Bombadil: The Reader

[The Saucepan Man]

So I can not take 'Bombadil as reader' to be an answer to 'who he is', but rather a very good example of 'how he functions as a literary device'.

For me, lindil is spot on with this analysis. The article presents a highly compelling argument as to how Tom Bombadil is used by Tolkien as a literary device to ease the reader out of the light-hearted environment of the Hobbit and the opening chapters of LotR into the altogether darker and more serious atmosphere which we find in the remainder of the book (although we have already had glimpses of this darker mood before we meet Old Tom). But it does not, and cannot, explain how Tom fits into the imaginary world (or "imaginary ecosphere" to borrow a phrase from another thread) which Tolkien has created.