In a letter, Tolkien writes that, "without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless" ( Source p.160 in an undated letter Milton Waldman). Of the three books in the Lord of the Rings series, The Fellowship of the Ring is perhaps the clearest example of Tolkien's frequent shifts back and forth between humor and high poetry, Hobbits and Elves (with men in between). So he found a compromise: The Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien recognized that he needed to find something between the comic style of The Hobbit and the abstract world of the Elves in his invented mythology. Everyone wanted more of The Hobbit, and not this eccentric, sprawling personal vision (later published as the Silmarillion). It may not totally shock you to find out that Tolkien had trouble selling his ambitious (but, frankly, kind of out there) Elvish mythology to a publisher. He also developed a whole narrative of the rise of evil in Middle-earth based largely on his own religious faith. You have to admire a man obsessed enough with the world of his imagination that he came up with two entirely fictional languages (called Quenya and Sindarin) for his Elvish characters to speak. He liked to use his expertise in the literature and language of Old English, Old Norse, and Middle English to invent new myths for his world of Middle-earth – you know, just in his spare time. He was also a professor of Medieval literature at Oxford University in England. Tolkien wasn't just a family man, though. The Hobbit grew out of stories Tolkien had told to his children, so it has much simpler language and story structure than the epic Lord of the Rings. See, in 1937, Tolkien published a kids' book, The Hobbit (definitely check out what we have to say about that one you'll find lots more information on Tolkien's personal biography). He began The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book of the trilogy, with more modest aspirations. Tolkien didn't set out to write one of the foundational texts of modern fantasy literature. So we don't think we're exaggerating when we say that Tolkien's 1954 publication of all three of the Lord of the Rings books was one of the most significant events in popular culture, well, ever.
#Lord of the rings fellowship of the ring how to#
Without Tolkien, we wouldn't have Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, or maybe even Narnia (Tolkien and Narnia inventor C.S. Those swooping camera shots of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies look like clips taken straight from Jackson's vision of Gondor and Barad-dûr – names that will be familiar to you by the time you reach the third book of the trilogy, The Return of the King. We can spot signs of Tolkien's inspiration in everything from World of Warcraft-style online fantasy games to huge CGI sequences imitating Peter Jackson's three Lord of the Rings films. We live in a world flooded with influence from author J.R.R.
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