[Man-of-the-Wold]

Well that article is written to be an article.

Obviousily Tolkien is romantic in many ways, but he's not part of the romanticism of Faust, Beothoven or Wagner. But he is definitely inspired by the legendary world that he studied, and if you read some of his scholarly work it is amazing how scientifically analytical he is. But that was his profession, and he understood the basis and reality of those legends as well as any one ever did.

Did he assume that the Kings and Knights that really inhabited the world of those legends were anywhere near as noble as natural nobles like Tuor, Elendil or Aragorn, of course not. In that regard, Middle-Earth is very different from this World, but that doesn't mean we can't be inspired by such depictions of how things should be.

I see nothing in Tolkien's work that is anti-progress or anti-modern in terms of politics or of social change. The setting of his stories was simply patterned on a mythical world long past. Early Middle Ages or even Iron Age, but with many differences in terms of the nature of things and people.

I should say this, with respect to the fact that JRRT was born over one hundred ten years ago, and was perhaps merely old-fashioned in some ways even for his generation.

On a technological/industrial level, he was of course something of a Luddite, and he longed for the idylic, rustic world of the past, and in some ways he may have admitted some nievete in such regards, but his sentiments are not uncommon, and he came by them honestly, having known that world and also its drawbacks, as he had lost both parents to illnesses that would have been better treated only decades later, as well as other hardships made easier by progress. But still we have lost much, but his was a personal choice. He didn't want people ever forced by a new Dark Power one way or another, even if begun with the intent to do good.