Comparing Tolkien's The Hobbit And Lord Of The Rings
Tolkien has experienced a resurgence of interest in the last two decades-in a large part thanks to Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. However I do not wish to look at the movies, or indeed at any of Tolkien’s more prevalent work. I wish to focus on his poetry, the poems woven into the narrative of his popular novels (including revised versions published in The History of Middle-earth series) as well as his stand-alone pieces that may have little to do with Middle-earth and the accompanying characters. Tolkien was a medieval scholar at heart. The languages and peoples he studied are the core of medieval studies around the world, and this shows in his own creative works, both in and out of Middle-earth.
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There are fantastical and religious elements in both Tolkien’s poems and the medieval poems, and I hope to present which ones are meant in the literal sense and which are note. I believe that what is strictly symbol in Tolkien’s poems will echo the medieval poems. For all that may be similar I also hope to point out the differences in the poems. Some will directly echo their medieval counterparts and others will not. Looking into why this is may tie in at some point to Tolkien’s sub creation and how he wrote Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, as the purpose of the poems plays a part in their content and meaning. I want to look at Tolkien as a poet and look into his style, his writing and meaning and that means taking a magnifying glass to his roots and interests. Tolkien’s poetry has been looked at as part of the Lord of the Rings, and for how it is presented in the mythos of Middle-earth but I am hoping to look at it as just poetry. Archetype plays a rather large part in poems such as The Wanderer and in Tolkien’s Earendil the Mariner. In the essays I have found when Tolkien’s poetry is involved in discussion on archetypes it is how the poem contributes to cementing or building an archetype in the prose. I want to extend that and look at the archetype present in just the lines of the
There are fantastical and religious elements in both Tolkien’s poems and the medieval poems, and I hope to present which ones are meant in the literal sense and which are note. I believe that what is strictly symbol in Tolkien’s poems will echo the medieval poems. For all that may be similar I also hope to point out the differences in the poems. Some will directly echo their medieval counterparts and others will not. Looking into why this is may tie in at some point to Tolkien’s sub creation and how he wrote Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, as the purpose of the poems plays a part in their content and meaning. I want to look at Tolkien as a poet and look into his style, his writing and meaning and that means taking a magnifying glass to his roots and interests. Tolkien’s poetry has been looked at as part of the Lord of the Rings, and for how it is presented in the mythos of Middle-earth but I am hoping to look at it as just poetry. Archetype plays a rather large part in poems such as The Wanderer and in Tolkien’s Earendil the Mariner. In the essays I have found when Tolkien’s poetry is involved in discussion on archetypes it is how the poem contributes to cementing or building an archetype in the prose. I want to extend that and look at the archetype present in just the lines of the