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Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien

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The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have served as the inspiration to painters, musicians, film-makers and writers, to such an extent that Tolkien is sometimes seen as the "father" of the entire genre of "high fantasy". The production of such derivative works is sometimes of doubtful legality, because Tolkien's published works will remain copyrighted until 2043. The film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are owned by Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, while the rights of The Silmarillion and other material remain with The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate Ltd., a company owned by Tolkien's heirs.

Contents

Illustrations

The earliest illustrations of Tolkien's works were drawn by the author himself. In 1937, the Hobbit was first illustrated by professional draughtsmen for the American edition. Tolkien was very critical of these, and in 1946 he rejected illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of the Hobbit as "too Disnified". Milein Cosman illustrated Farmer Giles of Ham in 1948, and Tolkien was not happy with this work, either. In 1949, Cosman was replaced by Pauline Baynes, who became Tolkien's favourite illustrator and who created drawings for The Adventures of Tom Bombadil as well as for Farmer Giles of Ham. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark was inspired to illustrations to the Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings. In 1977, Queen Margrethe's drawings were published in the Danish translation of the book, redrawn by the British artist Eric Fraser.

Probably the widest-known Tolkien illustrators of the 1990s and 2000s are John Howe, Alan Lee, and Ted Nasmith — Alan Lee for illustrated editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Ted Nasmith for illustrated editions of The Silmarillion, and John Howe for the cover artwork to several Tolkien publications. (Howe and Lee were also involved in the creation of Peter Jackson's movie trilogy as concept artists — Nasmith was also invited to take part in the films, but was forced to reluctantly decline due to a personal crisis at the time.)

Artists who have found inspiration in Tolkien's works include:

Music

Donald Swann set music to The Road Goes Ever On, a collection of Tolkien's lyrics and poems.

Tom Rapp set most of The Verse of the One Ring ("Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky...") to music as "Ring Thing" in Pearls Before Swine's second album, Balaklava (1968).

The Tolkien Ensemble published four Cd's from 1997 to 2005 with the aim to create "the worlds first complete musical interpretation of the poems and songs from The Lord of the Rings". The project was given approval by both the Tolkien family and Harper Collins Publishers. Queen Margarethe II of Denmark gave permission to use her illustrations in the CD layout.

"The Hobbitons" released a CD in 1996 with song versions of poems of the Hobbit and from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

Other musicians inspired by Tolkien include Battlelore, David Arkenstone, Summoning, Blind Guardian, Mostly Autumn, Bo Hansson, and Led Zeppelin ("The Battle of Evermore," "Ramble On," and others).

Canadian Rock Composer and Drummer as well as Story Teller Neil Peart has based many of his classic lyrics on Tolkien, but the same is with Ayn Rand.

Ensio Kosta composed in 1980-1982 a chamber music series called "Music Of Middle Earth", with movements like "Awakening of Shire", "Incantation", "Winding Paths", "Lament of Galadriel", "Riders of Rohan", and "Grey Havens".

Johan de Meij’s first symphony “The Lord of the Rings” is based on the trilogy. The symphony consists of five separate movements, each illustrating a personage or an important episode from the series. The symphony was written in the period between March 1984 and December 1987, and had its première in Brussels on 15th March 1988.
The movements are:
I. GANDALF (The Wizard)
II. LOTHLORIEN (The Elvenwood)
III. GOLLUM (Sméagol)
IV. JOURNEY IN THE DARK
a. The Mines of Moria
b. The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm
V. HOBBITS

Howard Shore composed the music for the three Peter Jackson films.

A.R. Rahman composed the music for the stage adaptation "The Lord of the Rings Musical".

A comprehensive list of music "inspired by or referential to the fictional writings of J.R.R. Tolkien" can be seen at the [Tolkien Music List].

Film

Tolkien originally sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968, but they never made a film, and in 1976 the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company.

In the early seventies John Boorman was planning a film of The Lord of the Rings, but the plans never went further because of movie studio politics. Some of the work done was resurrected for the film Excalibur in 1981.

Ralph Bakshi directed an animated movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in 1978 (partly made with the rotoscope technique), which covered only the first half of The Lord of the Rings. Rankin-Bass covered the second half with a children's TV animation The Return of the King (1980); earlier they had made a TV animation of The Hobbit (1977).

The Lord of the Rings was adapted as a trilogy of films (2001–03), directed by Peter Jackson.

The split of Tolkien's works between Tolkien Enterprises and the Tolkien Estate means that none of the Tolkien Enterprises' products can include source material from outside the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, and therefore a film or stage version of The Silmarillion is highly unlikely.

Language

Literature

Many authors have found inspiration in Tolkien's work as well. Following the success of The Hobbit and the rest of the trilogy in the 1960s, publishers were quick to try to meet a new demand for literate fantasy in the American marketplace. Ballantine, under the direction of editor Lin Carter, published public domain and relatively obscure works under the banner of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy. Lester Del Rey, however, sought for new books that would mirror Tolkien's work, and published Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara (accused at the time of direct plagiarism of Tolkien's trilogy) and Stephen Donaldson's "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever." Nick Perumov created sequel stories about Middle-earth. Throughout the next two decades, the term fantasy became synonymous with the general aspects of Tolkien's work: multiple races including dwarves and elves, a quest to destroy a magical artifact, and an evil that seeks to control the world. The plot of Novelist Pat Murphy's There and Back Again mirrors that of The Hobbit, but is transposed into a science fiction setting involving space travel.

Parody

Probably the best-known parody of Tolkien is Bored of the Rings (1968). More websites, books, and other works that parody Lord of the Rings can be found at Satire and parody based on The Lord of the Rings

["Orc Magazine"] - Funny parody featuring Orc-themed magazines inspired by the Lord of the Rings.

Poetry

Some people were inspired to compose poems in Quenya or Sindarin, the two most developed of Tolkien's created languages. For example, Helge Fauskanger translated the first two chapters of Genesis into Quenya. Tyalië Tyelelliéva is a journal dedicated to poems in the Elvish languages.

Scholarship

Tolkien has also been the subject of a number of academic works. Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon are journals focusing on linguistic study of Tolkien's works.

External link: [A Bibliography of Scholarly Studies of J. R. R. Tolkien and His Works] by Michael D.C. Drout

See also: Themes in "The Lord of the Rings"

Games

Many computer games, and role-playing games such as MERP (Middle-earth Role-playing) have been created.

The creators of the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game were also strongly influenced by Tolkien. The game has (clearly Tolkien-influenced) dwarves and elves as playable characters, and formerly had hobbits as well. After being threatened with a lawsuit by the Tolkien estate, they replaced hobbits with the similar "halflings" - a term also used in Lord Of the Rings. In most versions of the game, halflings were especially good at being thieves/rogues, a nod to Bilbo the thief in The Hobbit. The Kender of Krynn (from the Dragonlance Campaign setting) are again essentially renamed hobbits. His works also inspired the Warcraft series.

Equally common is the use of the term orc for a variety of hobgoblin type creatures in later fantasy although Tolkien created this modern usage of the word. Even more removed genre games such as Shadowrun and Warhammer 40,000 use the term, therein spelt Ork, possibly to sidestep possible legal issues.

External links


The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Books: The Fellowship of the Ring | The Two Towers | The Return of the King
Live-action: ' | ' |
Animation: J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings | The Return of the King (TV special)
Radio: The Lord of the Rings (1955 radio series) | The Lord of the Rings (1979 radio series) | The Lord of the Rings (1981 radio series)
Characters: Frodo | Sam | Merry | Pippin | Bilbo |Gandalf | Aragorn | Legolas | Gimli | Boromir | Sauron | Saruman | Arwen | Elrond | Galadriel | Théoden | Éomer | Éowyn | Wormtongue | Faramir | Denethor | Gollum | Witch-king | Treebeard
Miscellanea: Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien | The Lord of the Rings in pop culture | Middle-earth in video games | Themes in The Lord of the Rings
See also: The Hobbit | The Silmarillion | Unfinished Tales | The History of Middle-earth | The History of The Lord of the Rings

 

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