Creating a World

Tolkien once said that he wanted to create a world around a language he made up  in an effort to make the language seem more believable. So he set about creating lands and peoples with names, cultures,  and history. In order to make the world seem believable and the languages seem realistic, Tolkien had to include things like food and art. For this reason, he expounds on the food in the Shire or the songs of the Elves and Dwarves. I think it's interesting that one can create an image in their mind of a country or people in reality, for instance Italy, based on what we know of their food and art and language. In the same way, Tolkien has made us able to imagine his created peoples and places with his descriptions of those things. He has made his world so real!