The Gay Lord of the Rgs: Readgs From Middle-Earth

IS ‘THE LORD OF THE RGS’ A QUEER LOVE STORY?IN TOLKIEN’S FANTASY WORLD, GENR IS “OTHER”JONATHAN POLETTI·FOLLOWPUBLISHED ???????????·8 M READ·FEB 18, 2021--18SHAREIT WAS STRANGE — AN ALL-MALE EPIC WHOSE HERO WERE THE FEME ON? NOT EVERYBODY WAS TO “THE LORD OF THE RGS.” REVIEWS WERE FULL OF TART REMARKS.IN 1955, ONE NOT THAT J.R.R. TOLKIEN’S CHARACTERS SEEM NOT TO KNOW “ANYTHG ABOUT WOMEN, EXCEPT BY HEARSAY.” BUT, YEAR BY YEAR, THE WORLD FELL LOVE WH THE BIGGT, QUEERT, MOST CLOSETED LOVE STORY EVER.GIZTHEGUNSLGER, “BEHD BLUE EY” (2020)TOLKIEN’S SPECI’ ARE FULL OF GENRED CU.A HOBB, FOR EXAMPLE, IS SORT OF GAY. THIS SEEMS TO ME OVERT AND UNNTROVERSIAL. HILARY WHEATON, A 2006 SAY, “MASCULY LORD OF THE RGS,” NOT THE HOBBS SEEM “FEMIZED,” WH A LACK OF “MASCULE TRAS.”BUT THE GENERALLY STRAIGHT WORLD OF TOLKIEN FANS, SUCH OBSERVATNS N TO TROUBLE. IN A 2015 SAY, “SEX AND SUBTEXT TOLKIEN’S WORLD,” DAVID LAFONTAE ADDS: “THE HOMOEROTICISM OF THE HOBBS, THE RACE OF BEGS THAT LNCHED TOLKIEN’S FAME, HAS OFTEN BEEN GLOSSED OVER, NIED, AND SOMETIM ATTACKED.”HE POTS OUT THAT GOLLUM READ AS A “LISPG HOLLYWOOD STEREOTYPE OF A BTER QUEEN.”TOLKIEN HAD ALL BUT SAID THAT BAGGS WAS GAY.
LORD OF THE RG TAPS A GAY ARCHETYPE
‘LORD OF THE RGS’ IS STILL GAYER THAN EVER
THE GAY LORD OF THE RGS: READGS FROM MIDDLE-EARTH

IS ‘THE LORD OF THE RGS’ A QUEER LOVE STORY?IN TOLKIEN’S FANTASY WORLD, GENR IS “OTHER”JONATHAN POLETTI·FOLLOWPUBLISHED ???????????·8 M READ·FEB 18, 2021--18SHAREIT WAS STRANGE — AN ALL-MALE EPIC WHOSE HERO WERE THE FEME ON? NOT EVERYBODY WAS TO “THE LORD OF THE RGS.” REVIEWS WERE FULL OF TART REMARKS.IN 1955, ONE NOT THAT J.R.R. TOLKIEN’S CHARACTERS SEEM NOT TO KNOW “ANYTHG ABOUT WOMEN, EXCEPT BY HEARSAY.” BUT, YEAR BY YEAR, THE WORLD FELL LOVE WH THE BIGGT, QUEERT, MOST CLOSETED LOVE STORY EVER.GIZTHEGUNSLGER, “BEHD BLUE EY” (2020)TOLKIEN’S SPECI’ ARE FULL OF GENRED CU.A HOBB, FOR EXAMPLE, IS SORT OF GAY. THIS SEEMS TO ME OVERT AND UNNTROVERSIAL. HILARY WHEATON, A 2006 SAY, “MASCULY LORD OF THE RGS,” NOT THE HOBBS SEEM “FEMIZED,” WH A LACK OF “MASCULE TRAS.”BUT THE GENERALLY STRAIGHT WORLD OF TOLKIEN FANS, SUCH OBSERVATNS N TO TROUBLE. IN A 2015 SAY, “SEX AND SUBTEXT TOLKIEN’S WORLD,” DAVID LAFONTAE ADDS: “THE HOMOEROTICISM OF THE HOBBS, THE RACE OF BEGS THAT LNCHED TOLKIEN’S FAME, HAS OFTEN BEEN GLOSSED OVER, NIED, AND SOMETIM ATTACKED.”HE POTS OUT THAT GOLLUM READ AS A “LISPG HOLLYWOOD STEREOTYPE OF A BTER QUEEN.”TOLKIEN HAD ALL BUT SAID THAT BAGGS WAS GAY.

Note: This say ntas discsn of homophobia and mentn of suici. Outsi of the safe darkns of the theater, the Mordor-like wasteland of middle school, the movi were synonymo wh the favored sult of the time — “gay. Early-2000s preteen Ameri was a time of gay jok, of “no homo, ” of mockg voic and slurs, and secret, punive vlence enacted the locker room agast anyone who had a whiff of otherns.

He never would have wrten about gay people! He faced a urt-martial 1918 after one of his letters scribed “homosexual relatns wh men his pany.

Two years before The Lord of the Rgs was published, war-wng breaker and geni mathematician Alan Turg stood trial for “homosexual acts and gross cency” — that is, beg ught his own home wh another man.

LORD OF THE RG TAPS A GAY ARCHETYPE

Lewis wrote a letter to Sheldon Vanken (later reprted Vanken’s tobgraphy) that Lewis had received a letter om a “p male homosexual [... The only mentn is a bland reference his bgraphy by Humphrey Carpenter: “As to homosexualy, Tolkien claimed that at neteen he did not even know the word. Tolkien wrote of the openly gay poet W.

As scribed by thor Reynolds Price, at least one member of Tolkien’s iend group, the Inklgs, “separated om his wife and lived a quietly homosexual life.

She beme an in the gay male muny for wrg sympathetilly about same-sex relatnships ancient Greece.

‘LORD OF THE RGS’ IS STILL GAYER THAN EVER

Bilbo and Frodo’s home of Bag End is scribed by other hobbs as “a queer place, and s folk are queerer” — an adjective which had a strong nnotatn of homosexualy by the late 1800s. It’s tricky to apply morn labels to people that they did not claim life — but morn labels clu “straight” and “cisgenr” jt as much as “gay” or “transgenr.