1:16 am

  50. Some people use the word couple to mean a small number (usally around ten at most). Not just two.

    posted by Azrael on 9-20-2010 at 6:00 pm

  51. @ Clarence among others “No, chain mail isn’t redundant. There is also Scale mail armor. You can say “mail armor”, but that still leaves the question of Scale vs. Chain to be answered.”

    Yes “Chainmail” is redundant. The correct term “maille” literally means: Armor made of chain. Ergo, chain armor made of chain is redundant. Scale mail generally refers to armor made of overlapping plates(,or “scales”) of mail. Obviously, scale mail is a misnomer.”Mail armor” is also redundant Q.E.D. If you don’t believe me, go to Mailleartisans.org and look it up.

    posted by Artisan on 10-31-2010 at 10:30 pm

  52. I think the point about Tolkien’s gravestone is in really terrible taste. Describing someone’s last monument as “nerdy”, especially when it is as profound and beautiful as Edith & J.R.R.’s, is disturbing. Please edit this out of respect for this brilliant man and his wife!

    posted by Name on 11-25-2011 at 2:19 am

  53. I think Tolkien was born in the wrong age, and I actually mean it as a compliment. He had the class act of a knight and genius ideas of a renaissance man.

    He really belongs in the company of Homeros and Shakespeare as a legendary and valued storyteller. Though I know he didn’t really like Shakespeare, make that thing 11.

    posted by Anna on 1-2-2012 at 1:07 pm

Comment

commenting policy