J. R. R. Tolkien villain, Gilles de Retz. Incidents in both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" are similar in narrative and style to the novel, and its overall style and imagery have been suggested as an influence on Tolkien. Tolkien was inspired by early Germanic, especially Old English, literature, poetry, and mythology, which were his chosen and much-loved areas of expertise. These sources of inspiration included Old English literature such as "Beowulf", Norse sagas such as the "Volsunga saga" and the "Hervarar saga", the "Poetic Edda", the "Prose Edda", the "Nibelungenlied", and numerous other culturally related works. Despite the similarities of
Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien The philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien created a number of constructed languages, including languages devised for fictional settings. Inventing languages (called "glossopoeia" by Tolkien, from Greek γλῶσσα glôssa, "language, tongue" and ποιῶ poiô, "to make" paralleling his idea of "mythopoeia" or myth-making) was a lifelong occupation for Tolkien, starting in his teens. An early project of Tolkien was the reconstruction of an unrecorded early Germanic language which might have been spoken by the people of "Beowulf" in the Germanic heroic age. The most-developed project of Tolkien was his Elvish languages. He