Tolkien and the classical world

The suggested influences include the pervasive classical themes of divine intervention and decline and fall in Middle-earth; the splendour of the Atlantis-like lost island kingdom of Númenor; the Troy-like fall of Gondolin; the Rome-like stone city of Minas Tirith in Gondor; magical rings with parallels to the One Ring; and the echoes of the tale of Lúthien and Beren with the myth of Orpheus descending to the underworld.

J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe.

[8] Hamish Williams regards the narrative of decline and fall in Númenor as a thought-experiment exercise recalling Plato's philosophical arguments, where certain virtues and ideals (sophocracy, moderation, piety, etc.)

[11] Tolkien's use of the theme cannot be said to be exclusively classical; The Lord of the Rings shares the sense of impending destruction found in Norse mythology, where even the gods will perish.

The Dark Lord Sauron may be defeated, but that will entail the fading and departure of the Elves, leaving the world to Men, to industrialise and to pollute, however much Tolkien regretted the fact.

Pezzini writes that in The Silmarillion,[14] the Valar are, in fact, full-fledged epic gods: they speak, they suffer, they desire, they fight, and, above all, they deliberate on the fates of elves and humans (in councils [like those] in Homer and Virgil) and interact with them in order to bring about their providential plans (individual or collective).

[14] Pezzini writes that Tolkien's approach, that "the gods' messages can be presented as warnings, and not threats or orders and, above all, that they can be ignored by non-divine characters are both unusual scenarios in classical epic".

Multiple details align: it began as a perfect world, geometrically laid out to reflect its balance and harmony; it abounds in valuable minerals; and it has unmatched power, with a strong fleet able to project control far beyond its shores, like ancient Athens.

Thus, Morgoth attacks while Gondolin's guard is lowered during a great feast, whereas the Trojans were celebrating the Greeks' apparent retreat, with the additional note of treachery.

"[6] Scholars have noted that Tolkien himself drew classical parallels for the assault, writing that "Nor Bablon, nor Ninwi, nor the towers of Trui, nor all the many takings of Rûm that is greatest among Men, saw such terror as fell that day upon Amon Gwareth".

[1] Judy Ann Ford adds in Tolkien Studies that Gondor is distinctive in Middle-earth in having cities built of stone: "the only culture within [the Anglo-Saxons'] historical memory that had made places like Minas Tirith was the Roman Empire.

"[22] She comments that Tolkien's account of Gondor can be seen as the decline and fall of Rome, but "with a happy ending", as it "somehow withstood the onslaught of armies from the east, and ... was restored to glory.

[23][24] De Armas suggests that both Bilbo and Gyges, going into deep dark places to find hidden treasure, may have "undergone a Catabasis", a psychological journey to the Underworld.

[25] Elena Capra writes that Tolkien made use of the medieval poem Sir Orfeo, based on the classical tale of Orpheus and Eurydice but transposed to England, both for The Hobbit's Elvish kingdom, and for his story in The Silmarillion of Beren and Lúthien.

In Capra's view, Sir Orfeo's key ingredient was the political connection "between the recovery of the main character's beloved and the return to royal responsibility.

Where Orpheus nearly manages to retrieve Eurydice from Hades, Lúthien rescues Beren three times – from Sauron's fortress-prison of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, involving singing; from Morgoth's Angband, with the Silmarils; and by getting Mandos to restore both of them to life.

[28][T 9] Tolkien related the Haradrim's mûmakil in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to Pyrrhus of Epirus's war elephants in his 3rd century BC invasion of ancient Rome.

[29] Charles Oughton likens Tolkien's Battle of Helm's Deep to Livy's account of Horatius Cocles's heroic defence of Rome's Pons Sublicius bridge.

[4] Julian Eilmann argues that the tale of Túrin, often vaguely described as "tragic", fits the pattern of Aristotle's theory of tragedy, as described in his Poetics, and accordingly arouses "strong emotional responses of pity and shock".

[33] Aristotle's elements of peripeteia or reverse of circumstances, anagnorisis or moments of critical discovery, and pathos or emotional appeal are all present, confirming that the tale is indeed tragic.

[35][36] Hamish Williams argues that Tolkien's ideas on Trolls shifted from Norse myth to Polyphemus-like monster as he came to see brute strength as the opposite of the civilized use of culture and magic, in the framework of likening The Hobbit's "hospitality journey" to that of the Odyssey.

Primeroles and anemones were awake in the filbert-brakes; and asphodel and many lily-flowers nodded their half-opened heads ... Great ilexes of huge girth stood dark and solemn in wide glades ... and there were acres populous with the leaves of woodland hyacinths:[T 10] Burton grants that the mention of dryads (tree-nymphs) is "certainly ... strikingly classical", and cites Richard Jenkyns's identification of the described landscape as Mediterranean: "Ithilien is Italy, as the name implies".

"[38] In Burton's view, Tolkien, "an Indo-Europeanist by training", is unable to treat classical Greece or Rome as "the fountainhead of Western civilization", since they are part of a Eurasian culture.

Keen sees the 2004 film Troy as an early instance, with Orlando Bloom, who had played the Elf-archer Legolas for Jackson, appearing again as "an accomplished archer", Paris.

[41] Keen comments that four films set at least partly in Roman Britain all make use of something much like Jackson-style "aerial footage, taken from helicopters, showing parties of characters striding across the landscape".