Tolkien and Love

There was just something about our conversation about romance in class on Tuesday that made me cringe. It sounds immature, but Tolkien's writing about love time and magic BEING love is just too sweet for me, likely because it is something that I absolutely cannot relate to. I think that the love stories Tolkien wrote do reveal quite a bit about him and his relationship with his wife, Edith, though. He must have really loved her. Their relationship was either very magical and intense, or it was lacking this intensity greatly and that's why Tolkien always wrote about it.  As much as we think we know about Tolkien and his young love, we can't possibly know everything. Analyzing Tolkien as a writer of romance is something I had never thought to do before because it isn't the focus of most of his works. Love is just something that it included, but it doesn't usually take the forefront. Chapter 19 of The Silmarillion, "Of Beren and Lúthien," was crazy and Tolkien sure does make a mean love story. I would not be opposed to reading more and diving deeper into Tolkien's own romantic past.

-Melian