WI: Tolkien without ww1

That question intrigues me from years-how would Tolkien's life looks like if there was no ww1? In 1914 he didn't yet created Middle-earth mythology and there are opinions that his ww1 experiences heavy influenced his works, altough he denied that Middle-earth stories are alegories of real history. What do you think? How would his life and career looks like? Would we see any "LOTR" analogue?
 

Thande

Donor
There's a difference between allegory and influence.

Tolkien would probably still have written fantasy but it would have been significantly different to what we know: more like the Book of Lost Tales, trying to capture the sense of the Germanic and Finnish sagas he adored and reinventing them in a uniquely English setting. His works would lack the visceral edge he got from his war experiences and would almost certainly be more obscure. He might still write children's books but they wouldn't come into contact with his Silmarillion-type 'serious' mythology (OTOH, he didn't intend for this to happen with The Hobbit but it did, so who knows...)
 
It seems like many authors of classics are tortured by something - even Stephen King (certainly popular if not classic) admitted to bouts of alcoholism.

Maybe he would have written something more like the Wizard of Oz instead of LOTR.
 
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