J. R. R. Tolkien J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings", and "The Silmarillion". He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both
Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien Fairy Stories" is of some importance to the literary genres of fantasy or mythopoeia. His 1930 lecture "A Secret Vice" addressed artistic languages at a time when the topic was of very limited visibility compared to the utilitarian projects of auxiliary languages. His 1955 valedictory lecture "English and Welsh" expounds upon his philosophy of language, his notion of native language and his views on linguistic aesthetics (c.f. "cellar door"). Smith (2007) is a monograph on Tolkien's philosophy of language. Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth