JRR Tolkien: A Life In Books

The life of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, known for his great literary works that shaped modern imagination, could have been an interesting book. In fact, some of his most notable poems were inspired by his relationship with his future wife. JRR Tolkien was influenced by his childhood as an orphan, as well as war, love, his deep religious beliefs, and his incredible literary mind.

We know from his letters that Tolkien did not draw inspiration from the historical or political events that took place during his lifetime, or that directly affected him. However, his work was marked by his melancholy. His sense of love, faith or love for nature was in fact the basis of many of his characters.

The childhood of JRR Tolkien

Tolkien was born in 1892, in the Orange Free State, in what we know today as South Africa. The father was a British banker who later died in South Africa. He traveled to Britain with his mother and brother, and lived with them until he was 12 years old. They had no support from the rest of the family because Mabel had become a Catholic. At that time, the Catholic Church was not in good shape, and it was considered shameful to be a part of it.

In 1904, Mabel died. She left the children with a Catholic priest. His name was Francis Xavier Morgan, and he had a Spanish-British ancestry. This played an important role during the youth of the brothers. The pastor paid for their education and found places where they could live. This care and love made John Ronald truly respect the priest.

Edith: His great love

Right there, in one of the houses they rented, John Ronald, as a 16-year-old, met Edith Bratt. Orphaned and three years older, they soon confessed their eternal love for one another. For Father Francis, this was a disadvantage, because he believed that she could distract John Ronald from his studies and from receiving a scholarship. Above all, she was not a Catholic.

Through his letters, we now know how painful all this was for Tolkien, but he decided that Father Francis was right. Thus, after a few excursions together, they separated for three years.

The birth of a genius

After a failed attempt, when he was 18, Tolkien received a scholarship to Oxford, while Edith worked in Birmingham. While in Oxford, he met three good friends. Together they started the TCBS club (Tea Club, Barrovian Society), where they shared a love of literature and language.

From a young age, he had toyed with the idea of ​​creating languages, and thus found inspiration in Germanic dialects. Together with his friends, he got the idea to create a mythology for England, like the Greeks or Romans, and Tolkien’s language would become part of it.

The day he turned 21, he wrote Edith to revive their love, but she was engaged. Tolkien, who was the kind of person who never gave up, traveled to Birmingham to convince her. This worked, because shortly afterwards they got engaged.

In 1916, after convincing Edith to become a Catholic, they married. That same year he went to France to fight in the great war. There he lost two very good friends and became ill. He was never the same after that.

JRR Tolkien and his literary works

His hard work and discipline earned him a teaching position as a professor of English. Nevertheless, he continued to write, drawing inspiration from his time as a soldier and when he lost two of his good friends. Little by little, he created a magical universe that he shared with some of his colleagues, such as CS Lewis, and created The Inklings. Many of his ideas came from stories he read to his children or from family gatherings.

Because of his incredible perfectionism, he wrote about many things – more things than he actually published. The first work he wrote about Midgard (The Middle Earth) was The Hobbit, and while he was alive he only published The Lord of the Rings . All the other published texts from this universe we can actually thank his son Christopher for.

All in all, all the difficulties of his life proved to be crucial to many of his creations. The idyllic view of traditional life comes from his experiences as a young orphan in an industrial city. In the same way, the tragedy of the ring comes from his Catholic interpretation of the world. The Impossible Love Stories is a reflection of his own romantic life. His characters’ camaraderie is very similar to what Tolkien himself experienced. Reading about Midgard is simply like reading a little about himself.