Sustainable Fictions – Geographical, Literary and Cultural Intersections in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

Abstract

J. R. R. Tolkien s The Lord of the Rings (1954/1955), one of the founding texts of fantasy literature and the centrepiece of a number of writings about the geography, history and mythology of ‘Middle-earth’, has long become a cult phenomenon. We argue that in this influential text, Tolkien offers a fictional exploration of sustainability. Combining an application of Geographic Information System techniques with textual analysis and interpreting text and spatial data in conjunction, we show that there is a systematically varying distance between our real world and the physical features of Tolkien's ‘Secondary World’, as regards climate and vegetation patterns. There is an emphasis on land degeneration, a ‘missing forest problem’ which prompts a closer look at the role of woods and trees in Tolkien's work. It emerges that the preservation of trees is at the centre of Tolkien's sustainable fictions. For the author, it was a function of fantasy, which he sets against a dystopian and secular modernism as well as the destructive aspects of modernity, to provide (positive) ‘escape’, ‘consolation’ and ‘recovery’, which is achieved through a final vision of the successful preservation of the environment.