Use & Licensing

Historical Present follows the ways inherited language, old texts, remembered landscapes, and historical events continue to act in contemporary culture. Tolkien is an unusually clear instance of that process: a twentieth-century philologist whose fiction grew from sustained attention to medieval literature, historical language change, myth, and manuscript culture.

His work also has an extensive modern afterlife. It shapes publishing, fantasy literature, film, games, art, scholarship, and everyday language. The purpose of this profile is therefore historical and critical: to place the writer, the scholar, the books, and their reception in relation to one another.

This page is independent editorial work. It is not an official Tolkien publication and is not endorsed by the Tolkien Estate, its publishers, or film and game rights holders.

In the United States, Section 107 identifies criticism, comment, teaching, scholarship, research, and news reporting as examples of purposes that may qualify as fair use. Whether a particular use is fair depends on four factors considered together: the purpose and character of the use; the nature of the original work; the amount and importance of what is used; and the effect on the market for the original.

There is no automatic safe word count, percentage, or image size. A use that is educational or noncommercial is not necessarily fair, and only a court can finally decide a disputed claim.