who is tolkien in fact?

[spaniardnazgul]

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do u think it might be bombadil, aragorn, gandalf, frodo,¿imrahil? all of them

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[amyrlis]

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Re: who is tolkien in fact?

Tolkien was quoted as saying something like &quot;I am a hobbit in all but stature&quot;. But, did I read somewhere that 'Beren' and 'Luthien' are inscribed on he and his wife's tombstones? Has anyone else read that?

It seems that there is a piece of Tolkien in many of his characters: His quiet, English-countryside life - Bilbo. He was a soldier in WWI - Beregond, Faramir. He and his wife surely had a passion for each other - Luthien &amp; Beren. His leadership as a professor and scholar - Elrond. Of course I could be stretching the imagination here, Tolkien may have come up with many of these stories and characters prior to his professorship or marraige. I'm not terribly learned in his biography.

Anyway, just some thoughts.....

-amyrlis <Br>These are indeed strange days. Dreams and legends spring to life out of the grass. -Eomer</p>

[obloquy]

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Headstone

I recently ran across a Tolkien-oriented website with a photo of the headstone. I seem to remember there being only one with both his and Edith's name and epitaph. I could be wrong, though. There might be two actual stones. No matter -- Tolkien is &quot;Beren&quot;, and Edith is &quot;Luthien&quot;. I tried to find the picture for you but I couldn't turn it up. I'll keep an eye out.

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[GandaIf The White]

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Re: who is tolkien in fact?

Well, seeing as Tolkien went to such great length in explaining that there were no allegories in his stories (I just read his letter in the beggining of the Sillmarillion) that Im sure he did not think of himself when he made his characters, other than the fact of what he thinks to be good and evil. But, after making his characters, he probably did think of himself as more like one than the rest, and it was a hobbit. I think of myself most like a hobbit too. <img src=smile.gif ALT=":)"> If everyone tried to act like a hobbit, the world would be alot better.

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."</p>

[Banazîr]

I've noticed a few similarities with him and Frodo, for example, Frodo's parents died when he was 12, Tolkien's mother died when he was also 12. Tolkien loved mushrooms and I remember reading somewhere that when he was a kid, he got caught(or almost) running away with mushrooms he had stolen(from a farmer?)in a field..just like Frodo. And I remember something about dogs.
I've also read that he was stung by a spider when living in South Africa, and so was Frodo by Shelob... I can't think of any other right now..

[Lotrelf]

I've noticed a few similarities with him and Frodo, for example, Frodo's parents died when he was 12, Tolkien's mother died when he was also 12. Tolkien loved mushrooms and I remember reading somewhere that when he was a kid, he got caught(or almost) running away with mushrooms he had stolen(from a farmer?)in a field..just like Frodo. And I remember something about dogs.
I've also read that he was stung by a spider when living in South Africa, and so was Frodo by Shelob... I can't think of any other right now..

I didn't know this! Is it true? In one of his letters, Professor says the character who is most like him is Faramir. :confused:

[mhagain]

The Faramir similarity comes primarily from the Numenor/Atlantis dream, referenced in Letter 163:

I say this about the 'heart', for I have what some might call an Atlantis complex. Possibly inherited, though my parents died too young for me to know such things about them, and too young to transfer such things by words. Inherited from me (I suppose) by one only of my children, though I did not know that about my son until recently, and he did not know it about me. I mean the terrible recurrent dream (beginning with memory) of the Great Wave, towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields. (I bequeathed it to Faramir.) I don't think I have had it since I wrote the 'Downfall of Númenor' as the last of the legends of the First and Second Age.

There may have been other personality-similarities, but I'm not personally aware of such, and in any event this is the one that most people will know of.

[doug*platypus]

From reading Letters, I recall that Tolkien wrote to someone that he was most like Faramir. I can't recall which Letter it was, though. But my own opinion is that an author is necessarily like all of their characters. In order to understand, create and write a character, they have to have that in them to start with.

Of course, an author is more like some characters than others. To work out which, we can either look to Tolkien's life and what we know of it, or we can look to the characters themselves. Those that aren't fleshed out enough or feel significantly real would, imho, be the ones Tolkien is least similar to. And conversely, we may guess that the most fully formed characters (such as Gandalf, Frodo, Aragorn to name a few) are ones that he was more similar to.