The main epic traits of Tolkien’s work could be summarised as follows. This strong presence of the epic was partly a result of Tolkien’s personal taste and academic activities at the University of Oxford, where he taught Old and Middle English for many years. A detailed survey of the book’s epic features is undertaken in Martin Simonson’s The Lord of the Rings and the Western Narrative Tradition (2008), where they are put in relation to other narrative traditions. Over the years it has been convincingly compared with the literature of Milton (Sly, 2000), Virgil (Morse, 1986 Greenman, 1992 Obertino, 1993), and Homer (Fenwick, 1996), Appolonius (Mantovani 2019), as well as with other literary works rooted in the epic genre (notably, the anonymously composed Beowulf, which Tolkien studied, translated, and taught for many years at the University of Oxford). However, we know that Tolkien drew inspiration from many different mediaeval and classical sources, in which epic modes of fiction were very much present, and most scholars agree that the epic features of the tale are among the most prominent. The Lord of the Rings has proven very difficult to pinpoint genre-wise it has been assigned the label of myth, epic, heroic romance, adventure novel, high fantasy, and fairy-tale, to give but a few examples.

Against all odds, the Ring is finally destroyed, the forces of evil are vanquished, and a new, united kingdom of Men emerges in the wake of the great War of the Ring, while the elves fade and leave the world. Meanwhile, Aragorn, the future king of the elite human culture in Middle-earth, commits to the same cause, undergoes a series of trials and performs great heroic feats in his efforts to assist Frodo on his quest. The hobbit Frodo is chosen to carry the One Ring, a key object of power, to Mount Doom in Mordor, the land of the arch-enemy Sauron, and destroy it. Led by the Wizard Gandalf, the Fellowship sets out to save the world from an evil force which threatens to annihilate or enslave the so-called Free Peoples. Very briefly put, it tells the story of a group of unlikely heroes, belonging to a carefree people of halflings called Hobbits, who join a Fellowship made up of representatives of Men, Elves, and Dwarves.

As with most true epics, it is difficult to summarise the plot of this work in just a few lines. Tolkien’s conceit is that Middle-earth is our own world, but that the story takes place in an invented time period when the continents were shaped and placed differently. The Lord of the Rings is set in an invented world called Middle-earth.

Tolkien lord of the rings