Of all that emerged from Lewis’s circle, the most astonishing success has attended the work of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). His fairy story, The Hobbit (1937) proved to be forerunner of a massive mythical epic in three parts, The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955). The hobbit is a little, two-legged being whose encounter with dwarves takes him from his cozy home to dangerous adventuring in forests and mountains and a perilous introduction to the dragon, Smaug. This adventure is enriched by hints of a mighty “history” in the background, but scarcely prepares us for the colossal expansion of the fantasy world that follows in the trilogy. The vast work takes us into a world strangely alive with unspoken meanings and unseen presences. The magic ring is the token of corruption, for its possession means power. It has been captured from Sauron, Dark Lord of the evil and desolate land of Mordor, who would recover it and enslave all living beings. A key foe is Aragorn, heir to the rival kingdom of Gondor. Among the inhabitants of the Middle-Earth in the Great Year of its Third Age, whose history Tolkien is chronicling, we meet dwarves, elves, wizards, and unfamiliar species like the Orcs and the Ents, as well as the hobbits. Tolkien has not, of course, elucidated the meaning of the underlying symbolism. That the modern world of technology and mechanization seems to be under judgement is evident, and the awareness of good and evil in conflict is palpable throughout. Tolkien’s imaginative inventiveness is extraordinary, and his flair for name-making a great bonus of adornment. His epic is the product of a rich fusion between scholarship in older languages and in mythology, and a Christianly orientated imagination (he was a Roman Catholic).
From: A Short History of English Literature by Harry Blamires (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1974), pp. 461-462.
