http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUtCtuZIAcE

In an interview with BBC, J.R.R. Tolkien discusses the complex mythology of his invented world.

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Tolkien Explains the Mythology of Middle Earth appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H87yJpHD6Kc

Priscilla Tolkien, daughter to author of “Lord of the Rings” book series J. R. R. Tolkien interview, discusses her father’s conscientious and exact approach to the details in his books. She recalls how he would fastidiously revise elements in his books until they accurately portrayed the situations he construed for his stories.

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Tolkien’s Daughter on Her Dad’s Meticulous Story-Telling appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIrxKCymXs4

J. R. R. Tolkien’s son, Christopher Tolkien analyzes his father’s work, particularly the metaphoric use of magic in his books: “Magic is very close to the machine. Magic is coercion…” And due to man’s use of machines, or “magic,” in order to attain power, Christopher Tolkien says it was important for his father that the magical ring in his “Lord of the Rings” books to be ultimately destroyed. Christopher reads his father’s letter to him that provides evidence for this analysis where J. R. R. Tolkien explains his critical feelings towards man’s knack for making machines such as the atomic bomb: “Labor-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labor.”

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J. R. R. Tolkien’s Son on His Dad’s Use of Rings As Metaphor appeared first on Witnify.

“If I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.”

“If impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride…”

J. R. R. Tolkien’s response to a German publisher from Rütten & Loening who asked Tolkien to specify his ethnicity and provide documentation on his “Aryan” heritage–full letter provided below:

25 July 1938
20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and

remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

This letter and more like it can be found in Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience.

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[Text] J. R. R. Tolkien’s Perfect Letter to Nazi Publisher appeared first on Witnify.

Author: C. S. Lewis

“To define the world of The Hobbit is, of course, impossible, because it is new. You cannot anticipate it before you go there…”

Source: Creative Commons.

The publishers claim that The Hobbit, though very unlike Alice, resembles it in being the work of a professor at play. A more important truth is that both belong to a very small class of books which have nothing in common save that each admits us to a world of its own—a world that seems to have been going on long before we stumbled into it but which, once found by the right reader, becomes indispensable to him. Its place is with Alice, Flatland, Phantastes, The Wind in the Willows.

To define the world of The Hobbit is, of course, impossible, because it is new. You cannot anticipate it before you go there, as you cannot forget it once you have gone. The author’s admirable illustrations and maps of Mirkwood and Goblingate and Esgaroth give one an inkling—and so do the names of the dwarf and dragon that catch our eyes as we first ruffle the pages. But there are dwarfs and dwarfs, and no common recipe for children’s stories will give you creatures so rooted in their own soil and history as those of Professor Tolkien—who obviously knows much more about them than he needs for this tale. Still less will the common recipe prepare us for the curious shift from the matter-of-fact beginnings of his story (“hobbits are small people, smaller than dwarfs—and they have no beards—but very much larger than Lilliputians”) to the saga-like tone of the later chapters (“It is in my mind to ask what share of their inheritance you would have paid to our kindred had you found the hoard unguarded and us slain”). You must read for yourself to find out how inevitable the change is and how it keeps pace with the hero’s journey. Though all is marvellous, nothing is arbitrary: all the inhabitants of Wilderland seem to have the same unquestionable right to their existence as those of our own world, though the fortunate child who meets them will have no notion—and his unlearned elders not much more—of the deep sources in our blood and tradition from which they spring.

For it must be understood that this is a children’s book only in the sense that the first of many readings can be undertaken in the nursery. Alice is read gravely by children and with laughter by grown ups; The Hobbit, on the other hand, will be funnier to its youngest readers, and only years later, at a tenth or a twentieth reading, will they begin to realise what deft scholarship and profound reflection have gone to make everything in it so ripe, so friendly, and in its own way so true. Prediction is dangerous: but The Hobbit may well prove a classic…

Review published in the Times Literary Supplement (2 October 1937), 714. To read the original article visit The Paris Review.

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[Text] C. S. Lewis Reviews ‘The Hobbit’ in 1937 appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR-4vMEiQ_U

J.R.R. Tolkien describes the humble origins of his well-known book, “The Hobbit”–a student’s unused exam sheet. Also, Tolkien explains how various elements of his personal life inspired the fantasy world that he created in his books, including his lifelong love for trees.

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Tolkien Recounts the Spark That Became ‘The Hobbit’ appeared first on Witnify.