{"id":64497,"date":"2024-06-20T12:11:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T12:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/?p=64497"},"modified":"2024-06-20T19:24:15","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T19:24:15","slug":"a-bit-more-tolkien-and-lovecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2024\/06\/20\/a-bit-more-tolkien-and-lovecraft\/","title":{"rendered":"A bit more Tolkien and Lovecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve now had a chance to read through “Middle-earth, Narnia and Lovecraft’s Dream World: Comparative World-Views in Fantasy” (Crypt of Cthulhu<\/em>, 1983). It adds some additional points to my previous blog posts about the various similarities of Tolkien and Lovecraft…<\/p>\n

* Both Tolkien and Lovecraft maintained that their tales were written primarily for their own “amusement” (this is the word used). <\/p>\n

* Blackmore notes that Lovecraft’s biographer de Camp had earlier observed that Tolkien was an unabashed ‘rurophile’ [lover of the rural, in the form of the Shire], just like Lovecraft in his letters and trips. I might also add they were both lovers of garden-like parkland landscapes with many beautiful trees and glades (recall Ithilian and Lorien in The Lord of the Rings<\/em>).<\/p>\n

* Both Tolkien and Lovecraft disliked mechanisation and crassly sub-urban development.<\/p>\n

* Lovecraft’s Dreamlands are seen as similar to Middle-earth, in that flora and fauna from the primary world are mixed with the fantastica of the secondary world. The Dreamlands also feature many ancient ruins, as does Middle-earth.<\/p>\n

I’ve just thought of a final point of admittedly very loose comparison — fungi. The hobbits are revealed to be inordinately fond of mushrooms, though Tolkien makes no later use of this in terms of inverting it into horror or sinister landscapes\/caves. The closest we come is the lair of Shelob, in which the horror is white and webbed rather than white and fungous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve now had a chance to read through “Middle-earth, Narnia and Lovecraft’s Dream World: Comparative World-Views in Fantasy” (Crypt of …<\/p>\n

Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-odd-scratchings","category-scholarly-works"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64499,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64497\/revisions\/64499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}