I. INTRODUCTION

I. INTRODUCTION

The fact that an author mentioned openly his thoughts on general issues about culture, politics or religion is not always a guarantee that they will later appear in his works, one way or another. This is the case of J.R.R. Tolkien, a Christian, Philologist, Pacifist and thinker. In fact, making criticism out of the opinions of an author without paying attention to their actual presence in his text(s) leads nowhere but to subjective speculations, distracting and misleading the real validity of others. But the question is: have any of the interpretations come from a mixture of Tolkien's viewpoints and events slightly resembling actual facts? Of course they have, and they are to be considered, because finding out, checking and finally discarding them if they are not consistent enough, would clear some blurry views and permit an improved, if not absolutely complete, study about Tolkien's current sources. One of this unclear views is how deep did war dig into Tolkien's mind so as to reflect it undeniably in his writings. The coincidence in time of an author with historically transcending facts is not a guarantee that he is going to write metaphorically about them by force. Social and political consciousness may appear through style, in the way of writing, but not necessarily in plots. That is the problem with seeing The Lord of the Rings as a fierce portrait of Nazism or Russian Socialism.

This study is mainly a display and discussion of what Tolkien witnessed, experienced and thought as a writer as well as a man from the 20th century, and its possible influence in his literary masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. Even though some of the aspects presented have already been confirmed (or rejected) by the scholars mentioned all along this research project, it is because of their diversity that the aim of this study is to compile and display as much of them as possible in a single analysis. It also contains many comments on Peter Jackson's film version of the book, contrasted with Tolkien's personal visions and opinions about his own materials. The main reason for including the film is that its audiovisual register inclined the interpretation of the plot towards certain pre-established misconceptions which drove back the attention of the critics and the audience to the presumed ideological analogies and metaphors ascribed to it from the very beginning. Some stills from the film are compared to several pictures from actual footage of Nazi meetings and rallies to demonstrate how Jackson appeals to our 20^th century historical background. Was he one of those who saw an allegory to Nazism and he offers his viewpoint through the film? Or was he updating and depicting the concepts of good and evil to the 21^st century, like Tolkien himself did in the 20^th century? These questions will be discussed in section IV.

The introduction starts with a brief description and some examples of two literary genres: fantasy and science-fiction. As Tolkien himself declared (and we will see in section II of this study), The Lord of the Rings had its roots in traditional fantasy narrative and fairy-tales, and at the same time became the starting point for contemporary sub-genres within science-fiction. Section 1.3 deals with the presence of Fantasy genres in films, and offers a little introduction for the comparison of Jackson's filmic materials with the original literary materials by Tolkien which will be later displayed in Part III.