[davem]

On the allegory question, I think Tolkien is maybe protesting too much. In Letter 71 he writes:

‘For romance has grown out of ‘allegory’, & its wars are still derived from the ‘inner war’ of allegory in which good is on one side & various modes of badness on the other. In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley alliance of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, & angels. But iit does make some difference who are your captains & whether they are orc-like per se’

And in letter 66 he he even draws an allegorical comparison beween the Nazi’s & his own mythology:

‘For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. but the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, & slowly turn Men & Elves into Orcs.

In Letter 163 he writes to WH Auden:

‘each of us is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale & clothed in the garments of time & place, universal truth & everlasting life.’

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Perhaps its not so clear cut, though. Stratford Caldecottt in ‘Sacred Fire’ writes:

‘Tolkien always insisted that his fantasy was not an allegory. mordor was not Nazi germany, or Soviet Russia, any more than it was intended to be Saddam’s Iraq. ‘To ask if the Orcs ‘are’ Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs’. But at the same time he did not deny that the story was ‘applicable’ to contemporary affairs, indeed he affirmed this. It is applicable not merely in providing a parable to illustrate the danger of the machine, but in showing the reasons for that danger: sloth & stupidity, pride, greed, folly & lust for power, all exemplified in the various races of middle Earth.

Against these vices he set courage & courtesy, generosity & wisdom, in those same hearts. There is a universal moral law, but it is not the law of a tyrant. It iis the law that makes it possible for us to be free.’


Personally, I think its a case of what John Garth called ‘seeing the world through enchanted eyes’. What Tolkien seems to do is not so much ‘allegorise’ as ‘mythologise’ the world in his stories. (But...- I'll get to that in a moment) At the same time he didn’t dispise allegory as much as he claims - Niggle is an allegory, so is the ‘story’ of the Tower in the Beowullf essay, & as Verlyn Flieger points out in regard to Smith:

‘It must be conceded, however, that to some extent it invites reading as allegory & that Tolkien is in part responsible. Dislike it though he might, having started off with an allegorical conception he found it hard to shake off, & as a consequence it is all too easy to play at the same game’

The question that arises then is, given that he didn't 'cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations', as he was happy to make use of it when necessary, why is he so dogmatic in his condemnation of it here? I can't help feeling that he wanted to emphasise as strongly as possible that the Lord of the rings should not be taken by the reader as 'allegorical'. He wanted to disuade the reader from even trying to find any allegory in it - yet isn't there some allegorical dimension to the story - if we see it as a 'human' story - which it must be if it moves us, then it is 'allegorical' of us, of man's life in this world. We are all allegories, he tells Auden. Romance grows out of allegory. I think he had no problem with 'high' allegory - as in Beowulf. LotR can be taken as an allegory of the life of man on this planet, as can Beowulf. The Dragon is an allegory of Death, & the writer intends it to be. Its not a case of 'you can see this Dragon as Death if you wish'. Tolkien seems to be saying he doesn't want LotR to be taken as 'low' allegory - the War of the Ring = WW2.( But there are 'Orcs' wandering the woods of England with chainsaws).

If 'high' allegory is taken to refer to mythologising, then he seems fine with it - it 'allegorises' the human condition, living on this planet, facing the inevitability of Death. Indeed, I think he wants us to read it on that level, or he would not have advised that it shouldn't be read by children, only by adults who, hopefully, would be able to read it in the way he wanted it to be read & understood in the way he wanted it to be understood. To mythologise is to allegorise, but it is also to free the ideas & experiences the author wishes to communicate from the specific events of the primary world. This indeed makes the story timeless, as it can be applied to whatever events the reader experiences in their own lives.To mythologise is to allegorise the 'eternal', those events & experiences which recur in all lives, at all times. Shippey compares the Gondorian's faith in the Rammas to the Maginot Line of the allies in WW2. But Lewis & Currie (in The Uncharted Realms of Tolkien) relate it to the 'Star Wars' satellite defence system - a defensive system in the first two cases (& prob. in the third) that failed the hopes of their builders. Because Tolkien chose 'high' allegory, to 'mythologise' the attitude which produces Maginot Lines & 'Star Wars', etc, etc, then the Rammas can stand for all such defense systems.

Anyway, I fear I'm hogging this thread!