Cliff Notes - the hobbit & the lord of rings

VIP免费
2024-12-24 0 0 149.81KB 89 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
J. R. R. TOLKIEN'S
THE HOBBIT & THE LORD OF THE RINGS
^^^^^^^^^^J. R. R. TOLKIEN: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES
When you were younger, did you ever make up stories about the people and
places around your home? Maybe there was an abandoned house that in your
imagination became haunted by ghosts, or an old neighbor woman that you
envisioned as a witch. This fantasizing isn't very different from what
many writers do when they transform their experiences into fiction. J. R.
R. Tolkien, in his invention of Middle-earth, has done this to a greater
degree than most. The Hobbit and, even more so, The Lord of the Rings
were the fruits of a lifetime's work, and Tolkien incorporated into them
the landscape of his childhood, his interest in philology (the study of
languages), his religious faith, his own vivid imagination, and his
attitudes toward the world and the events happening around him.
The first three years of Tolkien's life were spent in South Africa, where
he had been born in 1892. His mother returned to England in 1895 with him
and his younger brother. His father stayed in South Africa, planning to
join the family later, but within a few months he contracted rheumatic
fever and died.
The Tolkiens settled in the small English town of Sarehole, where the
widow struggled to raise her children alone. As he grew, Tolkien showed
an aptitude for language, and under his mother's tutelage studied Latin
and French. An avid reader, he especially loved fairy tales. His favorite
was the story of Sigurd, the dragon slayer. It wasn't the hero but the
dragon Fafnir who intrigued him. The dragon represented a world that was
exciting and dangerous, yet that was safely removed from his own life.
Tolkien later recalled, "...the world that contained even the imagination
of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost or peril."
His fascination with dragons was later to appear in the character Smaug
in The Hobbit.
Despite their poverty, it was a happy time for the boys, and in later
years Tolkien recalled the countryside and its people with great
fondness. In fact, the land and the people of Sarehole were to become
part of his books, as the Shire and its whimsical inhabitants, the
hobbits. You can see elements of his childhood home in hobbit country.
The Sarehole mill became an important landmark near Bag End, Bilbo's
home, and the miller's evil-looking son was transformed into Ted
Sandyman, the unscrupulous hobbit who contributes to the polluting of the
Shire in The Lord of the Rings. "The Shire," Tolkien once said, "is very
like the kind of world in which I first became aware of things." At
another time, he said, "I took the idea of the hobbits from the village
people and the children."
Tolkien became absorbed in the study of language. After his teachers
introduced him to Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, he began to read heroic
tales such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Next he turned
to Old Norse and the Norse sagas. On his own, he rummaged through the
local bookstore for books on philology and archaic languages. Then he
began to invent his own languages and alphabets. He developed complex
histories for his languages, earlier words that evolved into later words,
just as the Old English "stan" evolved into "stone" in modern English.
Not surprisingly, Tolkien went to Oxford University to study philology.
One day he discovered a Finnish grammar book. While the words themselves
enthralled him, Tolkien's imagination was also fired by the tales written
in this strange language. He delved into Finnish mythology and found
himself wishing that there was such a body of work for England. It was
perhaps at this point he first thought of writing a mythology himself.
Now Tolkien began work on a new language, based on Finnish--his "mad
hobby," as he called it. He felt that the language needed a history to
support it: a language can't exist without the people who speak it.
Tolkien decided that this language was spoken by a race of elves who had
already appeared in the poetry he was writing. This poetry was to form
the basis of the vast mythology Tolkien wrote about a land called Middle-
earth. just as his languages were based on actual languages, his
mythology incorporated elements of the myths and legends that Tolkien
admired.
Around this time, World War I began, and England declared war on Germany.
Tolkien entered the British army as an officer. Before going off to war,
he married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Bratt. Like Tolkien, whose
mother died when he was 12, Edith was an orphan. They had fallen in love
when he was 16 and she was 19. Their guardians, however, had found out
about the romance and had forbidden the lovers to meet until Tolkien
turned 21, when he would legally be an adult. He incorporated this long
separation into The Lord of the Rings, in the romance between Aragorn and
Arwen.
Tolkien was sent to France, where he took part in the 1916 Battle of the
Somme, a costly battle for the Allied forces. The slaughter there of
thousands of young British soldiers left a lasting impression on Tolkien.
In addition, the land had been desolated by trench warfare and the use of
heavy artillery. His description of the desolation around Mordor has
often been cited for its resemblance to the war-torn landscapes in
Europe. Many of his colleagues who had been through the war saw its
influence on Tolkien in scenes where he describes not only the horror of
war, but also the sense of close comradeship and the quiet joys of little
things. Those who survived the Battle of the Somme faced death from an
unexpected quarter in the following months. Influenza and trench fever
swept the ranks, affecting soldiers and officers alike. Tolkien
contracted a particularly bad case of trench fever and was shipped back
to England in late 1916. He spent his long recovery working on his
mythology. The war ended in late 1918. Tolkien had survived, only to find
that all but one of his close friends had died. To someone who valued
friendship so highly, this was a great blow.
Tolkien once said that at the heart of his books is the realization of
the inevitability of death. At the age of 24, he had already faced not
only the widespread death of the war, but also the personal losses of his
parents and friends.
Tolkien slowly returned to academic life. He moved through a series of
university positions, culminating in his election to a professorship at
Oxford. He published several scholarly works that won respect in his
field, including a landmark lecture on Beowulf, the famous Old English
epic poem.
But he began to feel increasingly alienated from the world about him.
Postwar England was rapidly changing with the growth of technology and
industry. The way of life he loved so much and had risked his life to
defend in war was disappearing. He watched sadly as trees were cut down
and countryside was taken over by city, all in the name of progress.
Tolkien's answer was to turn to the myths and heroic legends of the past.
He also continued to work on his own mythology. By this time, he had
developed several new languages and a complex history and mythology, for
the races who spoke them. This hobby, as Tolkien modestly called it, was
his consuming passion, but he never expected it to arouse much interest
in others. He wrote several poems and stories that were published in a
university weekly, but there was nothing yet to catch the popular
imagination.
That was to change with his invention of hobbits--short, jolly folk with
hairy feet and a love of tobacco pipes. One day while sitting at his desk
and grading papers, Tolkien came upon a blank page. He wrote on it, "In a
hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Almost ten years after he had
written that first line, Tolkien completed The Hobbit, the story of a
timid hobbit named Bilbo Baggins, who sets out on an adventure with a
troop of dwarves and a wizard. Tolkien incorporated into his book
elements from his mythology, including the dwarves and elves. His
childhood memories and the inventive imagination that so delighted his
own children gave the book its droll humor and its main character, Bilbo.
In the hobbit, Tolkien had found a character his readers could identify
with and follow into the heroic world of myth and legends.
The Hobbit was published in 1937 as a children's book. It was met with
great enthusiasm and received several awards, including the prestigious
New York Herald Tribune prize as the year's best children's book. At the
request of his publishers, Tolkien set out to write a sequel to The
Hobbit. The publishers had wanted another children's book, but it soon
became apparent that the new book was taking on a more profound meaning
and would far surpass The Hobbit in depth as well as length. When Tolkien
at last submitted his new novel, The Lord of the Rings, his publisher
thought that it was a work of genius but that it would probably be a
commercial flop. However, when the first book of the trilogy, The
Fellowship of the Ring, was published in 1954, it had respectable sales
that quickly increased to a phenomenal rate. The other books of the
trilogy, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, were published sooner
than planned because of the popular demand.
The critics offered a range of comment on Tolkien. Some gave him great
reviews, and he was awarded a prize for the best fantasy novel of 1956.
Others sharpened their pencils and attacked the trilogy mercilessly. They
said it was badly written, and dismissed it as escapist fantasy.
According to these critics, Tolkien's popularity would quickly fade. But
such negative prophecies proved wrong. Tolkien's books soon developed a
wide following, especially on college campuses in the United States. In
the 1960s, Tolkien's message of love and peace and respect for nature
appealed to students looking for new meaning in their lives. Clubs were
formed and fan magazines were published for the sole purpose of
discussing his books.
Tolkien, meanwhile, had retired from teaching in 1958. He published
several more small works of fiction. But most of his effort went into his
mythology, which he still had hopes of publishing. The task was a huge
one. Tolkien had an assortment of manuscripts to work with, some dating
back to his college days. Through the years, he had written conflicting
versions of some stories from his mythology and had left others
unfinished. The inconsistencies had to be ironed out and the gaps filled
in. Facts also had to be corrected where they disagreed with The Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings. This work remained unfinished at his death in
1973.
The job of finishing the book was taken on by his son Christopher, who
edited the manuscripts and compiled a coherent history of Middle-earth,
from its creation through to the events recounted in The Lord of the
Rings. In 1977 this history was published as The Silmarillion. If you
read it, you will find the book very different from Tolkien's novels. It
contains a great deal of legends and tales, some more fully outlined than
others, but none with the plot and character development typical of a
story. (In this way, The Silmarillion is even more like the ancient epics
than Tolkien's other books.) If you want to know more about Middle-earth,
however, the book contains a wealth of information about the land and
races created by Tolkien's fertile imagination.
^^^^^^^^^^THE HOBBIT & THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE HOBBIT
Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit, one of a race of short, timid creatures who
live in cozy tunnels and who prefer to keep their lives ordered and
predictable. One day, he unexpectedly finds himself playing host to
Gandalf the wizard and thirteen dwarves. The dwarves, with Gandalf's
help, plan to travel to the Lonely Mountain to recover the treasure that
a dragon named Smaug stole from their people long ago. Gandalf has
selected Bilbo to be their burglar. The dwarves aren't too happy with the
wizard's choice, especially when Bilbo faints at the first talk of
danger. But Gandalf insists there is more to the little hobbit than meets
the eye.
Bilbo himself isn't sure that he's happy about being chosen burglar. But
a part of him does yearn for adventure, and so one spring morning he
finds himself setting out for Lonely Mountain with Gandalf and the
thirteen dwarves. He doesn't prove very helpful at first. But then
something happens that changes Bilbo's life. He finds a magic ring that
makes him invisible, and has several opportunities to use it to rescue
the dwarves from danger and imprisonment. They become quite impressed by
him, and even rely on him, just as Gandalf foretold.
Bilbo and the dwarves finally reach Lonely Mountain, the home of Smaug
the dragon. The dwarves send Bilbo down a secret passage to the dragon's
lair. Bilbo has more confidence in himself now and not only steals a cup,
but manages to hold his own in a conversation with the wily Smaug--not an
easy thing to do.
Furious that someone has dared steal a piece of his treasure, Smaug
attacks the mountainside where the dwarves have their camp. Then he flies
toward Lake-town, to punish the inhabitants for helping the dwarves.
The people of Lake-town run at the sight of Smaug, but one man, Bard,
holds his ground. He kills the dragon with his last arrow and escapes
before Smaug falls, smashing the town. Believing the dwarves are dead, an
army of men, led by Bard, and an army of elves march toward the Lonely
Mountain to divide the treasure. They find to their surprise that the
dwarves are still alive.
Bard, because he killed the dragon, claims his rightful share of the
treasure. When the dwarves refuse to surrender it, the army besieges the
mountain. Bilbo tries to end the dispute by stealing the Arkenstone, the
piece of treasure most valued by the leader of the dwarves. He gives the
jewel to Bard, hoping it can be used to force the dwarves to negotiate.
Bilbo's bravery wins him praise from all but the dwarves, who are furious
with him. When more dwarves arrive from the north, they are determined to
fight.
Just as war begins to break out, an army of goblins and wild wolves
attack. The dwarves, elves, and men forget their differences and join
together to keep from being killed. Help comes in the nick of time, and
the goblins are defeated.
Bilbo finds that he's a hero, honored by men and elves and even given a
share of the treasure. But he's had enough of adventure and sets off for
home with Gandalf. Once there, he finds that his house and furnishings
are being auctioned off, since everyone believed him dead. Finally,
everything is straightened out and he's able to settle down again into
his old, comfortable life. Although from then on, he's considered
eccentric by his neighbors, he continues his friendship with elves and
dwarves and the wizard, happily recounting his tales to any who will
listen.
^^^^^^^^^^THE HOBBIT & THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Long after the events in The Hobbit, Bilbo again leaves the Shire, but
not before reluctantly passing on his magic ring to his heir, Frodo
Baggins.
Many years later, Frodo learns from Gandalf, the wizard, that his ring is
the Ring, which belonged to the evil ruler Sauron. Sauron was thought to
have been destroyed ages ago. But now he has reappeared in his ancient
stronghold of Mordor. His Ring was presumed lost, but Sauron has
discovered that it's presently in the hands of a hobbit named Baggins,
who lives in the Shire.
To protect the inhabitants of the Shire from Sauron's wrath, Frodo
decides to take the Ring and leave Bag End for Rivendell with three
friends--Merry, Pippin, and Sam. Gandalf was supposed to accompany them,
but no word has been heard from him. On the way, the four hobbits are
closely pursued by menacing Black Riders, servants of Sauron. The hobbits
are unprepared for the dangers that face them, and several times they're
almost killed because of their foolishness. Fortunately, they are joined
by a strange, secretive man called Strider, who offers to lead them to
Rivendell.
One night, Frodo is wounded in an attack by the Black Riders. His friends
bring him to Rivendell, where he is cured by Elrond, the leader of the
Half-elven (a race of people who are half elf and half human).
A council meets in Rivendell to decide what to do about the Ring. It's
agreed the Ring must be destroyed, for the temptation to use it is too
strong, and anyone who does use it will be corrupted by its power. Frodo
takes on the task of bringing the Ring to Mordor and casting it into the
volcano where it was forged.
Strider takes this opportunity to reveal his true name: Aragorn. He is
rightful heir to the throne of Gondor, which has been ruled by stewards
for many years in the absence of a king. He plans to return to Gondor, to
aid in its fight against Sauron and to claim his crown.
When Frodo departs from Rivendell, he is accompanied by representatives
of all the free races of Middle-earth: Gandalf the wizard, Legolas the
elf, Gimli the dwarf, Aragorn and Boromir of the race of men, and Frodo's
hobbit friends, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. While passing through the mines
of Moria, the company is threatened by a Balrog, a terrifying creature of
flame and shadow. While fighting the Balrog, Gandalf and the creature
plunge into a deep abyss and are both thought killed.
The rest of the company splits up further south. Boromir has fallen under
the influence of the Ring and tries to take it from Frodo. Frodo runs
away and decides to travel on to Mordor alone, but his faithful servant,
Sam, insists on going with him.
Meanwhile, the others are attacked by orcs, an evil race created by
Sauron. (Goblins and orcs are the same thing--Tolkien changed the name in
The Lord of the Rings.) Merry and Pippin are captured, and Boromir dies
defending the hobbits. After giving Boromir a hero's funeral, Aragorn,
Legolas, and Gimli follow the trail of the orcs, hoping to rescue their
friends. Instead, they find Gandalf, who has survived his fight with the
Balrog and has emerged with renewed power. Gandalf tells the others that
Merry and Pippin are safe: they escaped the orcs and are now with the
Ents of Fangorn Forest. The Ents, who are shepherds of the trees, have
been roused by the hobbits' story to attack Saruman, an evil wizard in
league with Sauron.
Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli enlist the men of Rohan, whose
country is threatened by Saruman's growing power, to join the fight
against the wizard. With the help of the Ents, Saruman is overthrown.
Frodo and Sam, meanwhile, begin their long journey toward Mordor. They
are followed by Gollum, the miserable creature who owned the Ring before
Bilbo found it. Frodo and Sam capture him and make him promise to help
them. Gollum guides them to a secret passage into Mordor. But in doing
so, he also treacherously leads them into a trap. The secret passage he
takes them through is the lair of a giant spider named Shelob, who he
hopes will kill them so he can recover the Ring.
Shelob attacks Frodo, paralyzing him with her sting. Thinking that Frodo
is dead, Sam charges the spider and succeeds in driving her off. Then he
takes the Ring, intending to carry on the quest. Before he can leave,
however, some orcs find Frodo's body and carry it into their fortress.
Sam overhears them say that Frodo isn't dead, but only poisoned. Then the
gates of the tower close behind the orcs, and Sam finds himself locked
out.
Meanwhile, the others fight desperately to save Minas Tirith, the capital
of Gondor, from Sauron's army. Against great odds, they win. Aragorn
proves his claim to kingship by his great healing power: it is said that
the hands of a king are the hands of a healer. But he doesn't yet claim
the throne. First he leads what remains of the army to the gates of
Mordor. Against Sauron's might they seem pitifully weak. Their only hope
is to distract Sauron while Frodo and Sam travel through Mordor and
destroy the Ring. If Frodo succeeds, Sauron will fall. If Frodo fails,
they will all die or be enslaved.
Inside Mordor, Sam has managed to rescue Frodo from Sauron's orcs. The
two hobbits creep through the desolate landscape of Mordor. Frodo grows
so weak from resisting the power of the Ring that he can barely crawl,
and Sam carries him for a while. When they at last reach the Crack of
Doom where the Ring is to be destroyed, Frodo's will snaps, and he claims
the Ring as his own. But Gollum appears and fights him for the Ring,
biting it off Frodo's hand. Still gloating, Gollum falls into the flames
and is destroyed along with the Ring. With the Ring destroyed, Sauron is
vanquished forever. Frodo and Sam are rescued from the ruins of Mordor by
eagles, and together with Aragorn's army, they return to Minas Tirith in
triumph.
There is much feasting and rejoicing as Aragorn is declared king and
marries Arwen, the daughter of Elrond. The hobbits have all become
heroes. But now they are ready to go home, and they head for the Shire.
When they get back, however, they find that things have changed. Saruman
has gained control, along with his ruffians, and is bullying the hobbits
and destroying the beautiful countryside of the Shire. But Frodo, Sam,
Merry, and Pippin have learned much from their adventures and quickly set
things right.
All seems well, until Frodo falls sick. He has been wounded too many
times--by the Black Rider's knife, by the Ring, and by Gollum. It is
ironical that even though he saved the Shire, he cannot enjoy it anymore.
One autumn day he sets sail with Bilbo and Gandalf across the sea to the
Blessed Realm, where he may at last find peace.
The following are major characters in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the
Rings.
^^^^^^^^^^THE HOBBIT & THE LORD OF THE RINGS: BILBO BAGGINS
Bilbo is the small, timid hero of The Hobbit. It has been pointed out by
some readers that in his thoughts and actions he is representative of
modern man. Thus, adults are able to identify with him and not feel so
out of place in Tolkien's heroic world of wizards and dwarves. Bilbo is
also, fittingly, a character that children can readily identify with,
since The Hobbit was written as a children's story and today is
considered by many to be a classic in that genre.
Bilbo can also be seen as an example of Everyman, reflecting the
potential greatness in us all. He's just an ordinary person. And with his
small stature and simple, timid nature, he's certainly an unlikely hero.
摘要：

BARRON'SBOOKNOTESJ.R.R.TOLKIEN'STHEHOBBIT&THELORDOFTHERINGS^^^^^^^^^^J.R.R.TOLKIEN:THEAUTHORANDHISTIMESWhenyouwereyounger,didyouevermakeupstoriesaboutthepeopleandplacesaroundyourhome?Maybetherewasanabandonedhousethatinyourimaginationbecamehauntedbyghosts,oranoldneighborwomanthatyouenvisionedasawitch...

展开>> 收起<<
Cliff Notes - the hobbit & the lord of rings.pdf

共89页,预览18页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：89 页 大小：149.81KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-24

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 动力学连接体 力的合成 配电装置 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 89
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注