Forty years ago on this date, 2
September 1973, one of my favorite writers, J.R.R. Tolkien passed away. In
loving memory of him, I will post one of his quotes.
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J.R.R. Tolkien
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QUOTE: Tolkien
criticized Allied use of total war tactics against civilians from Nazi Germany
and Imperial Japan. In a 1945 letter to his son Christopher, he wrote:
We were
supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be
necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and
child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100
times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well,—you
and I can do nothing about it. And that [should] be a measure of the amount of
guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is
not a member of its actual Government. Well the first War of the Machines seems
to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter—leaving, alas, everyone the
poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant:
the Machines.
AUTHOR: J. R. R.
Tolkien A.K.A John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE (3 January 1892 – 2
September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university
professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The
Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
He served as the
Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford,
from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at
Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of
C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group
known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the
British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
After his father's
death, Tolkien's son Christopher published a series of works based on his
father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The
Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the
Rings form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented
languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda, and
Middle-earth within it. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium
to the larger part of these writings. While many other authors had published
works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The
Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This
has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of
modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy.
In 2008, The Times
ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since
1945". Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning dead celebrity in
2009.
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