Posted: December 10, 1999 at 02:40:19: by Thorongil
: Sure, Tolkien did include Egyptian, Roman, possibly even Arab, Indian, Sumerian or whatever influences in his world. But he did not go cherrypicking between cultures. He introduced these 'foreign' cultures so that they should appear foreign to the reader, who is supposed to associate with the Hobbits. At the time, Tolkien was not envisaging the worldwide audience he now has, but was writing for an English audience. So, the Shire is most like the England of his day, complete with waistcoats, mantlepiece clocks, umbrellas and Warwickshire/ Oxfordshire dialect. Bree is just a shade more foreign than that. Rohan is a little more foreign still, followed by Gondor. Most foreign of all are the Haradrim. If he were setting his story in today's world, he might choose to represent the Shire by Warwickshire, Bree by East Anglia, Rohan Germany, Gondor Italy and Harad Turkey. That just about illustrates how the places get increasingly strange and foreign for somebody from Warwickshire. Only, now that we have a worldwide audience, a reader from Italy or Turkey or Japan will have a different opinion as to what is foreign to him/her.: end of rant. : back to the cosmopolitan chery picking issue, the presence of Egyptian headdresses and turkish swords does not imply that Tolkien was cherry picking to create the ideal people with an ideal people, but that these elements should be seen as waht they are: foreign and strange to shire-dwellers. The shire itself is non cosmopolitan. There are no scitmars or egyptian masks there. The Shire should be based on one single style, and that can be 19th century England or mediaevil England or even 16th century lower Germany if you want, but not a hotch-potch. I hope I didn't come across as seeming to say that the shire was a mixture of a bunch of different cultures or anything of the sort.. I intended and thought I said the middle earth as a whole does not fit into anyone time or culture, because middle earth as a whole has a number of influences spanning time from ancient egypt to 19th century england and spanning cultures just as far. therefore it would be, in my opinion, a lessening of the scope and granduer of middle earth to paint it in a monotone medieval culture and time period. In an ideal world it would be portrayed as tolkien wrote it which includes a wide spectrum of influences.. not that tolkien 'cherry' picked them and randomly threw them in, but a wide array of influences that the professor carefuly used to create the feel of middle earth, a place that is at once very cosey and homelike and at the same time very magical and mystical. but enough of my rant. :)
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