1. What JRR Tolkien's Influences Were And How These Influences Affected His Writing.<br />By<br />Sam Fath<br />Tolkien’s influences, like any person’s influences, were greatly made by his parents and the trips/adventures that he went on. For example a trip that he took to Switzerland affected his work on The Hobbit, relating Bilbo’s adventure through the Misty Mountains to this. In addition to this Tolkien’s strong linguistic training and the study of Greek/Norse/Germanic /Etc literature effected the various races of LOTR and their languages. <br />World War I broke out while Tolkien was a student at Oxford University, shortly after finishing his degree Tolkien joined the Lancashire Fusiliers. In 1916 Tolkien was sent to France, where he and his fellow soldiers faced the horrible new mechanisms of modern warfare, such as, machine guns, tanks, and poison gas. Tolkien fought in some of the bloodiest, most viscous battles known to human history such as the Battle of the Somme, a vicious engagement in which over a million people were either killed or wounded. In trenches like these Tolkien wrote the back-story and mythology for middle earth and his works. Tolkien denied any relations between his works and his experiences within World War I and his works, however relations can be seen between the rise of an “evil” great power led by a powerful dictator, and the eventual triumph of the “good” underdogs. Another relation between Tolkien’s LOTR’s and WWI can be seen in the dead-marshes, which are eerily reminiscent of the water-logged trenches of WWI and their complete and utter decimation of life.<br />Tolkien was also alive during the Industrial revolution of the current England starting in the 1750’s and going into the 1800’s. This period of rapid industrialism transformed the environment and economy of England, with small scale home grown businesses being replaced by large scale mechanized factory’s that are home to poor working conditions and extremely low-wage workers. These factories’s polluted the area around them with black, coal fueled smoke. In relation the landscape of middle-earth during Saruman’s expansion was twisted and warped, he created nature destroying machines and factories of war. Fueling these creations with the tree’s and nature around him, with complete disdain for all that did not bolster his own power. In contrast the elves lived in harmony with nature, nurturing and helping it, living with a deep connection to the world around him. And in the first battle between Sauron and mankind/elves the elves are triumphant. This can be taken as a symbol for Tolkien's disdain for the treatment of nature that the factories had created during the Industrial Revolution.<br />J.R.R. Tolkien devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge, especially the study of languages. He was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon for much of his professional life, and found many of the influences for characters and lore through the mythology of the time. Tolkien's Elves and Dwarves are largely based upon Norse and related Germanic and Celtic Mythology. For example names such as quot;
Gandalfquot;
, quot;
Gimliquot;
and quot;
Middle-earthquot;
are directly derived from Norse mythology. With the figure of Gandalf being influenced by the Germanic deity Odin in his incarnation as quot;
The Wandererquot;
, an old man with one eye, a long white beard, a wide brimmed hat, and a staff. Tolkien's writing can also be attributed to the flowering of folklore and folk tales of the early nineteenth century, during this time the Brothers Grimm and the author William Morris were gaining in popularity and many of Tolkien's work can be linked to William Morris's work.<br />Bibliography BIBLIOGRAPHY Chance, J. (2001). The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Powe. LouisVille: The University Press Of Kentucky.Doughan, D. (2005). JRR Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch. Retrieved December 15, 2010, from Tolkien Society: http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html<br />