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T 2] He notes that Tolkien likened his Valar to "the gods of 'traditional' 'higher' mythology" – meaning, as Richard Purtill explained, the Roman or Greek pantheons, or to an extent also the Æsir of Norse mythology – though with definite differences.
Influence from Greek mythology is apparent in the disappearance of the island of Númenor, recalling Atlantis. [82] Tolkien's Elvish name "Atalantë" for Númenor resembles Plato's Atlantis, [83] furthering the illusion that his mythology simply extends the history and mythology of the real world. [84]
One pun that Tolkien dropped, fortunately in Berube's view, was "Gnome" for the Noldor, a group of Elves distinguished by their knowledge and skill; the intended association was with "gnosis", from the Greek, meaning "knowing"; but Tolkien was persuaded not to use the name because of its trivial popular usage. [22]
The medievalist Marjorie Burns writes that "J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is conspicuously and intricately northern in both ancient and modern ways." [4] She cites a letter to the classics scholar Rhona Beare, where Tolkien wrote that he had not invented the name "Middle-earth", as it had come from "inhabitants of Northwestern Europe, Scandinavia, and England".
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that "the themes of the Escape from Death, and the Escape from Deathlessness, are vital parts of Tolkien's entire mythology." [8] In a 1968 BBC television broadcast, Tolkien quoted French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and described the inevitability of death as the "key-spring of The Lord of the Rings ...
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey states that Tolkien's spelling "warg" is a cross of Old Norse vargr and Old English wearh. He notes that the words embody a shift in meaning from "wolf" to "outlaw": vargr carries both meanings, while wearh means "outcast" or "outlaw", but has lost the sense of "wolf". [3]
[T 1] [4] It was at the centre of nine worlds in Norse mythology. [5] Tolkien adopted the word "Middle-earth" to mean the central continent in his imagined world, Arda; it first appears in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings: "Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk even became aware of them ...
Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elven-latin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek. [T 14] Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the ...