/lit/ - Literature

>>19013783
He was really attempting to compose a modern mythology, not fantasy. He was also pretty much entirely writing either for his own autistic obsession (Silmarillion, etc) or for his children (the Hobbit) and was only pressured into writing LotR by his publishers, not so much because he wanted to impress the general public with his lore. But because he was such an autist when he did actually sit down to write about Frodo and the Ring, he already had decades of his own detailed world-building to draw on. This is why that book actually reads like an account of events that truly took place, and where all of the places and names etc have a real depth of meaning. It also helps that he was an academic authority on ancient languages- in fact the stories of the Silmarillion were initially made to be a world for his invented languages to reside in. In my opinion it is a mistake to even consider the authors who came after Tolkien to be worthy of comparison, they were not engaging in the same kind of project not even a little bit. Tolkien has more in common with a figure like Milton than some crusty American neckbeard like grrm or terry goodkind.