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Scritti[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

Tolkien nel corso delle sue opere riutilizzò diversi temi sviluppati nelle prime bozze dei Racconti ritrovati, scritte in ospedale dall'autore mentre si stava rimettendo da una malattia contratta durante la battaglia della Somme, nella prima guerra mondiale. Le due storie di maggior rilievo, quelle di Beren e Luthien e di Turin Turambar vennero poi espanse in due grandi poemi in forma di Lai (pubblicati nei The Lays of Beleriand).

Influenze[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

(da fare e riassumere)

British adventure stories[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

One of the greatest influences on Tolkien was the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris. Tolkien wished to imitate Morris's prose and poetry romances,[1] from which he took hints for the names of features such as the Dead Marshes in The Lord of the Rings[2] and Mirkwood,[3] along with some general aspects of approach.

Edward Wyke-Smith's The Marvellous Land of Snergs, with its "table-high" title characters, strongly influenced the incidents, themes, and depiction of Bilbo's race in The Hobbit.[4]

Tolkien also cited H. Rider Haggard's novel She in a telephone interview: "I suppose as a boy She interested me as much as anything—like the Greek shard of Amyntas [Amenartas], which was the kind of machine by which everything got moving."[5] A supposed facsimile of this potsherd appeared in Haggard's first edition, and the ancient inscription it bore, once translated, led the English characters to She's ancient kingdom. Critics have compared this device to the Testament of Isildur in The Lord of the Rings[6] and to Tolkien's efforts to produce as an illustration a realistic page from the Book of Mazarbul.[7] Critics starting with Edwin Muir[8] have found resemblances between Haggard's romances and Tolkien's.[9][10][11]

Tolkien wrote of being impressed as a boy by S. R. Crockett's historical novel The Black Douglas and of basing the Necromancer (Sauron) on its villain, Gilles de Retz.[12] Incidents in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are similar in narrative and style to the novel,[13] and its overall style and imagery have been suggested as an influence on Tolkien.[14]

European mythology[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

Tolkien was much inspired by early Germanic, especially Old English literature, poetry, and mythology, which were his chosen and much-loved areas of expertise. These sources of inspiration included Old English literature such as Beowulf, Norse sagas such as the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga,[15] the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Nibelungenlied, and numerous other culturally related works.[16] Despite the similarities of his work to the Volsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied, which were the basis for Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tolkien dismissed critics' direct comparisons to Wagner, telling his publisher, "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases." However, some critics[17][18][19] believe that Tolkien was, in fact, indebted to Wagner for elements such as the "concept of the Ring as giving the owner mastery of the world ..."[20] Two of the characteristics possessed by the One Ring, its inherent malevolence and corrupting power upon minds and wills, were not present in the mythical sources but have a central role in Wagner's opera.

Tolkien also acknowledged several non-Germanic influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas. Sophocles' play Oedipus the King he cited as inspiring elements of The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin. In addition, Tolkien first read William Forsell Kirby's translation of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, while attending King Edward's School. He described its character of Väinämöinen as one of his influences for Gandalf the Grey. The Kalevala's antihero Kullervo was further described as an inspiration for Turin Turambar.[21] Dimitra Fimi, Douglas A. Anderson, John Garth, and many other prominent Tolkien scholars believe that Tolkien also drew influence from a variety of Celtic (Irish, Scottish and Welsh) history and legends.[22][23] However, after the Silmarillion manuscript was rejected, in part for its "eye-splitting" Celtic names, Tolkien denied their Celtic origin:

«Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are the tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact 'mad' as your reader says—but I don't believe I am.[24][25]»

Catholicism[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

Catholic theology and imagery played a part in fashioning Tolkien's creative imagination, suffused as it was by his deeply religious spirit.[16][26] Tolkien acknowledged this himself:

«The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.[27]»

Specifically, Paul H. Kocher argues that Tolkien describes evil in the orthodox Christian way as the absence of good. He cites many examples in The Lord of the Rings, such as Sauron's "Lidless Eye": "the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing." Kocher sees Tolkien's source as Thomas Aquinas, "whom it is reasonable to suppose that Tolkien, as a medievalist and a Catholic, knows well".[28] Tom Shippey makes the same point, but, instead of referring to Aquinas, says Tolkien was very familiar with Alfred the Great's Anglo-Saxon translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, known as the Lays of Boethius. Shippey contends that this Christian view of evil is most clearly stated by Boethius: "evil is nothing." He says Tolkien used the corollary that evil cannot create as the basis of Frodo's remark, "the Shadow ... can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own," and related remarks by Treebeard and Elrond.[29] He goes on to argue that in The Lord of the Rings evil does sometimes seem to be an independent force, more than merely the absence of good (though not independent to the point of the Manichaean heresy), and suggests that Alfred's additions to his translation of Boethius may have inspired that view.[30]

Another interesting argument is Stratford Caldecott's theological view on the Ring and what it represents. "The Ring of Power exemplifies the dark magic of the corrupted will, the assertion of self in disobedience to God. It appears to give freedom, but its true function is to enslave the wearer to the Fallen Angel. It corrodes the human will of the wearer, rendering him increasingly "thin" and unreal; indeed, its gift of invisibility symbolizes this ability to destroy all natural human relationships and identity. You could say the Ring is sin itself: tempting and seemingly harmless to begin with, increasingly hard to give up and corrupting in the long run".[31]

Pubblicazioni[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

Famoso per le sue opere ambientate in universi immaginari, Tolkien fu anche un importante autore di critica letteraria accademica. Il suo seminario del 1936, poi pubblicato, rivoluzionò la comprensione del poema epico anglosassone Beowulf da parte dei critici. Il saggio rimane ancora oggi un punto di riferimento per lo studio della letteratura inglese antica. Il Beowulf fu anche una delle opere che influenzò in seguito maggiormente Tolkein, con numerose parti sia de Lo Hobbit che de Il Signore degli Anelli adattate dal poema. Lo scritto rivela molti aspetti del Beowulf trovati maggiormente interessanti da Tolkien, in particolare sul ruolo dei mostri nela letteratura, in particolare sul ruolo del dragone che appare nel terzo finale del poema:[32]

(EN)

«As for the poem, one dragon, however hot, does not make a summer, or a host; and a man might well exchange for one good dragon what he would not sell for a wilderness. And dragons, real dragons, essential both to the machinery and the ideas of a poem or tale, are actually rare.»

(IT)

«Per quanto riguarda il poema, un dragone, sebbene caldo, non crea un'estate, o un ; e un uomo potrebbe ben scambiare per un buon dragone quello che non venderebbe per una . E i dragoni, i veri dragoni, essenziali sia ai meccanismi di una storia e alle idee di un poema o di una storia, sono purtroppo rari.»

The Silmarillion[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

Tolkien wrote a brief "Sketch of the Mythology" which included the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin, and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings, but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) got cold feet. Moreover, printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain, requiring The Lord of the Rings to be published in three volumes.[33] The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth, edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis. Published in 1977, the final work, entitled The Silmarillion, received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978.[34]

Children's books and other short works[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

In addition to his mythopoeic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children.[35] He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other stories included Mr. Bliss and Roverandom (for children), and Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, On Fairy-Stories, Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium.

The Hobbit[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular, but by sheer accident a book called The Hobbit, which he had written some years before for his own children, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication.[36] However, the book attracted adult readers as well as children, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel.

The Lord of the Rings[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what would become his most famous work: the epic novel The Lord of the Rings (originally published in three volumes 1954–1955). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.

Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children's tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing.[37] Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense back story of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien's influence weighs heavily on the fantasy genre that grew up after the success of The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, judged by both sales and reader surveys.[38] In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the "Nation's Best-loved Book". Australians voted The Lord of the Rings "My Favourite Book" in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC.[39] In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".[40] In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3's Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK's "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature.[41]

Posthumous publications[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

The Silmarillion[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

Tolkien had appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of his father's unpublished material into a single coherent volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977—his father had previously attempted to get a collection of "Silmarillion" material published in 1937 before writing The Lord of the Rings.[42]

Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

In 1980 Christopher Tolkien published a collection of more fragmentary material, under the title Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. In subsequent years (1983–1996) he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials, together with notes and extensive commentary, in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle-earth. They contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative, and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress for Tolkien and he only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to completely rewrite the book because of the style of its prose.[43]

The Children of Húrin[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

More recently, in 2007, the collection was completed with the publication of The Children of Húrin by HarperCollins (in the UK and Canada) and Houghton Mifflin (in the US). The novel tells the story of Túrin Turambar and his sister Nienor, children of Húrin Thalion. The material was compiled by Christopher Tolkien from The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, and unpublished manuscripts.

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

In February 2009, Publishers Weekly announced that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had acquired the American rights to Tolkien's unpublished work The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún.[44] The work, which was released worldwide on 5 May 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and HarperCollins, retells the legend of Sigurd and the fall of the Niflungs from Germanic mythology. It is a narrative poem composed in alliterative verse and is modelled after the Old Norse poetry of the Elder Edda. Christopher Tolkien supplied copious notes and commentary upon his father's work.

According to Christopher Tolkien, it is no longer possible to trace the exact date of the work's composition. On the basis of circumstantial evidence, he suggests that it dates from the 1930s. In his foreword he wrote, "He scarcely ever (to my knowledge) referred to them. For my part, I cannot recall any conversation with him on the subject until very near the end of his life, when he spoke of them to me, and tried unsuccessfully to find them."[45] In a 1967 letter to W. H. Auden, Tolkien wrote, "Thank you for your wonderful effort in translating and reorganizing The Song of the Sibyl. In return again I hope to send you, if I can lay my hands on it (I hope it isn't lost), a thing I did many years ago when trying to learn the art of writing alliterative poetry: an attempt to unify the lays about the Völsungs from the Elder Edda, written in the old eight-line fornyrðislag stanza."[46]

Mr. Bliss[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

One of Tolkien's least-known short works is the children's storybook Mr. Bliss, published in 1982. It tells the story of Mr. Bliss and his first ride in his new motor-car. Many adventures follow: encounters with bears, angry neighbours, irate shopkeepers, and assorted collisions. The story was inspired by Tolkien's own vehicular mishaps with his first car, purchased in 1932. The bears were based on toy bears owned by Tolkien's sons. Tolkien was both author and illustrator of the book. He submitted it to his publishers as a balm to readers who were hungry for more from him after the success of The Hobbit. The lavish ink and coloured-pencil illustrations would have made production costs prohibitively expensive. Tolkien agreed to redraw the pictures in a simpler style, but then found he did not have time to do so. The book was published in 1982 as a facsimile of Tolkien's difficult-to-read illustrated manuscript, with a typeset transcription on each facing page.

Manuscript locations[modifica | modifica wikitesto]

The Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University's John P. Raynor, S.J., Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, preserves many of Tolkien's manuscripts;[47] other original material is in Oxford University's Bodleian Library. Marquette University has the manuscripts and proofs of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other works, including Farmer Giles of Ham, while the Bodleian Library holds the papers containing Tolkien's Silmarillion mythology and his academic work.[48]

In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Tolkien had begun co-writing with C.S. Lewis but had never completed, was discovered at the Bodleian Library.[49]

  1. ^ Letters, no. 1.
  2. ^ Letters, no. 226.
  3. ^ Anderson, Douglas A. The Annotated Hobbit, Boston, Houghton Mifflin 1988, p. 183, note 10.
  4. ^ Anderson, Douglas A. The Annotated Hobbit, Boston, Houghton Mifflin 1988, pp. 6–7.
  5. ^ Henry Resnick, An Interview with Tolkien, in Niekas, 1967, pp. 37–47.
  6. ^ Dale J. Nelson, Haggard's She: Burke's Sublime in a popular romance, in Mythlore, Winter–Spring, 2006. URL consultato il 2 December 2007.
  7. ^ Verlyn Flieger, Interrupted Music: The Making Of Tolkien's Mythology, Kent State University Press, 2005, p. 150, ISBN [[Special:BookSources/0-87338-814-0 [[:Template:Please check ISBN]]|0-87338-814-0 [[:Template:Please check ISBN]]]]ISBN non valido (aiuto). URL consultato il 2 December 2007.
  8. ^ Edwin Muir, The Truth of Imagination: Some Uncollected Reviews and Essays, Aberdeen University Press, 1988, p. 121, ISBN 0-08-036392-X.
  9. ^ Jared C. Lobdell, The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien, Open Court, 2004, pp. 5–6, ISBN 978-0-8126-9569-4.
  10. ^ William N., II Rogers, Underwood, Michael R., Gagool and Gollum: Exemplars of Degeneration in King Solomon's Mines and The Hobbit, in George Clark and Daniel Timmons (eds.) (a cura di), J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 2000, pp. 121–132, ISBN 0-313-30845-4.
  11. ^ William H. Stoddard, Galadriel and Ayesha: Tolkienian Inspiration?, su troynovant.com, Franson Publications, July 2003. URL consultato il 2 December 2007.
  12. ^ Letters, p. 391, footnote, quoted in Jared C. Lobdell, The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien, p. 6.
  13. ^ Anderson, Douglas A. The Annotated Hobbit, Boston, Houghton Mifflin 1988, p. 150.
  14. ^ Lobdell, Jared C. The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien, pp. 6–7.
  15. ^ As described by Christopher Tolkien in Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks Konung (Oxford University, Trinity College). B. Litt. thesis. 1953/4. [Year uncertain], The Battle of the Goths and the Huns, in: Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955–6) [1]
  16. ^ a b David Day, Tolkien's Ring, New York, Barnes and Noble, 1º February 2002, ISBN 1-58663-527-1.
  17. ^ Alex Ross, "The Ring and The Rings: Wagner vs. Tolkien", The New Yorker, 22 December 2003. Retrieved on 2 December 2011.
  18. ^ Spengler, The 'Ring' and the remnants of the West, Asia Times, 11 January 2003. Retrieved on 27 April 2009.
  19. ^ Spengler, Tolkien's Christianity and the pagan tragedy, Asia Times, 11 January 2003. Retrieved on 27 April 2009.
  20. ^ Tolkien's Ring and Der Ring des Nibelungen, Chapter 5 in Harvey, David (1995). One Ring to Rule them All. Updated 20 October 1995. Retrieved on 27 April 2009.
  21. ^ Brian Handwerk, Lord of the Rings Inspired by an Ancient Epic, in National Geographic News, 1º March 2004. URL consultato il 13 March 2006.
  22. ^ Dimitra Fimi, 'Mad' Elves and 'elusive beauty': some Celtic strands of Tolkien's mythology, in Folklore, vol. 117, n. 2, West Virginia University Press, 2006, pp. 156–170, DOI:10.1080/00155870600707847. URL consultato il 27 April 2009.
  23. ^ Dimitra Fimi, Tolkien's "'Celtic' type of legends": Merging Traditions, in Tolkien Studies, vol. 4, West Virginia University Press, 2007, pp. 51–71, DOI:10.1353/tks.2007.0015. URL consultato il 25 April 2009.
  24. ^ Letters, no. 19.
  25. ^ Errore nelle note: Errore nell'uso del marcatore <ref>: non è stato indicato alcun testo per il marcatore letter144
  26. ^ Jason Bofetti, Tolkien's Catholic Imagination, in Crisis Magazine, November 2001. URL consultato il 30 August 2006 (archiviato dall'url originale il 21 August 2006).
  27. ^ Letters, no. 142.
  28. ^ Paul H. Kocher, Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Houghton Mifflin, 1972, pp. 76–77, ISBN 0-395-14097-8.
  29. ^ Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle-earth, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1983, pp. 140–141, ISBN 0-395-33973-1.
  30. ^ Road, pp. 141–145.
  31. ^ Template:Cite article
  32. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, Oxford, 1963, pp. 10–11.
  33. ^ Hammond, Wayne G. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography, London: January 1993, Saint Paul's Biographies, ISBN 1-873040-11-3, American edition ISBN 0-938768-42-5
  34. ^ 1978 Award Winners & Nominees, in Worlds Without End. URL consultato il 17 May 2009.
  35. ^ Norman Phillip, The Prevalence of Hobbits, in New York Times. URL consultato il 12 March 2006.
  36. ^ Errore nelle note: Errore nell'uso del marcatore <ref>: non è stato indicato alcun testo per il marcatore NYTimes obit
  37. ^ Times Editorial Staff, Oxford Calling, in New York Times, 5 June 1955. URL consultato il 12 March 2006.
  38. ^ Seiler, Andy, 'Rings' comes full circle, in USA Today, 16 December 2003. URL consultato il 12 March 2006.
  39. ^ Cooper, Callista, Epic trilogy tops favorite film poll, in ABC News Online, 5 December 2005. URL consultato il 12 March 2006 (archiviato dall'url originale il 16 January 2006).
  40. ^ O'Hehir, Andrew, The book of the century, in Salon.com, 4 June 2001. URL consultato il 12 March 2006.
  41. ^ Diver, Krysia, A lord for Germany, in The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 2004. URL consultato il 12 March 2006.
  42. ^ see The History Of Middle-earth.
  43. ^ Michael Martinez, Middle-earth Revised, Again, in Michael Martinez Tolkien Essays, 27 July 2002. URL consultato il 28 April 2009 (archiviato dall'url originale il 17 June 2008).
  44. ^ Publishing News Briefs: Week of February 23, 2009, in Publishers Weekly, 23 February 2009. URL consultato il 12 May 2009.
  45. ^ The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, page 5.
  46. ^ Letters, no. 295.
  47. ^ J.R.R. Tolkien Collection, in Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University, 4 March 2003. URL consultato il 28 April 2009.
  48. ^ McDowell, Edwin, Middle-earth Revisited, in New York Times, 4 September 1983. URL consultato il 12 March 2006.
  49. ^ Beebe discovers unpublished C.S. Lewis manuscript, txstate.edu, University News Service, 8 July 2009
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