Tolkien's Inspiration - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

HCIsland · 02-07-2003, 10:47 AM

I guess there are a lot of answers to this but here comes what I've gathered. Tolkien loved heroic fantasy literature and myth but was dismayed that England didn't have a mythology to call it's own and so wanted to create one. Also, as a linguist, he must have found the desire to create his own languages overwhelming and language and history are intricately intertwined. You can't study a language with considering the history of the people that spoke that language.

Is that close?

H.C.

02-07-2003, 10:47 AM	#2
HCIsland Zombie Cannibal Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 1,000	I guess there are a lot of answers to this but here comes what I've gathered. Tolkien loved heroic fantasy literature and myth but was dismayed that England didn't have a mythology to call it's own and so wanted to create one. Also, as a linguist, he must have found the desire to create his own languages overwhelming and language and history are intricately intertwined. You can't study a language with considering the history of the people that spoke that language. Is that close? H.C. __________________ "Stir not the bitterness in the cup that I mixed myself. Have I not tasted it now many nights upon my tongue, foreboding that worse yet lay in the dregs." -Denethor