Lineages
Every great book stands on older ones. Homer gave Virgil his wanderings and his war; Virgil walked Dante through Hell. Start from a classic and follow its line, one work at a time, across the map.
What it draws on
AD 1000*
Tolkien was a scholar of Beowulf long before he was a novelist, and his 1936 lecture on it changed how the poem is read. Its mead-halls, barrows and dragon-guarded hoards run through Middle-earth; Meduseld, the golden hall of Rohan, is built on Heorot.
Source: Wikidata
Wikidata records The Lord of the Rings as inspired by Beowulf. Read it there
No later work in the atlas draws on The Lord of the Rings yet.