Tolkien and the Kalevala

Download or read book Tolkien and the Kalevala written by Jyrki Korpua and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-19 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores J. R. R. Tolkien’s unique and warm relationship to the Kalevala, a poem usually hailed as the Finnish and Karelian national epic, compiled, edited and partly revisioned from older folk poetry by Finnish scholar Elias Lönnrot in the 19th century. J. R. R. Tolkien, an Oxford academic and the greatest author of the 20th-century fantasy, creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was fascinated from early on by the Kalevala. Tolkien himself described the Kalevala as “a germ” of his fantasy fiction.