"Tolkien as Interpreter and Transformer of Culture: The Making of The Lord of the Rings as a Modern Book"

My lecture for the Oxford University seminar series celebrating the 70th anniversary of the publication of The Lord of the Rings

The Oxford University Tolkien Seminar series celebrating the 70th anniversary of The Lord of the Rings, organized by the Faculty of English and Exeter College, has now been made available online. I was very pleased to be invited to lecture in this series, held in Michaelmas Term, 2024. My talk was on “Tolkien as Interpreter and Transformer of Culture: The Making of The Lord of the Rings as a Modern Book.”

LOTR’s pre-modern setting and use of medieval influences has had such a powerful effect on later fantasy that it can be difficult to see it as the modern book that (I argue) it is; it is also so familar to many readers that we tend to think of it is inevitably being exactly as it is. In this talk, I look at Tolkien’s literary and cultural context, and explore several what-if scenarios to explore how Tolkien might have written a very different book (stylistically, thematically) if he had chosen to respond differently to his influences and circumstances. This talk draws on research from my book Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages.

You can find the other lectures in the Michaelmas term seminar series, and more, on the Oxford University Fantasy Literature podcast page. I especially recommend Michael Ward’s talk on “C.S. Lewis’s Influence on The Lord of the Rings,” which further illuminates how Tolkien came to write his magnum opus.