How Tolkien Presents Ordinary People in "The Silmarillion"
Inspired by collecting the prompts for the SWG's Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.
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How Tolkien Presents Ordinary People in "The Silmarillion"
Published on 12 May 2026 | Essay
Inspired by collecting the prompts for the SWG's Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.
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Topic: Tolkien Studies
Characters: No characters listed.
The World of J.R.R. Tolkien as History
Published on 6 January 2026 | Presentation
How does a story as familiar as Tolkien's quest narrative still feel so deep? This depth is created by the construction of the legendarium across decades and by techniques that mimic real-world historiography and create the kinds of uncertainties that encourage us wonder beyond the margins of the page.
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Topic: Historical Bias, Historiography and Tolkien, Tolkien Studies
Characters: No characters listed.
The Silmarillion: Who Speaks?
Published on 11 December 2024 | Research
The Silmarillion: Who Speaks? captures and analyzes data on dialogue, indirect speech, speech acts, and silence within The Silmarillion.
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Topic: Dataset, Tolkien Studies
Characters: No characters listed.
Death, Grief, and the Other in the "Quenta Silmarillion"
Published on 7 September 2024 | Conference Paper
The narrator of the Quenta Silmarillion uses death, grief, and mourning rituals to generate sympathy for or dehumanize groups of characters considered the Other.
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Topic: Historical Bias, Historiography and Tolkien, Tolkien Studies
Characters: Pengolodh
Grief, Grieving, and Permission to Mourn in the "Quenta Silmarillion"
Published on 12 April 2024 | Conference Paper
In the Quenta Silmarillion, the narrator of The Silmarillion allows characters to experience grief and express mourning in different ways, reflecting the biases that he brings to the text.
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Topic: Historical Bias, Historiography and Tolkien, Tolkien Studies
Characters: Pengolodh