J. R. R. Tolkien in the context of Stewards of Gondor

A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the Italian: novella for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the Latin: novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term romance. Such romances should not be confused with the genre fiction romance novel, which focuses on romantic love. M. H. Abrams and Walter Scott have argued that a novel is a fiction narrative that displays a realistic depiction of the state of a society, like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The romance, on the other hand, encompasses any fictitious narrative that emphasizes marvellous or uncommon incidents. In reality, such works are nevertheless also commonly called novels, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

The spread of printed books in China led to the appearance of the vernacular classic Chinese novels during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and Qing dynasty (1616–1911). An early example from Europe was Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by the Sufi writer Ibn Tufayl in Muslim Spain. Later developments occurred after the invention of the printing press. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (the first part of which was published in 1605), is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era. Literary historian Ian Watt, in The Rise of the Novel (1957), argued that the modern novel was born in the early 18th century with Robinson Crusoe.

Phonaesthetics (also spelled phonesthetics in North America) is the study of the beauty and pleasantness associated with the sounds of certain words or parts of words. The term was first used in this sense, perhaps by J. R. R. Tolkien, during the mid-20th century and derives from Ancient Greek φωνή (phōnḗ) 'voice, sound' and αἰσθητική (aisthētikḗ) 'aesthetics'. Speech sounds have many aesthetic qualities, some of which are subjectively regarded as euphonious (pleasing) or cacophonous (displeasing). Phonaesthetics remains a budding and often subjective field of study, with no scientifically or otherwise formally established definition; today, it mostly exists as a marginal branch of psychology, phonetics, or poetics.

More broadly, the British linguist David Crystal has regarded phonaesthetics as the study of "phonaesthesia" (i.e., sound symbolism and phonesthemes): that not just words but even certain sound combinations carry meaning. For example, he shows that English speakers tend to associate unpleasantness with the sound sl- in such words as sleazy, slime, slug, and slush, or they associate repetition lacking any particular shape with -tter in such words as chatter, glitter, flutter, and shatter.

Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. The term encompasses a broad variety of legends and narratives, especially those considered sacred narratives. Mythological themes and elements occur throughout Christian literature, including recurring myths such as ascending a mountain, the axis mundi, myths of combat, descent into the Underworld, accounts of a dying-and-rising god, a flood myth, stories about the founding of a tribe or city, and myths about great heroes (or saints) of the past, paradises, and self-sacrifice.

Various authors have also used it to refer to other mythological and allegorical elements found in the Bible, such as the story of the Leviathan. The term has been applied to myths and legends from the Middle Ages, such as the story of Saint George and the Dragon, the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and the legends of the Parsival. Multiple commentators have classified John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost as a work of Christian mythology. The term has also been applied to modern stories revolving around Christian themes and motifs, such as the writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Madeleine L'Engle, and George MacDonald.

A dwarf (pl. dwarfs or dwarves) is a type of supernatural short human-shaped being in Germanic folklore. Accounts of dwarfs vary significantly throughout history. They are commonly, but not exclusively, presented as living in mountains or stones and being skilled craftsmen. In early literary sources, only males are explicitly referred to as dwarfs. However, they are described as having sisters and daughters, while male and female dwarfs feature in later saga literature and folklore. Dwarfs are sometimes described as short; however, scholars have noted that this is neither explicit nor relevant to their roles in the earliest sources.

Dwarfs continue to feature in modern popular culture, such as in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Terry Pratchett, where they are often, but not exclusively, presented as distinct from elves.

Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and the fourth-oldest college of the university.

The college was founded in 1314 by two brothers from Devon, Bishop Walter Stapledon and Sir Richard Stapledon, as an institution to educate clergy, and has been located on Turl Street since 1315. At its foundation Exeter was popular with sons of the Devon gentry, though it has since become associated with a much broader range of notable alumni, including Raymond Raikes, William Morris, J. R. R. Tolkien, Richard Burton, Roger Bannister, Alan Bennett, and Philip Pullman.

The final act of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf includes Beowulf's fight with a dragon, the third monster he encounters in the epic. On his return from Heorot, where he killed Grendel and Grendel's mother, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats and rules wisely for fifty years until a slave awakens and angers a dragon by stealing a jeweled cup from its lair. When the angry dragon mercilessly burns the Geats' homes (including Beowulf's) and lands, Beowulf decides to fight and kill the monster personally. He and his thanes climb to the dragon's lair where, upon seeing the beast, the thanes flee in terror, leaving only Wiglaf to battle at Beowulf's side. When the dragon wounds Beowulf fatally, Wiglaf attacks it with his sword, and Beowulf kills it with his dagger.

This depiction indicates the growing importance and stabilization of the modern concept of the dragon within European mythology. Beowulf is the first piece of English literature to present a dragonslayer. Although the Beowulf dragon exhibits many existing motifs common to Germanic tradition, the Beowulf poet was the first to combine features and present a distinctive fire-breathing dragon. The Beowulf dragon was adapted for Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937), one of the forerunners of modern high fantasy.

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.

The title refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who in an earlier age created the One Ring, allowing him to rule the other Rings of Power given to men, dwarves, and elves, in his campaign to conquer all of Middle-earth. From homely beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land reminiscent of the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the quest to destroy the One Ring, seen mainly through the eyes of the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Aiding the hobbits are the wizard Gandalf, the men Aragorn and Boromir, the elf Legolas, and the dwarf Gimli, who unite as the Company of the Ring to rally the Free Peoples of Middle-earth against Sauron's armies and give Frodo a chance to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English alliterative verse. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs: the beheading game and the exchange of winnings. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh, Irish, and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest that tests his prowess. It remains popular in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage, and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.

The story describes how Sir Gawain, who was not yet a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any man to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him, after which the Green Knight stands, picks up his head, and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle at which he is a guest. The poem survives in one manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x., which also includes three religious narrative poems: Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. All four are written in a North West Midlands dialect of Middle English, and are thought to be by the same author, dubbed the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain Poet".

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British author, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalene College, Cambridge (1954–1963). He is best known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, but he is also noted for his other works of fiction, such as The Screwtape Letters and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, including Mere Christianity, Miracles and The Problem of Pain.

Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings. Both men served on the English faculty at the University of Oxford and were active in the informal Oxford literary group known as the Inklings. According to Lewis's 1955 memoir Surprised by Joy, he was baptized in the Church of Ireland but fell away from his faith during adolescence. Lewis returned to Anglicanism at the age of 32, owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, and he became an "ordinary layman of the Church of England". Lewis's faith profoundly affected his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.

Fróði (Old Norse: Frōði; Old English: Frōda; Middle High German: Vruote) is the name of a number of legendary Danish kings in various texts including Beowulf, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and his Ynglinga saga, Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum, and the Grottasǫngr. A Danish king by this name also appears as a minor character in the Middle High German epic Rabenschlacht. The name is possibly an eponym for the god Freyr.

• The Fróði of the Grottasǫngr is said to be the son of Fridleif, the son of Skjǫldr. According to Ynglinga saga it was in this Fróði's beer that King Fjǫlnir drowned. Snorri Sturluson here and in the Skáldskaparmál make this Fróði the contemporary of Roman emperor Augustus and comments on the peacefulness of his reign, referred to as Fróði's Peace, suggesting a relationship to the birth of Christ. Though Icelandic sources make this Fróði a very early Danish king, in Gesta Danorum (Book 5), Saxo puts him late in his series of rulers, though including the chronological equation with Augustus and mentioning the birth of Christ.
• The Fróði who, according to Ynglinga saga and Gesta Danorum, was the father of Halfdan. He would have lived in the 5th or 6th century. He appears to be the same king who later in the Ynglinga saga aided the Swedish king Ongenþeow in defeating the thrall Tunni. Because of this, Egil and his son Ottar (Ohthere) became tributaries to the Danish king.
• Fróði the father of Ingjald, who in Beowulf is Froda the father of Ingeld and king of the Heathobards. The existence of the Heathobards has been forgotten in Norse texts and this Fróði there sometimes appears as the brother of Halfdan with the long hostility between Heathobards and Danes becoming a family feud between Halfdan and his brother Fróði. Fróði kills Halfdan and is himself slain by Halfdan's sons Helgi (Halga) and Hroar (Hrothgar). (In Arngrímur Jónsson's Latin summary to the lost Skjöldunga saga the names Fróði and Ingjald are interchanged. Saxo Grammaticus (Book 6) makes this Fróði instead to be a very late legendary king, the son of Fridleif son of Saxo's late peaceful Fróði. Saxo knows some of the story of this feud but nothing of any relationship to Halfdan. Instead Saxo relates how this Fróði was slain by Saxons and how, after a marriage alliance between his son Ingel and a Saxon princess to heal the feud, Ingel opened it again at the urging of an old warrior, just as the hero Beowulf prophesies of Ingjald in the poem Beowulf.
• A legend from Ydre in the South Swedish highlands tells that a king known as Frode was killed by Urkon, the same cow that created Lake Sommen.

The form Fróði is still in use in Icelandic and Faroese and appears Latinized as Frotho or Frodo. The latter form of the name is used by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings for the main character of the story, Frodo Baggins. Alternative anglicizations are Frode, Fródi, Fróthi and Frodhi. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish form is Frode. The meaning of the name is "clever, learned, wise".

J. R. R. Tolkien, a fantasy author and professional philologist, drew on the Old English poem Beowulf for multiple aspects of his Middle-earth legendarium, alongside other influences. He used elements such as names, monsters, and the structure of society in a heroic age. He emulated its style, creating an impression of depth and adopting an elegiac tone. Tolkien admired the way that Beowulf, written by a Christian looking back at a pagan past, just as he was, embodied a "large symbolism" without ever becoming allegorical. He worked to echo the symbolism of life's road and individual heroism in The Lord of the Rings.

The names of races, including ents, orcs, and elves, and place names such as Orthanc and Meduseld, derive from Beowulf. The werebear Beorn in The Hobbit has been likened to the hero Beowulf himself; both names mean "bear" and both characters have enormous strength. Scholars have compared some of Tolkien's monsters to those in Beowulf. Both his trolls and Gollum share attributes with Grendel, while Smaug's characteristics closely match those of the Beowulf dragon.Tolkien's Riders of Rohan are distinctively Old English, and he has made use of multiple elements of Beowulf in creating them, including their language, culture, and poetry.The godlike Valar, their earthly paradise of Valinor, and the Old Straight Road that allowed the elves to sail to it, may all derive from the Scyld Scefing passage at the start of the poem.

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a children's fantasy novel by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. It is recognized as a classic in children's literature and is one of the best-selling books of all time, with over 100 million copies sold.

The Hobbit is set in Middle-earth and follows home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the titular hobbit who joins the wizard Gandalf and the thirteen dwarves of Thorin's Company on a quest to reclaim the dwarves' home and treasure from the dragon Smaug. Bilbo's journey takes him from his peaceful rural surroundings into more sinister territory.

Miranda Otto (born 16 December 1967) is an Australian actress. She is the daughter of actors Barry and Lindsay Otto and the paternal half-sister of actress Gracie Otto. Otto began her acting career in 1986 at age 18 and appeared in a variety of independent and major studio films in Australia. She made her major film debut in Emma's War in 1987 in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia's bush country during World War II.

After a decade of critically acclaimed roles in Australian films, Otto gained Hollywood's attention during the 1990s after appearing in supporting roles in the films The Thin Red Line and What Lies Beneath. She rose to fame in the early 2000s for playing Éowyn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film series, based on the classic fantasy novel of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien.

The Inklings were an informal literary discussion group associated with J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis at the University of Oxford for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949. The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction and encouraged the writing of fantasy. The best-known, apart from Tolkien and Lewis, were Charles Williams, and (although a Londoner) Owen Barfield.