Did J.R.R. Tolkien intend for his fantasy epics to serve as England's lost mythology?
In short: Many fans know Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for England, but the connection between hobbits and national identity remains obscure. While readers celebrate the journey from Bag End to Barad-dûr, the true origins of Middle-earth lie in a decades-long project to craft a unique, legendary history for the English people.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s ambition was to provide England with a foundational mythology comparable to the Greek legends of Odysseus or the Roman accounts of Romulus. While modern readers often view his work as high fantasy, Tolkien approached his writing as a deliberate effort to construct a cultural heritage for his home country. This project was not a sudden inspiration but a lifelong endeavor, characterized by an exceptionally long gestation period and a meticulous preservation of his creative process.
Tolkien’s creative habits were famously obsessive. According to Tom Shippey in The Road to Middle-earth, Tolkien was deeply reluctant to discard any draft, leading him to hoard manuscripts dating back to before the First World War. This tendency to keep every iteration of his work meant that his son, Christopher Tolkien, was eventually able to publish The History of Middle-earth. This twelve-book series documents the evolution of his father’s poetry and prose, revealing the intricate layers of development that preceded the publication of his most famous novels.
The sheer volume of these manuscripts, which far exceeds the length of The Lord of the Rings, often discourages casual readers from exploring the origins of Middle-earth. These documents contain minute variations and early drafts that trace the transition from what Tolkien initially conceived as English pseudo-myths into the expansive fantasy epics known today. By examining these records, scholars can see how the iconic opening line about a hobbit living in a hole in the ground was merely one point in a much larger, decades-long effort to define an English identity through the lens of mythic storytelling.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The History of England Found in Tolkien's Greatest Works
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