Impact of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings
[13] He is best known for his novels about his invented Middle-earth, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and for the posthumously published The Silmarillion which provides a more mythical narrative about earlier ages.
[14] The author and editor of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Brian Attebery, writes that fantasy is defined "not by boundaries but by a centre", which is The Lord of the Rings.
[16] One of the first was Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series of novels, starting in 1968, which used Tolkienian archetypes such as wizards, a disinherited prince, a magical ring, a quest, and dragons.
He liked the work of Cor Blok,[21] Mary Fairburn,[22] Queen Margrethe II of Denmark,[23] and Ted Nasmith,[24] but not the illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of The Hobbit.
[T 2] After Tolkien's death in 1973, many artists have created illustrations of Middle-earth characters and landscapes, in media ranging from Alexander Korotich's scraperboard depictions,[25] to Margrethe II of Denmark's woodcut-style drawings,[23] Sergey Yuhimov's Russian Orthodox icon-style representations,[26] and Donato Giancola's neoclassical oil paintings.
[27] Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings, and later of The Hobbit, made use of concept art by John Howe and Alan Lee; the resulting images of Middle-earth and the story's characters have strongly influenced subsequent representations of Tolkien's work.
Other scholars, including Paul H. Kocher in 1972, Jane Chance in 1979, Tom Shippey in 1982, and Verlyn Flieger in 1983, began a process of rehabilitation, which has enabled the discipline of Tolkien studies to develop.
[44][45] Scholars from different disciplines have examined the linguistic and literary origins of Middle-earth, and have debated the themes of his writings from Christianity to feminism and race.
[47] Out of Tolkien's writings, The Lord of the Rings in particular has had a profound and wide-ranging impact on popular culture, especially during the 1960s and 1970s when young people embraced it as a countercultural saga.
[49] The words "Tolkienian" and "Tolkienesque" have entered the Oxford English Dictionary, and many of his fantasy terms, such as "Hobbit", "Orc", and "Warg", formerly little-known, have become widespread.
[50] Among its effects are numerous parodies, especially Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings, which has had the distinction of remaining continuously in print from its publication in 1969, and of being translated into at least 11 languages.
[51] Outside commercial exploitation from adaptations, from the late 1960s onwards there has been an increasing variety of original licensed merchandise, with posters and calendars created by illustrators such as Barbara Remington.
