[CLUE-Talk] Tolkien and allegory

[Dennis J Perkins]

> > >
> > >As for Tolkien, he has denied that he wrote it as an allegory.  Fine.
> > >But if one is going to try to understand why it was/is immensely popular,
> > >then allegorical argument are certainly going to come into play.  People
> > >don't intrinsically care about Middle Earth.  Using arguments based on
> > >symbol, allegory, etc. to justify its popularity is fine -- indeed,
> > >probably absolutely required.
> > >
> > But if you insist on using allegory when Tolkien despised allegory, 
> > aren't you misinterpreting the story?
> 
> Someone mentioned on here that he specifically rejected that it was about
> WWII...I remember reading that in my teens. Until that point, I always
> thought it WAS about that. So it's easy to see how someone can be wrong
> about an author's intent[*]. I think Tolkien was using the term "allegory" in a
> different sense than the term "symbolism", though, and that's why I posted
> this article. This author is using the lens of Christianity, however, so
> there could be distortion, of course. 
> 
> Tolkien despised setting out with the specific task of telling a morality
> tale, but it doesn't sound like he despised ending up with "truth" via
> symbolism, if that's what naturally fell out of his story-telling.  I mean,
> come on: Sauron. How much more representative of evil does it get? The ring:
> isn't there a bit of forbidden fruit aspect there? Maybe Tolkien didn't
> intend these sort of things on a conscious level, but it's easy to see why
> people think he did. 

Tolkien regarded allegory as a crude way to tell stories.

He did lament the fact that England had lost most of its myths.  Beowulf
and a lot of other Anglosaxon stories are almost unknown.   King Arthur
was a later creation and isn't even English because it is based on a
Celtic legend of Arthur, and it is heavily overlaid with medieval
themes.  Much of his writing outside of his professional writing was an
attempt to create a new mythology.  I don't know if he had planned on
eve publishing any of it, but he used pieces of it as background for the
Hobbit, and more of it for LOTR.

He started writing LOTR before WWII and he continued writing thru the
war and afterwards.  I think it took him 12 years to write it.  It
wasn't a story about WWII, but it undoubtedly influenced his mood. 

The story is that when the publisher asked for a sequel to The Hobbit,
he looked for something in the story he could use to tie the stories
together.  He chose the ring.  There might have been something about the
ring that he saw as a connection to old Germanic or Celtic myths, but I
don't know for sure.

Regarding Sauron, if you read the Silmarillion, you will see a renegade
Vala called Morgoth, who struggled against the other Valar to control
Middle Earth. This is a big oversimplification, of course.  Sauron was
one of his lieutenants, a lesser power, but still greater than elves,
dwarves or men.  The end of the Silmarillion talks about the coming of
the wizards.  Gandalf and the other wizards were apparently Maiar, and I
think Sauron was originally a Maiar before joining Sauron.

The Silmarillion does have a being, Eru, who created everything, but
there is no original sin or Messiah in his stories.  The Valar and Maiar
and other beings could be seen as angels, I guess, but the Valar shaped
the world and there is nothing in Christianity equivalent to that.  And
many of the elves had lived with the Valar at one time, altho some had
gone back to Middle Earth after Morgoth stole the Silmarills.  At the
end of LOTR, Elrond and the other elves left and returned to Valinor.