Religion In The Hobbit And The Lord Of The Rings

For centuries, religion has been a focal point in people’s lives; religion was used as a reason for the Crusades. As time passes, religion has become less of a focus in everyday life as people are “losing their religion;” people are now becoming atheists and agnostics. However, religion still seems to appear in literature. In books written by J.R.R. Tolkien, the subject of religion is never actually said, but is alluded to at many times. In writing The Silmarillion, Tolkien created his own mythology, which has to do with religion. This book, though published later than the rest of his books, is the foundation of all of the books set in Middle Earth. From the ideas written in The Silmarillion, Tolkien created The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings,
In 1914, World War I broke out. Tolkien began to work on his ideas. He wanted his imaginations to be put onto paper, but was struggling to create something to his liking. Before being called off to war, he married Edith Bratt on March 22, 1916. He was sent to a hospital in England when he contracted “ trench fever.” Over his months in England, all but one member of the T.C.B.S. had been killed in action. Through this and his war experiences, Tolkien began to form his stories. After being intrigued in his college days, Tolkien began to finally create languages, characters, and the stories behind them. Tolkien's first son was born on November 16, 1917. After the armistice was signed, Tolkien was appointed Assistant Lexicographer on the New English Dictionary. He later left and was appointed Reader at the University of Leeds. At Leeds, he collaborated with E.V. Gordon on Sir Gawain and the Green Night. He also continued writing and editing The Lost Tales and invented his Elvish languages. After the birth of his next two children, he was appointed the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. In 1929, Priscilla Tolkien was born. After Tolkien and Edith moved after their children grew up, Tolkien founded the "Inklings." This group was similar to the T.C.B.S. in that the Inklings would meet for readings of their
The Hobbit was published in 1937. He later went on to write The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and many more novels. Though The Hobbit was Tolkien's first published book, The Silmarillion is really where Tolkien's journey through Middle Earth begins. He created different races, such as the Elves and the Dwarves. He also, after taking an interest in languages, created a language for each of the races, but used English for the "common tongue." His mixing of existent languages to create the languages of Middle Earth was unique and extremely difficult to do, Tolkien even said that, "...of course Elvish is too complicated. I've never finished making it.” The Silmarillion was the basis of Tolkien's mythology. He used many ideas from religion, and sometime his own religion, Catholicism. Tolkien created Eru, also known as Iluvatar, who in a sense, could be called a God figure. Iluvatar then created the Ainur, who can be paralleled with archangels and sometimes the human race, and Middle