Histories of ME as literature

[Beanamir of Gondor]

Hey all! Warning: plea for help ahead.

This coming fall, I'll be starting my undergraduate thesis, and I'm trying to get the basics of my research started before I pick my advisor. I'm an English major with History and French minors, and since the histories of Middlearth are, after all, fictional histories based upon language systems Tolkien created (and they're my favorite books ever ), I'll probably be basing my thesis around them.

Here's the thing: where do I start? I can search JSTOR as much as I want, but until I have an idea of what I want to write about, those 10,000 article hits won't do me much good. Also, the project as I'm looking at it now is abstract, mindbogglingly huge, and terrifying, and therefore I don't even know what topic I'd take on (Middlearth as England? the gods and goddesses?). I'm sure some of you Downers have written serious academic discussions on Tolkien's works as literature: do you guys (or others) have any suggestions? Should I meta-analyze, or should I pretend that the histories are real facts, and that only Tolkien's approach to them is literature? What topics would be interesting from an academic approach? I'm grateful for any suggestions, no matter how stupid!