Shakespeare References in The Lord Of The Rings Part One: The Fellowship Of The Ring

Fantasy novels probably shouldn’t contain Shakespeare references, but there are a few references in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings Part One: The Fellowship Of The Ring. One of the characters says, “But all’s well as ends well” (p. 139), a variation on the title of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. There is then a reference to The Tempest, when another character says, “There was too much of that Mr. Underhill to go vanishing into thin air; or into thick air, as is more likely in this room” (p. 220). That line is a play on Prospero’s lines, “These our actors,/As I foretold you, were all spirits and/Are melted into air, into thin air.” Tolkien also refers to The Merchant Of Venice in Gandalf’s letter to Frodo: “All that is gold does not glitter” (p. 231). That line is an interesting variation of Shakespeare’s “All that glisters is not gold.” The line is repeated, with Frodo saying it (p. 325).

The Lord Of The Rings Part One: The Fellowship Of The Ring was originally published in 1954. The First Ballantine Books Edition was published it in 1965. The copy I read was from the seventy-eighth printing in January 1983.