Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. The concept of Tolkien fandom as a specific type of fan subculture sprang up in the United States in the 1960s, in the context of the hippie movement, to the dismay of the author (Tolkien died in 1973), who talked of "my deplorable cultus".[Lev Grossman, Feeding on Fantasy Time.com, 24 November 2002]
A Tolkienist is someone who studies the work of J. R. R. Tolkien: this usually involves the study of the and "Tolkienology".[ thetolkienwiki.org] A Ringer is a fan of The Lord of the Rings in general, and of Peter Jackson's live-action film trilogy in particular.[the term appears on alt.fan.tolkien in December 2001 [3];
"Ringer community" Kohman (2005) p. 10.; cf. ' (2005)] Other terms for Tolkien fans include Tolkienite or Tolkiendil'''.[an Anglo-Quenya compound, meaning "Tolkien-lover", mostly known as the name of a French Tolkien society.]
Many fans share their Tolkien fan fiction with other fans. Tolkien societies support fans in many countries around the world.
History
Tolkien's
The Hobbit, a children's book, was first published in 1937, and it proved popular. But
The Lord of the Rings, first published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955, gave rise to fandom as a cultural phenomenon from the 1960s onwards.
1950s
Tolkien fandom began within science fiction fandom soon after
The Fellowship of the Ring was published in 1954. Tolkien was discussed in science fiction fanzines and amateur press association magazines ("apazines"), both as single essays like "No Monroe In Lothlorien!" in Eric Bentcliffe's
Triode, and in extended threads of comment such as by Robert Lichtman in his
Psi Phi. Tolkien-inspired costumes were worn at
from 1958. An organized Tolkien fandom organization called "The Fellowship of the Ring" came together in Pittcon, the 18th World Science Fiction Convention in
Pittsburgh on 4 September 1960. England's first Tolkien fanzine was
Nazgul's Bane, produced by Cheslin. Many fanzines had little Tolkien content but Tolkien-inspired names such as
Ancalagon,
Glamdring,
Lefnui,
Mathom,
Perian,
Ringwraith,
Shadowfax, and so on. Others had more meaningful Tolkien content. Ed Meskys' apazine
Niekas turned into a full-fledged fanzine during this era. Pete Mansfield's Sword & Sorcery fanzine,
Eldritch Dream Quest, included many Tolkien items.
1960s America
Foster attributes the surge of Tolkien fandom in the United States of the mid-1960s to a combination of the
hippie subculture and anti-war movement pursuing "mellow freedom like that of the Shire" and "America's cultural Anglophilia" of the time, fuelled by a bootleg paperback version of
The Lord of the Rings published by
Ace Books followed up by an authorised edition by
Ballantine Books. The "hippie" following latched onto the book, giving its own spin to the work's interpretation, such as the Dark Lord
Sauron representing the United States
conscription during the
Vietnam War, to the chagrin of the author who talked of a "deplorable cultus" and stated that "Many young Americans are involved in the stories in a way that I'm not"
but who nevertheless admitted that "... even the nose of a very modest idol ... cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!"
Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory.
This embracing of the work by American 1960s counter-culture made it an easy target for mockery, as in
Harvard Lampoon's parody
Bored of the Rings, where
Tom Bombadil becomes "Tim Benzedrine", and
Bilbo Baggins becomes "Dildo Bugger".
acquired immense popularity in the emerging
hacker culture from the mid-1960s, and the technological subcultures of scientists, engineers, and computer programmers. It figured as one of the major inspirations of the nascent video game industry and the evolution of fantasy role-playing games.
1970s to 1980s
Isaac Asimov, who had read
The Lord of the Rings three times by Tolkien's death in September 1973, wrote a
Black Widowers short story as tribute to the fellow author. "Nothing Like Murder" (1974) mentions college students forming Tolkien societies at Columbia and elsewhere.
Interest in The Lord of the Rings led to several attempts to adapt it for the film medium, most of which were largely unsuccessful. Filmmaker Ralph Bakshi succeeded in securing the rights to produce an animated feature film version, part one of what was originally planned as a two-part adaptation of the story. Bakshi produced the film using, among other animation techniques, rotoscoping, shooting a majority of the film in live-action first before transferring the live footage to animation. While the film had, and continues to have, a mixed critical reaction, it was a financial success, costing USD 8 million to produce, and grossing over USD 30 million at the box office. Despite this fact, United Artists, the film's original distributor, refused to fund a sequel, leaving the project incomplete.
1990s
The 1990s saw the conclusion of
The History of Middle-earth series. A series of minor texts by Tolkien were edited in journals such as
Parma Eldalamberon and
Vinyar Tengwar, published by the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship since the early 1990s. In the 2000s, several encyclopedic projects have documented Tolkien's life and work in great detail, such as the
J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (2006) and the twin volumes
and
The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide (2005, 2006). The dedicated journal
Tolkien Studies has been appearing from 2004.
Tolkien discussion took place in many newsgroups from the earliest days of Usenet. The Tolklang mailing list was started in 1990. The alt.fan.tolkien and rec.arts.books.tolkien newsgroups have been active since 1992 and 1993, respectively. Notable points of contention in online discussions surround the origin of orcs, whether elves have pointy ears, whether have wings, and the nature of Tom Bombadil. Following the announcement of Jackson's movies (from 2001), online fandom became divided between "Revisionists" and "" over controversy surrounding changes to the novel made for the movies, such as those made to the character of Arwen and the absence of Tom Bombadil.[
]
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "Fellowship of the Ring" – Wired, October 2001["The campaign for real Tolkien", The Independent, November 2001]
2000s
Tolkien fandom changed in character with the release of
Peter Jackson's
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy between 2001 and 2003, attracting both a wide audience of existing fans ("book-firsters") and many people who had not read Tolkien's books ("film-firsters").
The large audience made the artistic conception of Jackson's artists influential, indeed creating a stereotyped image of Middle-earth and its races of Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Hobbits shared by fans and artists alike.
Some fans, known as
, travel to places in New Zealand to visit sites where scenes in the films were shot.
A "Tolkien Reading Day", held annually on 25 March, an anniversary of the fall of Barad-dûr,[ The International Tolkien Reading Day: How it started. Retrieved 26 March 2014.]
The New York Times suggested in a 2021 article that regular viewing of the Jackson film series had become a particular phenomenon for "millennial women", likening it to Star Wars.
"Essential" websites
Four websites are described as "essential"
in Stuart D. Lee's 2014 scholarly handbook
A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien: the
Tolkien Gateway, The One Ring.Net, The Tolkien Library (which is mainly a book site), and The Tolkien Society (which is an educational charity and
literary society).
Tolkien Gateway
The
Tolkien Gateway is a factual site that documents all Middle-earth characters, places, objects, and events, with citations to Tolkien's texts. It provides some coverage of related non-Tolkien items such as films, actors, games, music, images, and scholarly books.
The site is described in
A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien as "the main source to start a review of the plethora of Tolkien-based online materials."
It is referenced in scholarly works such as
VII,
,
and
Social Science Computer Review.
TheOneRing.net (or TORn)
A
fansite of Jackson's movies is TheOneRing.net (TORn), which was popular with the cast and crew of the film series. TORn was originally a small movie-news site. The filmmakers put effort into winning over fans, actively supporting sites for
Ringers. The site was founded in 1999 by a group of Tolkien fans eager for the upcoming trilogy. In 1998, Michael 'Xoanon' Regina and Erica 'Tehanu' Challis started a website related to the filming, including "spy" reports from Tehanu's visit to the New Zealand set. This activity got her escorted off the set, and then invited back on to take an official look around and meet director
Peter Jackson. In early 1999, a designer by the username of Calisuri came across the site and offered technical help. Calisuri's friend Corvar, who he was acquainted with from the Nightmare
LPMud, was brought aboard to provide server and business help. Xoanon, Tehanu, Calisuri and Corvar then formed The One Ring, Inc. and are the sole owners/founders of TheOneRing.net.
The site is unique in having had a mutual working relationship between its crew and that of The Lord of the Rings films, and later of The Hobbit films. This enabled the site to bring its readers exclusive news from the set, as when Peter Jackson emailed TheOneRing.net to get his side heard when a lawsuit threatened his chance to film The Hobbit.
In 2003, Cold Spring Press released TORn's book The People's Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien with essays defending fantasy as a genre, discussions of Tolkien's views of good and evil, and an examination of cultural norms.
Other sites
TheOneRing.com (TORc) is a Tolkien fan site that caters more to the fans of Tolkien's literary works than Jackson's films. It was founded by Jonathan Watson, Ted Tschopp and David Mullich in April 1999. , Watson has continued to run the website.
The site is referenced by
Tolkien Studies.
The Encyclopedia of Arda provides a detailed online reference to Middle-earth, mirrored at GlyphWeb.
A fan edit of the theatrical cut of exists, called The Two Towers: The Edit.
Tolkienology
Tolkienology is a term used by fans to describe the study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien treating
Middle-earth as a real
ancient history, conducting research from an "
in-universe" perspective. This differs from
Tolkien studies in that it ignores the real-world history of composition by the author, and assumes an underlying internally consistent Middle-earth canon. Tolkienology may include:
-
Tolkienian linguistics: Study of the most complete languages Tolkien designed for Middle-earth, (usually Quenya and Sindarin), study of the writing systems, the most known being the Tengwar, and possible reconstruction for everyday use, including by the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship.
-
debate on the "true" nature of Tom Bombadil, of balrogs etc. and debate on the "real" motivations of characters in the stories
-
Genealogies of Hobbit families and kings.
-
The accuracy of Tolkien's and how can they be used today.
-
Reconstruction of history (of Elven kingdoms, Arnor and Gondor, Rohan or the more unknown lands).
-
Morality issues such as whether an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent Ilúvatar (God) would destroy Númenor, if the 'bad' Dunlendings had any right rivalling the 'good' Rohirrim and if Gondor committed .
-
Possible census of population about each race.
-
Astronomic descriptions in the books (moon phases, positions of stars), and what can be inferred about the geography of Middle-earth from them.
-
Strategies of wars and battles, if they were right and what alternatives might have been.
-
Possible folkloric impressions Hobbits had about places of the Shire and other whereabouts, determined by translating placenames.
Linguistics
The studies of Tolkien's artistic languages (notably
Quenya and
Sindarin) is a field where fandom and scholarly
Tolkien studies overlap. The resulting friction between scholarly students of the languages focusing on their conceptual evolution and fandom-oriented students taking an "
in-universe" view became visible in the "
Elfconners" controversy of the late 1990s, involving among others the linguists
David Salo and Carl F. Hostetter, the editor of
Vinyar Tengwar.
There is a "reconstructionist" camp, which pursues the reconstruction of unattested Elvish forms, and a "philological" or "purist" camp which focuses entirely on the edition of the fragments in Tolkien's unpublished papers. By its nature, reconstructionism aims for a "canon" of "correct" standard Elvish (Neo-Eldarin), while the philological study of the evolution of Tolkien's conceptions cannot assume that the languages had ever reached a complete or internally consistent final form. The "reconstructionist" camp is represented by Salo, who translated the poems in the
libretto by
Fran Walsh and
Philippa Boyens for the Music of
The Lord of the Rings film series, creating additional words in languages including Sindarin where necessary, while the "purist" camp is represented by Hostetter.
Fan creativity
Fan fiction
Tolkien fan fiction is fantasy
fiction, often published on the
Internet, by Tolkien fans. It is based either directly on some aspect of Tolkien's books on his fantasy world of
Middle-earth, or on a depiction of this world, especially in
Peter Jackson's
Lord of the Rings film series or other film depictions of that world. A wide range of types of writing have resulted, including homoerotic
slash fiction and several strands of
Feminism storytelling.
Fan art
Jackson's films made the work of the artists involved influential, indeed creating a stereotyped image of Middle-earth and its races of Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Hobbits shared by fans and artists alike. Some fan artists draw inspiration from other sources; Anna Kulisz states that she based her painting of
Arwen sewing
Aragorn's banner on
Edmund Leighton's 1911 painting
Stitching the Standard.
The German illustrator Anke Eißmann started out creating fan art,
illustrating the German Tolkien Society's
Der Flammifer von Westernis from 1991.
She went on to make numerous paintings of scenes from
The Silmarillion.
too has made paintings of scenes from
The Silmarillion,
making the transition from self-taught fan art to becoming a recognised and published artist.
By region
Dedicated Tolkien Societies provide platforms for a combination of fandom and academic literary study in several countries.
See also
Notes
Sources
-
Broadway, Cliff; Cordova, Carlene. (2005 documentary; )
-
-
Kohman, Catherine. Lembas for the Soul: How the Lord of the Rings Enriches Everyday Life (2005), .
External links
