Quote:
Originally Posted by Calenorn
... and Tolkien is derivative of William Morris. Take "The House of the Wolfings," mix in a cup of Beowulf, and you're halfway there. Rusticate the tradition of faerie stories into Hobbits, and you can see the finish line.
But don't forget that Tolkien was a gifted narrative writer. To engage readers in a story as long as The Lord of the Rings, you have to have some excellent writing chops. Many of his imitators lacked that, and it shows.
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And we must not forget Prof. Tolkien's day job. He was a prof. of Languages which means he knew how to tweak real languages to his purpose to form part of the backbone of his mythology. He started with that (if I remember my reading correctly) and then built the cultures of his imagined races of Elves, Men, Orcs, & Dwarves upon that. Rather than having a few made up words that were almost an afterthought he built up the societies of his imagined peoples after he came up with their languages.