The literary works of J. R. R. Tolkien especially The Lord of the Rings are marked by their
author's professional interest in the history of English. This study shows how philological
features such as nomenclature archaism and echoes of Old English poetic forms have been
reflected in a selection of published translations into Germanic and Romance languages. It
demonstrates how current translation theory based on a hermeneutic approach can explain
translators' compensation techniques such as the use of analogous historical resources in the
target languages and how these can preserve literary and poetic effects. In doing so it also
offers a survey of characteristic stylistic features in the source text.
