Leaf by Niggle

Born on January 3, 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien went on to be one of the most cherished authors of his time earning the title “Father of Modern Day Fantasy.” Tolkien served as a Pembroke Fellow at the University of Oxford from 1925 to 1945. He then switched positions to Merton Professor of English Literature and Language and stayed in this position until he retired. In addition to his academic accomplishments, Tolkien served in World War I, where he saw many of his friends killed in battle. His experiences in WWI and WWII would go on to influence many of his writings. For example, witnessing the destructive power of technology firsthand in World War I contributed to his well-known condemnation of industrialization’s impact on the environment. The author’s views on industrialization and his lifelong love of nature are reflected in the paradisiacal mountains that Niggle reaches at the end of the story, a setting that celebrates natural beauty and a pastoral way of life.

As a young man, Tolkien found himself part of a local literary club which met every week at a nearby pub called “The Eagle and the Child.” The group, which called themselves “The Inklings” were comprised of C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, other various local authors, and of course, Tolkien himself. This group would provide feedback on many of Tolkien’s most famous works. Tolkien would also provide feedback to his fellow writers, one of which was C. S. Lewis, author of The Narnia Chronicles. It was during his review of The Narnia Chronicles that Tolkien professed his issue with allegory and its use in fiction to Lewis. Tolkien’s disdain for allegory has been a chief debate among many scholars studying his writing because many of his works, such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, have been thought to contain parallels of religious symbols, characters, and stories. Even still, Tolkien has never openly admitted to intentionally writing such parallels, so readers are left to make their own interpretations as to what Tolkien is trying to convey with his characters and plot points. Therefore, readers and scholars alike have found many historical, religious, and artistic parallels among the pages of Tolkien’s work, including “Leaf By Niggle,” which is published in The Tolkien Reader.