Editing J. R. R. Tolkien (section)

== Views ==

[[File:Eagle and Child (interior).jpg|thumb|right|The Corner of [[the Eagle and Child]] Pub, Oxford, where the [[Inklings]] met (1930–1950)]]

=== Religion ===

{{redirect-distinguish|Tolkien's Christianity|Christianity in Middle-earth}}

Tolkien's [[Catholicism]] was a significant factor in [[C. S. Lewis]]'s conversion from [[atheism]] to Christianity.<ref name="CSL">{{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Humphrey |title=The Inklings |publisher=Allen & Unwin |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-00-774869-3 |author-link=Humphrey Carpenter}} Lewis was brought up in the [[Church of Ireland]].</ref> He once wrote to [[Rayner Unwin]]'s daughter Camilla, who wished to know the purpose of life, that it was "to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks."<ref>{{cite book |last=Ware |first=Jim |url={{Google books|N_0VhzQKIIAC |page=PR22 |plainurl=yes}} |title=Finding God in The Hobbit |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-4143-0596-7 |page=xxii|publisher=Tyndale House Publishers }}</ref> He had a special devotion to the [[eucharist in the Catholic Church|blessed sacrament]], writing to his son Michael that in "the Blessed Sacrament ... you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that".<ref name="Letters, No. 43" group="T" /> He accordingly encouraged frequent reception of [[Holy Communion]], again writing to his son Michael that "the only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion." He believed the Catholic Church to be true most of all because of the pride of place and the honour in which it holds the Blessed Sacrament.<ref name="Letter 250" group="T">{{harvnb|Carpenter|Tolkien|1981|loc=''Letters'' #250 to Michael Tolkien, 1 November 1963}}</ref> In the last years of his life, Tolkien [[Traditionalist Catholicism|resisted certain liturgical changes]] implemented after the [[Second Vatican Council]], his primary objection being the use of English for the liturgy.<ref>{{harvnb|Ordway|2023|p=328}}</ref> Tolkien spoke Latin fluently, and he felt that the English translations were clumsy.<ref>{{harvnb|Ordway|2023|p=328}}</ref> In his old age he continued to make the Mass responses in Latin.<ref name="SimonTolkien" /><ref>{{harvnb|Ordway|2023|p=329}}</ref> Tolkien did not sign the [[Agatha Christie indult]], however, and he served as a [[Reader (liturgy)|lector]] at Corpus Christi, a parish church in [[Headington]], in accordance with the allowances of the Council.<ref>{{harvnb|Ordway|2023|pp=332-333}}</ref>

=== Race ===
{{Main|Tolkien and race}}

Tolkien's [[Middle-earth]] fantasy writings have been said to embody outmoded attitudes to [[Race (human categorization)|race]].<ref name="Yatt">{{cite news |last=Yatt |first=John |date=2 December 2002 |title=Wraiths and Race |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/dec/02/jrrtolkien.lordoftherings |url-status=live |access-date=25 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826185122/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/dec/02/jrrtolkien.lordoftherings |archive-date=26 August 2013}}</ref> However, scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters, and that he was [[Anti-racism|anti-racist]] both in peacetime and during the two World Wars. With the late 19th-century background of [[eugenics]] and a fear of moral decline, some critics believed that the mention of [[Miscegenation|race mixing]] in ''The Lord of the Rings'' embodied [[scientific racism]].<ref name="Rogers 2000">{{cite book |last1=Rogers |first1=William N. II |chapter=Gagool and Gollum: Exemplars of Degeneration in ''King Solomon's Mines'' and ''The Hobbit'' |last2=Underwood |first2=Michael R. |title=J. R. R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-313-30845-1 |editor-last1=Clark |editor-first1=George |editor-first2=Daniel |editor-last2=Timmons |pages=121–132 |access-date=3 March 2021 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/jrrtolkienhislit0000unse/page/120/mode/2up?q=Gagool}}</ref> Other commentators thought that Tolkien's description of the [[orc]]s was modelled on wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese.<ref name="Ibata Chicago Tribune 2003">{{cite news |last=Ibata |first=David |date=12 January 2003 |title='Lord' of racism? Critics view trilogy as discriminatory |work=[[The Chicago Tribune]] |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/chi-030112epringsrace-story.html |url-status=live |access-date=3 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308060753/https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/chi-030112epringsrace-story.html |archive-date=8 March 2021}}</ref> Critics have noted, too, that the work embodies a [[Geography of Middle-earth#Moral geography|moral geography]], with good in the West, evil in the East.<ref name="Magoun 2006">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2006 |title=South, The |encyclopedia=[[J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Routledge]] |last=Magoun |first=John F. G. |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |pages=622–623 |isbn=1-135-88034-4}}</ref> Against this, Tolkien strongly opposed [[Nazi racial theories]], as seen in a 1938 letter he wrote to his publisher, while in the Second World War he vigorously opposed [[Anti-German sentiment|anti-German]] propaganda.<ref name="Rearick 2004">{{cite journal |last=Rearick |first=Anderson |date=2004 |title=Why is the Only Good Orc a Dead Orc? The Dark Face of Racism Examined in Tolkien's World |journal=[[Modern Fiction Studies]] |volume=50 |issue=4 |pages=866–867 |doi=10.1353/mfs.2005.0008 |jstor=26286382 |s2cid=162647975 |issn = 0026-7724 }}</ref><ref name="Power 2018">{{cite news |last=Power |first=Ed |date=27 November 2018 |title=JRR Tolkien's orcs are no more racist than George Lucas's Stormtroopers |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/jrr-tolkiens-orcs-no-racist-george-lucass-stormtroopers/ |url-status=live |access-date=20 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210127224728/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/jrr-tolkiens-orcs-no-racist-george-lucass-stormtroopers/ |archive-date=27 January 2021}}</ref> His Middle-earth has been described as definitely polycultural and polylingual, while scholars have noted that attacks on Tolkien based on ''The Lord of the Rings'' often omit relevant evidence from the text.<ref name="Straubhaar 2004">{{cite book |last=Straubhaar |first=Sandra Ballif |chapter=Myth, Late Roman History, and Multiculturalism in Tolkien's Middle-Earth |title=Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: a Reader |title-link=Tolkien and the Invention of Myth |publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8131-2301-1 |editor-last=Chance |editor-first=Jane |editor-link=Jane Chance |pages=101–117 |author-link=Sandra Ballif Straubhaar}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Lobdell |first=Jared |title=The World of the Rings |publisher=[[Open Court Publishing Company|Open Court]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-87548-303-0 |page=116 |author-link=Jared Lobdell}}</ref> A spokesman for [[HarperCollins]], publisher of the trilogy, said: "A number of academics have commented on Tolkien's work and this is the first time anybody has ever seen these issues in it. Of course, if you look hard enough at many great epics, you can extrapolate what you like, particularly if you have academic kudos behind you."<ref>{{cite web |last=Bhatia |first=Shyam |date=8 January 2003 |title=The Lord of the Rings rooted in racism |url=http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jan/08lord.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101103144856/http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jan/08lord.htm |archive-date=3 November 2010 |access-date=4 December 2010 |publisher=Rediff India Abroad}}</ref>

=== Nature ===

{{further|Environmentalism in The Lord of the Rings}}

During most of his own life, [[conservationism]] was not yet on the political agenda, and Tolkien himself did not directly express conservationist views—except in some private letters, in which he tells about his fondness for forests and sadness at tree-felling. In later years, a number of authors of biographies or literary analyses of Tolkien conclude that during his writing of ''The Lord of the Rings'', Tolkien gained increased interest in the value of wild and untamed nature, and in protecting what wild nature was left in the industrialized world.<ref>{{cite book |title=J. R. R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2000 |editor-last=Clark |editor-first=George |editor-last2=Timmons |editor-first2=Daniel}}{{pages needed|date=September 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Saguaro |first1=Shelley |title=J. R. R. Tolkien: New Casebook |last2=Thacker |first2=Deborah Cogan |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-137-26399-5 |editor-last=Hunt |editor-first=Peter |chapter=Tolkien and Trees |chapter-url=http://eprints.glos.ac.uk/791/1/Tolkien%20and%20Trees%20PDF.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161003153917/http://eprints.glos.ac.uk/791/1/Tolkien%20and%20Trees%20PDF.pdf |archive-date=3 October 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Dickerson |first1=Matthew |title=Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R. R. Tolkien |last2=Evans |first2=Jonathan |author2-link=Jonathan Evans (scholar) |publisher=University of Kentucky Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-8131-2418-6 |author-link=Matthew T. Dickerson}}</ref>