(his family called him ronald, if you ever wondered.)
if you are not familiar with that name, firstly, shame on you, and secondly, let me help: he is the creator of middle-earth, of hobbits and elves and a mythology for england with a span and depth that borders on incomprehensible. tolkien is the author of the hobbit and the lord of the rings, as well as the silmarillion, the book of lost tales, and others.
a dedicated linguist, he not only created lands and populated them with generations and generations of people, he gave each race and nation their own language and history and culture. his attention to detail is legendary.
orphaned by the time he was 12, his appointed guardian was bound to raising him catholic. when he met his wife-to-be at 16, he was forbidden to communicate with her until he was 21, because she was protestant. on the night of his 21st birthday, without having spoken to her in years, he proposed marriage. she was, at that moment, already engaged to someone else, but only because she thought she would never hear from him again. she broke off that engagement immediately, and they married, and lived, by all accounts, happily ever after, with four children.
after he graduated from exeter college, oxford, he went to war in 1915, where he lost, one by one, all of his friends.
as an academic, tolkien wrote the most pivotal critical analysis of beowulf to the point, changing the way people have interpreted that work ever since, from a childish fairy-story of monster fighting to a tale of human destiny.
a devout catholic, he nevertheless staunchly refused any implications that his work was directly allegorical, even politically, despite his hatred for war, and indicted his friend c.s. lewis for having been so transparent in his own allegories.
as it stands, i have three quotes i'm looking at. i think it will depend on the calligraphy i plan to do, and what looks and fits the best in with everything else. those three quotes are as follows:
"it's a dangerous business, going out your door. you step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might end up!"
"all that is gold does not glitter. not all those who wander are lost. the old that is strong does not wither. deep roots are not reached by the frost. from the ashes, a fire shall be woken. a light from the shadows shall spring. renewed shall be blade that was broken: the crownless again shall be king."
and
"not even the very wise can see all ends."
when i spoke to tyler earlier today, i felt like i had no real idea about how i was going to assemble my construction, but as of this afternoon, and the acquisition of an item, i feel like i'm on track!
for my indexes/indices?:
his monogram.
maps of middle earth.
calligraphy of his languages.
gold ring.
symbols:
a red book.
a quill pen.
and a pipe, which i bought this afternoon. it is charmingly small and not very expensive, which help to make it a symbol rather than an index, as it is in no way tolkien's pipe, but is indicative of both his penchant for smoking, as well as his character's tendency to do the same.
i'm excited about this again. i was really nervous for a while. i'm still, of course, nervous. but. much more manageably so. i care too much about my subject matter to be careless.
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