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	airawyn 2011-03-29 12:52 am UTC (link)
	nothing Anglo-Saxon about Lord of the Rings Ahahaha, what?! People actually say that? (No, I believe they do, just...) You know who would disagree? Tolkien. Who wrote LotR so there would be an Anglo-Saxon folk tale. (Arthurian legend being too French, you see.) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	cmdr_zoom 2011-03-29 04:50 am UTC (link)
	but he's just the author, what does he know? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	eclatante 2011-03-29 08:06 am UTC (link)
	DEATH OF THE AUTHOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 (Reply to this)(Parent)

kuromitsu
2011-03-29 08:41 pm UTC (link)

That may have been Tolkien's intention but to be honest I didn't find what I've read and seen of LotR particularly Anglo-Saxon.* (Maybe if he wrote it as a poem or something...) Sure, it's partly inspired by Norse legends and whatnot,** but from what I can see also by a bunch of non-Germanic things, including Tolkien's own fantasy. I'm no scholar but from what I do know I wouldn't say LotR is particularly authentic as an Anglo-Saxon or just "Germanic" story... AFAIK Tolkien himself never meant it to be The Real Thing, though?

*Note, though that I never managed to finish the novel. I watched the movies, though, for what it's worth.
**Which is another rather tricky thing...

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airawyn
2011-03-29 09:30 pm UTC (link)

Heh, I'd have to consult my books (/Giles) but it is possible that Tolkien considered Norse and Germanic influence to be British enough to include. I know he intentionally excluded French and American elements (thus what was "tobacco" in The Hobbit became "pipeweed" in LotR - "tobacco" being an American word).

So it is possible that you could argue that LotR isn't technically Anglo-Saxon in the strictest definition. It was intended to be very, very British (or maybe very, very English), though.

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	kattahj 2011-03-29 09:45 pm UTC (link)
	I'm kind of weirded out about how the Arthur myth is too French but Gandalf is apparently British. But then, I get a tad overprotective of Scandinavian stuff. (Reply to this)(Parent)

kuromitsu
2011-03-29 10:25 pm UTC (link)

Well, going for "very very English" would make more sense, though that doesn't account for, for example, all the Celtic elements that, to me, stood out a lot more than the Germanic ones, ring or no ring.

Although if he was going for "very very British" instead, I don't know what his problem was with Arthur... I mean the Arthurian legends, being mostly of Welsh origins, are technically British enough... even Monmouth was Welsh, himself. (Then again, I'm not sure how this was viewed in Tolkien's time.)

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	napalmnacey 2011-03-30 12:41 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, they're totally right! And American people don't have accents! It's just everyone else that does! (Reply to this)(Parent)

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