The following abstract was submitted to the South Central Modern Language Association conference in 2011 as part of the Borrowings from the Past: Reception Studies Special Session. Since I chaired the panel, the abstract was in no danger of being rejected. It had previously been accepted at another conference, but could not be presented due to scheduling conflicts.
Much of the scholarly attention which has been devoted to Tolkien since the publication of The Lord of the Rings has focused on the Northern European derivation of the characters, cultures, and terms in his works. Certainly, the author’s own comments regarding his articulation of language in the works—notably Appendix F in Lord of the Rings and several of the author’s notes which appear in “Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan” in Unfinished Tales—and his own professional background substantiate such an approach. Too, the assertions of such critics as Lin Carter support the Northern sources of Tolkien’s work.
While assertions of Northern European derivation of the Middle-earth corpus are valid (even the name “Middle-earth” evokes images of Odin and Thor), a number of other critics, such as John Gough, Kathleen E. Dubs, and Kathleen O’Neill, postulate that Tolkien’s works operate in a more Christian than Northern Pagan mode. Such critics, while not inaccurate in their assertions, have yet to adequately explore what may be one of the strongest parallels between Christian theological writings and parts of the Middle-earth corpus; the correspondences between Milton’s Paradise Lost and Tolkien’s creation narratives are prominent, but largely unexplored. Conducting such an exploration would serve to more fully ground Tolkien’s work in the English Christian context others have asserted as being present.