Tolkien's Accomplishments

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is a world renowned fantasy author. Tolkien did many extraordinary things during his life. He was a philologist; philology is the study of language (“J. R. R. Tolkien” 5). J. R. R. Tolkien had a very large love and interest in language. He created his own languages. Tolkien is most widely known from the best-selling novel, The Hobbit and it’s following trilogy The Lord of the Rings. J. R. R. Tolkien led a difficult but very successful life according to his childhood, career, family life, and famous literary works. Tolkien’s youth was unfortunately filled with tragedy. H e was born January third in 1892. He was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and lived there for five years until his father died (Doughan 1). After …show more content…
After he realized his current writings were not going anywhere, Tolkien enlisted in the war. He became a Second Lieutenant in the Lancanshire Fusiliers. “For much of his World War I military career, Tolkien was branded medically unfit for service since he spent a lot of time in hospitals or garrison duty” (“The J. R. R. Tolkien Research Page” 2). Tolkien became sick because of “trench fever” and remained somewhat ill the rest of his life (Doughan 3). Tolkien’s first academic job was Assistant Lexicographer on the Oxford New English Dictionary. Tolkien kept writing and quickly left the dictionary and applied to be the senior post of Reader in English Language. He got that job and also taught at the University of Leeds (Doughan 4). He continued writing and his poetry was the first work of his printed. He also produced many scholarly articles. “Tolkien’s debt to his scholarly work is evident not only in the ancient meter but also the thematic elements he uses” (George 5). Tolkien’s most famous work, The Hobbit was published in 1937 and was an immediate success (Doughan 5). Tolkien retired from being the Merton Professor of English Language in 1959 (Doughan 4). J. R. R. Tolkien wrote many other successful works as