Tolkien and the Classical World (book)

Tolkien and the Classical World

Front cover with Greek-style artwork of Dwarves fighting Trolls
Author	Hamish Williams
Cover artist	Jay Johnstone
Series	Cormarë, no. 45
Subject	Tolkien research
Genre	Scholarly essays
Publisher	Walking Tree
Publication date	2021
ISBN	978-3-905703-45-0

Tolkien and the Classical World is a 2021 scholarly collection of essays on the influence from ancient Greek and Roman civilisations on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, especially The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. It is edited by Hamish Williams, with an afterword by Graham Shipley that comments on the book and its themes. The essays explore different aspects of classical thought, not just looking for direct sources but for parallels and possibly unconscious influences. One area where Tolkien explicitly acknowledged classical influence was in his use of Plato's Atlantis legend in his tale of Númenor, the island civilisation that is lost beneath the waves.

The book has been broadly welcomed by scholars as exploring a largely overlooked area, not least because modern readers are less familiar with the classics than were readers in Tolkien's lifetime. Its essays have been praised in Mythlore as unusual in being entirely of good quality. Victor Parker comments that the authors face the problem that the classics thoroughly influenced medieval thought, so that it is often unclear whether an object has a medieval or a classical origin. Kevin Bouillot notes that the collection assumes some familiarity with Tolkien's writings, though not of the classics.