Bethberry said:
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I think this moral freedom of the reader is absolutely imperative in Tolkien and relates crucially to his notion of free will.
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I think it goes even farther than that: it is a way for Tolkien as an artist to show confidence in the art he has made. Only if the reader (or listener, or viewer--this is true of any medium) is free to interpret the art as s/he sees fit can the creator ever know if it stands alone and achieves any meaning at all, let alone the intended one. Authors who use forewords to go on endlessly about meaning or metaphor have always seemed to me to be the literary equivalent of parents who can't stop smoothing cowlicks, straightening collars, and wiping faces long enough to send their children out into the world to succeed or fail. And in the end, that's what any piece of art has got to do: regardless of the high or low intentions of the creator, it must stand on its merits. Both Tolkien and Bronte are quite right to step back and let their readers find what they will in their stories.