The Hero With A Thousand Faces

An interesting book I found while researching heroes and their qualities is Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, which is frequently referred to as the definitive guide to hero characterisation. Campbell claims that all heroes throughout time shared the same fundamental structure: the monomyth, or the hero's journey. He describes it as follows:

My Contribution To The Class Website

The following is a copy of what I wrote for our class website under the Heroes in Film category. I chose to discuss medieval influences on The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, focusing on King Arthur.

King Arthur's Influence on The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

Ancient heroes have had many reincarnations in modern films. I will be examining the presence of King Arthur in The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

Some Beowulf/Lord of the Rings videos

This is just a post to share some interesting (and relevant) things I've found on YouTube lately.

This video examines some of the similarities between Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings.

Another shows their similarities by blending the texts together.

How Beowulf might have been performed the Anglo Saxons.

How Elvish, a language partly inspired by Old English, should sound.

And on a lighter note, how over one thousand pages and nine hours of film (or twelve hours of extended film) could be reduced to just two minutes.

The Influence of Beowulf on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

In this post I am going to discuss the influence of the Old English poem Beowulf on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy, focusing on the land of Rohan and the similarities between Gandalf and Beowulf.


One of the areas where I feel the connection is most evident is in The Two Towers, and the disintegration of the Golden Hall of Meduseld, under the rule of King Théoden of Rohan. The arrival of Gandalf and his comrades at Edoras closely echoes the arrival of Beowulf at Heorot, King Hrothgar's hall.