Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin8or
Tolkien said that he intended LOTR for an adult audience from its inception, whereas he wrote The Hobbit for his son while his son was a child/juvenile. (Why he included Tom Bombadil, I've no idea.)
|
Tolkien was highly influenced in his writings by Beowulf. One noteable attribute of Beowulf is the inclusion of stories within the stories. The main story takes a diversion to focus on a particular thread of another story. This helps explain diversionary threads of the story like Tom Bombadil. You frequently see this in LOTR when Gandalf relates some past story of middle earth to the group that seemingly has only ancillary relevance to the main story.