>>6168186>>6167312>JRR TOLKIEN just stealing all the NAMESThe more Old English poetry I read, the less respect I have for Tolkien hmm hmmm already everything is basically plagiarised from Beowulf but also he just steals all the names and ideas from 9th century poems it is really on the imaginative level of DIS Marvel Thor
I remember thinking Earendel was a pretty name from LOTR, lo and behold guess where that came from, here is Tolkien stealing from a Cynewulf poem on advent, liturgical verses concerning Anglo Saxon STAR ALIEN extraterrestrials or something lol. This poem is apparently known as Crist A, as source material it probably explains the intensely religious overtones embedded in Lord Of The Rings or Silmarillion
Ēala ēarendel, engla beorhtast,
ofer middangeard monnum sended,
ond sōðfæsta sunnan lēoma,
torht ofer tunglas, þū tīda gehwane
of sylfum þē symle inlihtes!
Hail Earendel, brightest of angels,
Sent to men over middle-earth,
And true radiance of the sun,
Fine beyond stars, you always illuminate,
From your self, every season!
(...)
Basically Tolkien just steals everything, hmmm.
Stealing names is ok, it does take some skill lol to even steal or plagiarise the right ones / aesthetically appropriate names for a setting, I don't have anything aginst it as every worldbuilding exercise or dungeonmaster has to do it but I just feel like Tolkien is massively overrated as a consequence given all his influence.
Maybe it feels like his prowess is diminished if you read the historical sources he took his ideas from, you see how he did it and some aspects of Tolkien feel consequently cheapened, hmmm
I suppose you have to credit Tolkien as amongst the first or being the most influential but I honestly think Bernard Cornwell Arthurian stuff is better lol, because he can at least interweave actual historical events and battles with actual personnages as well as fictional characters and suspenseful narratives instead of Tolkien distended prose embellished with shamelessly stolen Anglo Saxon names. Tolkien is honestly somewhat dull and turgid to read, if it were not for the films and the memes lol
>>6167344 and I say this as someone who reads all the 19th century literature and watches the period drama historical adaptations hehe. In Tolkien's own era, I have always considered Mervyn Peake and Gormenghast to be a superior work of fiction along almost every dimension (storytelling, originality, characterisation, linguistic inventiveness) but he is neglected, I guess his work is unapproachably byzantine and grotesque compared to Tolkien storytelling UGLY ORC EVIL gah. Also compared to Tolkien at least Bernard Cornwell includes some rape
