The document discusses how J.R.R. Tolkien's experience in World War I influenced his later work, particularly The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It describes Tolkien reluctantly going off to war in 1916 and facing heavy losses of his friends. Upon returning home, he was deeply affected by the war. His time in the trenches is reflected in parts of The Lord of the Rings, most notably in the character of Sam Gamgee. While depicting the devastation of war, the story also conveys a hope for light and beauty to endure beyond the shadow of destruction.
8. TOLKIEN’S TIME AT WAR
The devastation of Delville Wood, September, 1916
Foot traffic on a sunken road outside La Boiselle, 1916
Late on Sunday, June 4, 1916, Tolkien set off for the war. He did not expect to survive.
‘Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute,’ he later recalled. ‘Parting
from my wife then . . . it was like a death.”
- J. R. R. Tolkien, cited by J. Garth in Tolkien and the Great War
9.
10. 11TH BATTALION
BATTLES
The Attack on Oivillers
The Attack on Schwaben Redoubt
11.
12. RETURNING HOME
“One has indeed personally to
come under the shadow of war
to feel fully its oppression; but
as the years go by it seems now
often forgotten that to be caught
in youth by 1914 was no less
hideous an experience than to
be involved in 1939 and the
following years. By 1918, all but
one of my close friends were
dead.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, forward to
The Lord of the Rings
13.
14. EFFECT ON
TOLKIEN’S WRITING
when considering all of Tolkien’s writings, none of
his publications were affected by WWI as much as
The Lord of the Rings
15.
16. A MATURING
MASTERPIECE
"One writes such a story not out of the
leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by
means of botany and soil-science; but it
grows like a seed in the dark out of the
leaf-mould of mind: out of all that has
been seen or thought or read, that has
long ago been forgotten, descending into
the deeps. No doubt there is much
selection, as with a gardener: what one
throws on one's personal compost-heap;
and my mould is evidently made largely
of linguistic matter."
- J. R. R. Tolkien, on the creation of
Lord of the Rings
17.
18. THE TRENCHES AND
THE MARSHES
"They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw
them: grim faces and evil, noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair,
with weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead."
-J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Passage of the Marshes", The Two Towers
19.
20. SAM AS A SOLDIER
"My 'Sam Gamgee' is indeed a reflection of the English soldier, of the privates
and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself."
- J. R. R. Tolkien
21.
22. BEAUTY AMIDST
DEVASTATION
Far above the Ephel Duath in the
West the night-sky was still dim and
pale. There, peeping among the
cloud-wrack above a dark tor high in
the mountains, Sam saw a white star
twinkle for a while. The beauty of it
smote his heart, as he looked up out
of the forsaken land, and courage
returned to him. For like a shaft, clear
and cold, the thought pierced him
that in the end, the Shadow was only
a small and passing thing; there was
light and high beauty forever beyond
its reach.
- J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Land of
Shadow," The Return of the King
23.
24. BEAUTY AMIDST
DEVASTATION
The stars shine brilliantly and (these
trenches facing north) I gaze at The
Plough dipping towards High Wood.
What joy it is to know that you in
England and I out here at least can
look upon the same beauty in the sky!
… They have become seers – images
of divine stability – guardians of a
peace and order beyond the power of
weak and petty madness. … They, at
least, will outlast the war and still be
beautiful.
- Max Plowman, "Night in the
Trenches," A Subaltern on the Somme
25.
26. A LASTING IMPACT
"… I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I
tried to save the Shire, and it has been
saved, but not for me. It must often be
so, Sam, when things are in danger:
someone has to give them up, lose
them so that others may keep them."
-J. R. R. Tolkien "The Grey Havens,"
The Return of the King
