A MAN OF IMAGINATION

What is the secret of vast imagination? What makes one create whole worlds, peoples and languages? Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy has the world talking. The three movies that have come out: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001); The Two Towers (2002); and Return of the King (2003); were all best sellers at the box office. These stories have lived on generation after generation, always a favorite among children and adults. Now they are talking about re-making The Hobbit with actors.

What type of man could capture the imagination of generation after generation of fans? The Internet is rife with Middle Earth web sites. This interest did not start because of the movies, no it started in the 1930s. But let us go further back in time to the year 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa, where John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born. By the age of 4, Tolkien had lost his father and by the age of 12 his mother. Tolkien had a remarkable linguistic gift - he mastered many languages. He even created his own language. While studying at Exeter College, Oxford his interest was turned to an Old English poem The Crist of Cynewulf. One of the lines translated Hail Earendel brightest of angels, over Middle Earth sent to men. This inspired him to create an ancient world of beauty and diversity. He was a young officer in World War I and came down with “Trench Fever”. While recuperating, his imagination took hold and he wrote “Book of Lost Tales”.

By 1925, Tolkien was a professor at Pembroke College, Oxford. He continued to develop his mythology and languages of Middle Earth. He began to tell his children the tales. In 1936, the transcript for The Hobbit is completed and it is published in 1937. The book has continually been on the children’s recommended list to this day! It was greeted with such success that the publisher’s wanted more. So began the writings of The Fellowship of the Rings. By 1948, The Lord of the Rings is completed and the first two books are published in 1954 with the third being published in 1955. Tolkien has created other writings, but the tales of Middle Earth are the ones that speak to all. The struggle for Middle Earth is the common language of men: fellowship, the struggle between good and evil and the will to save their world against all odds.