[CLUE-Talk] Tolkien and allegory

[Sean LeBlanc]

Last week at the pre-study group dinner, someone mentioned that Tolkien
didn't like allegory. I just remember being stunned to hear that. In
retrospect, I shouldn't have been - I do remember that he denied some of the
symbolism that people have since attributed to his work. Even Hemingway has
done similar stuff, though, IIRC: saying his stuff had no symbolism in it.
If Hemingway's stuff was "just" about, for example, an old man fishing, it
wouldn't be revered all that much. (I'm sure old Ernie isn't revered all
that much anymore as it is due to his macho persona...I could see some of
the feminists sharpening the knives when I was in uni back in 1991 - but
that's another story). But I think I'm garbling up the terms "symbolism" and
"allegory".

Anyway, I thought I'd go googling for this since I had never heard that
Tolkien hated allegory. It seems an odd position for him to take since he
was supposedly a devout Christian. Anyway, found this:

http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/zenit-tolkien.html
Should probably take this with a grain of salt given the source, though. 

Note this part especially:

 Q: Do you think this was Tolkien's intention?

 Pearce: There is no doubt that "The Lord of the Rings" is a profoundly
 Christian myth, but that is not the same as saying that it is an allegory.

 Tolkien disliked allegory because he saw it as a rather crude literary form.
 In an allegory, the writer begins with the point he wishes to make and then
 makes up a story to make his point. The story is really little more than a
 means of illustrating the moral.

 Tolkien believed that a myth should not be allegorical but that it should be
 "applicable." In other words, the truth that emerges in the story can be
 applied to the truth that emerges in life.

 There is, therefore, a good deal of truth in "The Lord of the Rings" even
 though its author never set out intentionally to introduce it allegorically.
 This is, perhaps, a subtle distinction but one which Tolkien believed was
 important. 


I found the opening question amusing:

 Q: There have been criticisms of some fantasy stories because of their
 allegedly pagan orientation. Do you see Tolkien's works as being part of
 this genre or is it different? 

Huh? Doesn't Christianity itself have some conspicuously placed holidays and
traditions that derive from "paganism"? Anyway.... 


Hope everyone had a Happy Festivus.

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at americanisp.net  
http://users.americanisp.net/~seanleblanc/
Get MLAC at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlac/
The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is 
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-H.G. Wells, "The Discovery of the Future"