Intertextual Patterns in J.R.R.Tolkien‟s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

Abstract

The thesis that every text is a „mosaic of quotations‟ from other texts becomes particularly obvious when examining literary fantasy, which refers to the implied readers‟ previous reading rather than to real life. An analysis of Tolkien‟s work shows that differences of style and narrative technique can be described as due to the choice of different pre-texts. In The Hobbit, fairy-tale and epic discourses are juxtaposed with everyday speech pattern through irony and parody. In The Lord of the Rings, elements of the nineteenth-century novel like circumstantial realism and pathetic fallacy are supplemented by archaic rhetorical patterns. The concept of intertextuality also enables us to examine the relationship between text and reader.