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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Extending Arda: Mapping Beyond The Lord Of The Rings And Silmarillion, Stentor Danielson
Extending Arda: Mapping Beyond The Lord Of The Rings And Silmarillion, Stentor Danielson
Journal of Tolkien Research
The canonical maps by Christopher Tolkien from The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion cover only a small portion of the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium. In the years since their publication, many artists have been inspired to try to create maps of the entire world. In doing so, they have both curated the canonical information provided by Tolkien as well as engaged in their own sub-creation, drawing on geographical ideas from the primary world. This paper examines a broad set of fan-made maps of Arda to trace the lineages of their geographical conceptions and the principles behind their …
Military Cartography’S Influence On Tolkien’S Maps Of Middle-Earth, Stentor Danielson
Military Cartography’S Influence On Tolkien’S Maps Of Middle-Earth, Stentor Danielson
Journal of Tolkien Research
The published maps of Middle-earth by Christopher Tolkien drew on extensive drafts made by his father during the process of his writing. These drafts enable tracing the possible influence of the elder Tolkien’s training in map-reading during his time in the British Army during the First World War. The early maps drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien exhibit features, such as the use of hachures and contour lines to indicate elevation, and a focus on the accurate calculation of distances and movements, that were characteristic of military cartography. The maps then evolved into a more pictorial style, characteristic of contemporary literary maps, …
Re-Reading The Map Of Middle-Earth: Fan Cartography's Engagement With Tolkien's Legendarium, Stentor Danielson
Re-Reading The Map Of Middle-Earth: Fan Cartography's Engagement With Tolkien's Legendarium, Stentor Danielson
Journal of Tolkien Research
J.R.R. Tolkien provided an elaborate textual history for his writings about Middle-earth, but did not do so for his now-iconic maps. This paper examines how this difference, in concert with the general tendency of readers to treat maps as objective records of geography, has manifested in Tolkien's work and fan works based upon it. An examination of fan cartography shows a strong tendency to treat the published maps as records of geographical fact rather than historical documents from within Middle-earth.