J.R.R Tolkien biography and life works

J.R.R.TOLKIEN BIOGRAPHY

(/ˈruːl ˈtɒlkiːn/)  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien 

Born:     3 January 1892    Bloemfontein South Africa (orange free state)

Death:    2 September 1973   Bournemouth, Hampshire England

Mother:  Mabel

Brother:  Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien    (7 sep-1894)

Spouse:  Edith Mary Bratt  ( 1889 -1971) 

Children:  4 children, john Francis, Michael Hilary, Christopher John, Priscilla Anne

Religion:  Christianity 

Occupation:   Academic, author, Philologist, Poet

Genre:   Fantasy, High Fantasy, Mythopoeia, literary criticism, translation

Nationality:  English

J.R.R Tolkien was an English poet, writer, philologist, and academic renowned as the author of the hallucination or fantasy work (The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit).

Who Was J.R.R. Tolkien?
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J.R.R. Tolkien was an English fantasy author and academic. Tolkien settled in England as a child, going on to study at Exeter College. While teaching at Oxford University, he published the popular fantasy novels “The Hobbit “and “The Lord of the Rings“ trilogy. The works have had a devoted international fan base and have been adapted into award-winning blockbuster films.

Childhood:

J.R.R Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein (Orange Free state)in the Republic of South Africa to British parents. In 1896  after four years of his birth, his father died due to rheumatic fever in South Africa. He left them barehanded so the mother of J.R.R Tolkien decided to live with her parents in Kings Heath Birmingham. The family of J.R.R Tolkien along with his brother Hilary and mother Move back to England. Tolkien spent the rest of his life in the West Midlands of England.

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Shortly thereafter, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now Hall Green), then Worcestershire, which later merged with Birmingham. Spending much time in the urban area of Birmingham as well as a quaint, rural Sarehole inspires him a lot as we see in his work that he was the eyewitness to what he see in the society, and the effects of industrialization, and he was able to describe the differences between the life of big-city and small-town.

As we scene in “The Lord of The Rings” which moves from the peaceful shire to cities both awe-inspiring and prohibited.  He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill there with Moseley Bog and Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would promote scenes in his books, as well as nearby towns such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch as well as places like his aunt Jane Bag End’s farm. , the word he used in his fictional stories.

Tolkien’s mother taught her two children at home. She taught Roland a great deal of Botany and divert his interest toward the plants. The young Tolkien make sketches of landscapes and trees but he had a keen interest was to learning languages so his mother taught him the fundamentals of writing. He started reading at the age of four and his writing style was quite fascinating from his childhood because his mother took many books for him to read. Some works he seems are disturbing and he dislikes them  “The treasures island ” & “Pipe-piper“.  There are some works that he admired the most and we see the chunks of these works in his writings are “Red Indians“, “Andrew land” and works of fantasy by George MacDonald.

In 1900 Tolkien’s mother Mabel converted to Roman Catholicism which badly impacted her family. Mabel Tolkien was admitted to the Roman Catholic Church despite fierce opposition from his Baptist family, which halted all financial assistance to him. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was the age of 12, his mother died of diabetes mellitus at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which he had rented. He was about 34 years old at the time, almost old enough for a person with type 1 diabetes to live without treatment because insulin would not be available until 1921, twenty years later.

Before the death of Talien’s mother, she was assigned guardianship, according to that her friend &  their priest   Father Francis Xavier Morgan take hold of the children to bring them up. so Tolkien remained a member of the Catholic Church in his lifetime and was inspired by the church’s rituals, stories, and doctrines which provide him with the spiritual backstory of Middle earth and also the basis of ethics.

In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of a man he often called “Father Francis”: “He was a brilliant scholar from the Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and to some, he seemed like a very old slanderer. He began to learn kindness and forgiveness from him, and in your light shone even the ‘free‘ darkness from which I came, I know more about ‘ Blood  Mary‘ than the “Mother of Jesus” — of whom there is no mention, except for the abominable Roman cult.  Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of ​​Birmingham and attended King Edward School, Birmingham, and later St Philip’s School after the death of his mother. In 1903, he won the Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward’s.

Nine years after his death, Tolkien wrote, “My dear mother was a martyr“, and not everyone when God gave such a simple gift of His great gifts as, He did to Hilary and me, giving us the mother who killed himself with the effort and difficulty of making sure we keep the faith.[/expander_maker]

Adolescent:

As a teenager, Tolkien lived for some time in a boarding house and came in contact with the established language, Animalic founded by his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was learning Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in the Animanic soon waned, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, developed a very new language called Nevbosh. The next developed language he came to work with, Naffarin would be his creation. Tolkien learns Esperanto sometime before 1909. About 10 June 1909 he composed the “Foxrook Book“, a sixteen-page workbook, in which “an ancient example of his original-language characters appears. The text in this notebook is written in Esperanto.

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In 1913 when Tolkien and his friends, Geoffrey Bache Smith, Christopher Wiseman, and Rob Gilson were at King Edward’s school formed a final-clandestine society which they called ( T.C.B.S ) standing for “Tea  Club “ where they usually met at the Barrow Stores, from which the club’s name was derived. After school, they all met in 1914 at a council held in London at wise man’s where they emphasized enthusiasm for writing poetry.

In 1911 he went on summer vacation to Switzerland which he after describe briefly in his writing “1968” letter, noting that Bilbo’s journey across the Misty Mountains (“including the glacier below the pine forests”) is based directly on his selfless deeds as their group of 12 rode from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and settled in the moraines camp across from Murren.

Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien recalled his remorse for leaving the vision of the eternal ice of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, “the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams. They crossed the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and then across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued crossing the Grimsel Pass, traversing the upper Valais to Brig and then on to Aletsch glacier and Zermatt. In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He first studied archeology but changed his studies in 1913 to English and literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class medals. Among his Oxford lecturers was Joseph Wright, whose Gothic Language Founder inspired Tolkien as a schoolboy. [/expander_maker]

Partnership & Courtship:

At the age of 16, he collapsed and fell in love with  Edith Mary Bratt,  a 19-year-old girl. In 1909 Edith and Ronald took to hanging at  Birmingham teashops. They both are orphans so they think that they both are enough for the love and affection they needed give to each other. His guardian Father Morgan thought that its immoral to get into a relationship with a person who is older than him so Father Francis told Tolkien to wait until he turned 21, to start a romantic relationship with Edith even though he prohibited him to meet, talking even correspond with each other otherwise he cut shorten his education carrier. So with much reluctance’ Tolkien agreed. They married in 1916.

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He gained his education until his 21st birthday, after earning a degree in English language and Literature from Oxford university he wanted to restart his romance with Edith so he wrote a letter to her who was living with family friend C. H. Jessop at Cheltenham and asked her to marry him but in response to his letter Edith told him that he accepted the marriage proposal of  George Field (who is the brother of her school friend) but she somehow loves Tolkien and wanted to meet him.

 

On 8 January  1913 met her on the platform of Cheltenham it was they have never parted, so they rejoined and Edith returned the Field’s ring. As result Filed and his family is brushed in rage and Jessop wrote a letter to his guardian showing concern about Tolkien that he is innocent but the girl he likes is sophisticated having blunt reviews.

At her engagement in January 1913 in Birmingham Edith declare that she turns to Catholicism just because of Tolkien but some of his friends were Anti-Catholic so in rage, they directed her to find another apartment. They married in 1916 at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Warwick just before Tolkien went off to war. [/expander_maker]

World War 1 and the arms maker Web:

In 1914 World War 1st started in Britain. Tolkien’s months in the trenches of World War I was explosive and full of violence and misery. His company took part in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, where, thanks to the general a strategic mistake, 19,000 British soldiers were killed in one day. Most of his close friends died, and Tolkien himself became seriously ill with “trench fever,” carried by lice, and spent weeks in the area hospital before expulsion.

He suffered from trench fever for a long time around about 18 months. On the heels of these war problems, Tolkien translated his own experiences into stories set in Middle-earth, translating the Old English word
Middangeard, whom he had met in his university studies. Tolkien knew that, Unlike other countries in Central and Nothern Europe, England did not have prominent myths which form the perfect cosmology. Therefore, he set out to create “mythology for England. “

Tolkien experiences the dirty reality of the industrial revolution and its harmful effects on the world because he eye-witnessed the destruction caused by machine guns, flamethrowers, tanks, and other technological devices that are used in the war. In Wizard, Saruman destroys large areas of an ancient forest, as beautiful as the war-torn Rohan.

The undefiled love of the world is reflected in the beauty of Rivendell and Lothlórien. It is there that the Elves, with an heir to a deep connection with nature, live in harmony with their place. The hobbits lived in the peaceful Shire, where they enjoyed peace until Saruman, a representative of the destructive industries, brought to them his corrupt influence.

Educational career and penmanship:

In November 1920 Tolkien left the army and his lieutenancy or come back to his labor pool as an entomologist for The New English Dictionary. He became an instructor in 1919, and after a year, he became a proofreader in the English Language at the University of Leeds. He gained a full professorship in 1924 when he joined the English department and in 1925 he was assigned as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. He spent much of his time reading and writing stories. When he was at Pembroke Collège Tolkien wrote “The Hobbit” and then “The Lord of the Rings“.

 

In 1932 he also put down a philological essay named “Norden’s. He also wrote many stories about his children’s entertainment.[expander_maker id=”8″ more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]Read more hidden text
He helped to find the Inklings, a group of writers including C.S. Lewis,  who would meet to share and discuss their work. During this time, he developed a passion for writing by saying that once Tolkien was checking the papers when suddenly, on a blank page and for no apparent reason, he wrote the line:

“In the hole in the ground lived a hobbit”

Later he had to write more about his interests so that he could find out about hobbits. He wrote hobbit for his children, and it was published as a Hobbit in 1937. The book was a resounding success, and the publisher asked Tolkien for a second book on hobbies. Tolkien took up the challenge, but he now believed that the hobbit story must have been a masterpiece of Middle-Earth history, complete with its languages, legends, and villains.

It took him more than 10 years to compile the books in the book “The Lord of the Rings“, which was published in three volumes between 1954 and 1955. When the book was published, some critics liked it, while others thought that it was ridiculous, but later it get fame because of its papery release in the United States and the book becomes one of the best-selling books of that time. Today it is considered to be an ancient form of the dream, with hundreds of millions of copies sold.

During his lifetime Tolkien also published numerous scholarly essays and worked hard to translate the Old English classic Beowulf from 192_1926 which was last edited by his son in 2014 roundabout 14 years after Tolkien’s death and 90 years after its completion. Tolkien passed away on September 2, 1973, but his publishing work did not end there. Five years later his son Christopher, Tolkien’s librarian, oversaw the publication of The Silmarillion, first-century Middle Ages, which Tolkien had reorganized for decades.[/expander_maker]

Family and personal relationship:

Tolkien had 4 children named

1. John Francis Reuel Tolkien (17 November  1917_ 22 January 2003)
2. Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984)
3.  Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020)
4.  Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (18 June 1929 – 28 February 2022)

Tolkien loves his children and his wife as he mentioned in his few poems about his partner and their love. Tolkien’s love affair with his wife, Edith, was the foundation of his life, and this relationship provided an example of the love of Beren and Lúthien, the mortal man and Elf’s girlfriend, described in Tolkien’s book “The Silmarillion“, which made the history of the Lord of the Rings. This Mortal  Elf relationship is also reflected in Aragorn and Arwen’s love.[expander_maker id=”9″ more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]Read more hidden text

Tolkien described an important meeting between Beren and Lúthien, in which he saw her dancing and being beaten, as if by the time Edith, as she was walking with Tolkien in the woods, danced with him.

In English literature Wartime relationships between men also feature important characters and relationships in ” The Lord of the Rings”. Specifically, Sam Gamgee’s character shows inspiration from many young men farming families who fought as regular soldiers, unlike Tolkien. These soldiers, known as “batmen,” each went with the officer and took care of that officer like cooking, washing, and carrying supplies to his soldier. The relationship between the lieutenant and their assailants was generally very close and very trustworthy.

Tolkien’s connection with his academic peers contributed to the development of The Lord of the Rings, too. He energetically took part in social groups and informal publications such as T.C.B.s. (Tea Club and Barrovian Society) at King Edward’s School and thereafter, the Inklings at Oxford. These meetings allowed Tolkien to read aloud portions of “The Lord of the Rings” and other works he wrote at the time, under the influence of his colleagues. Tolkien said C.S. Lewis helped him finish The Lord of the Ring by saying,

“with Lewis’s, uphold and friendship did I  evermore struggle  to the end.”[/expander_maker]

 

Death

Tolkien retired from professorial duties in 1959, going on to publish an essay and poetry collection, Tree and Leaf, and the fantasy tale Smith of Wootton Major. His wife Edith died in 1971, and Tolkien died on September 2, 1973, at the age of 81.

Tolkien’s love for Language:

Tolkien had a primal affection and capability to learn Language and philology. His mother taught him Latin, German, and French when he was 11 years old and after that, he started to learn German and Latin in school and also started to learn Greek and Middle English. At university, he started to learn the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon languages.

He specialized in English philology and graduated with Old Norse as his special subject in 1915. When he worked at Oxford university in 1928 he worked on several letters starting with the word “W” and invented new languages for Middle-earth in addition to “Quenya“, the language of Elves by having little resemblance to Finnish (Uralic Languages) The black speech or languages of Mordor and Dwarvish. He also coined the term EU catastrophe because it remains connected with his work. He was a gifted linguist who was influenced by the Celtic, Germanic, Greek, and Finnish language and mythology.

Publications:

His publications: He revolutionized the Old_ Saxon epic poem  “Beowulf“, and discusses the Fairy -story as a literary form in “On Fairy-stories“, “Children’s books & other short works“, “The Hobbit“, “The Silmarillion” which is a sketch of mythology, “Unfinished tales“, “The History of Middle-English” and the epic novel “The Lord of the Rings” published in three volumes (1954_1955).

Tolkien’s son Christopher organized several works that were not completed at the time of his father’s death, including “The Silmarillion” and” The Children of Húrin”, which were published after his death. The Art of the Hobbit was published in 2012, celebrating 75 years of the novel by introducing Tolkien’s first paintings.

Emphasizing the enduring popularity of Tolkien’s famous fairy tale, in November 2017, Amazon’s online retail and entertainment behemoth announced its acquisition of TV rights to a series of books. In a statement, the company unveiled plans to “explore new stories ahead of Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring,” which may have a spinoff series, thus fans cheering for the first promise of the usual acts of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, and relax.

The author’s life was the title of Tolkien’s 2019 feature, a biopic starring Nicholas Hoult and full of references to The Lord of the Rings.

History:

Tolkien’s ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made watches, and pianos and sold clocks in London. According to Ryszard Derdzinski, the Tolkien name belongs to the low Prussian region and likely means (son/descendant of Tolk) but Tolkien by accident believes that his family name imitates the German word “Luhn” meaning “foolhardy“.

His family originated in the east Prussian of Kreuzberg near Konigsberg where his paternal ancestors were born around 1620. Michel’s son  Tolkien was a fat-cat miller in Kreuzberg and his son Benjamin Tolkien resettle in London in the 1770s and enlisted in the list of renowned ancestors of the English family.

 

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