Abstract
Using previous scholarship on the use of proverbs in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the present study reevaluates Tolkien’s use of proverbs in the series, with special attention to the use of pseudoproverbs and trying to provide sources that may have served as inspiration for the creation of Middle-earth proverbs. After close inspection of The Hobbit and the three parts of The Lord of the Rings, the findings point towards a less frequent use of proverbs than anticipated or presumed by previous authors. Moreover, despite including a far from negligible number of pseudoproverbs, for many of which inspiration has been found in some of the texts that Tolkien possessed and with which he was familiar, the style that Tolkien applied to his saga makes it difficult to determine whether certain sentences were indeed meant as proverbs by the author.
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ORCID ID
0000-0002-3903-2275
