Bear with me here.... An Argument of Allegory

[Eriol]

Right . . . I understand it as his opinion. But nothing can discredit TOLKIEN'S own opinion when he says:

"The Lord of The Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously at first, but consciously in the revision"

Unless this is a fake quote?? But I think I remember reading it somewhere anyways, so I'm not sure.

This opinion of Tolkien's does not contradict with the other opinion of Tolkien's -- that there is no allegory in his works.

The good ole' thread "Finding God in the Lord of the Rings" has thousands of words about this matter. If you are willing to delve into it, you'll probably see every possible opinion about it represented there .

 

[Gothmog]

Well I think it is time to possibly dust off this thread.

I was looking through The Lays of Beleriand and found an interesting comment made by C.S.Lewis after he read The Gest of Beren and Luthien. Considering that Lewis himself wrote allegory, I think that it certainly gives an important view on the question of Allegory in Tolkien's works.

I sat up late last night and have read the Gest as far as to where Beren and his gnomish allies defeat the patrol of orcs above the sources of the Narog and disguise themselves in the reaf [Old English: 'garments, weapons, taken from the slain']. I can quite honestly say that it is ages since I have had an evening of such delight: and the personal interest of reading a friend's work had very little to do with it. I should have enjoyed it hust as well as if I'd picked it up in a bookshop, by an unknown author. The two things that come out clearly are the sense of reality in the background and the mythical value: the essence of a myth being that it should have no taint of allegory to the maker and yet should suggest incipient allegories to the reader,

So if Lewis could see that Tolkien (as 'the maker') wrote with "no taint of allegory" I say that his works (except where expressly stated by Tolkien) are not Allegory but have as Tolkien says 'Applicability'. The Allergory found in there by readers is put there by the reader himself.