I think this, along with most of the comments in this thread, is oversimplistic and does Tolkien and his work a pretty serious disservice.
Tolkien was an academic, a student of myth. The reason his works are some of the best-selling books ever written, and that they still resonate with people so strongly seventy-five years later, is not because LOTR is a gritty take on the realities of trench warfare - it’s because Tolkien understood, possibly better than anyone else ever has, feelings, experiences, and tropes that are timeless, ideas that are innate to the human experience.
Everyone saying “Tolkien based LOTR on his experiences in WWI” is entirely missing the fact that Tolkien was attempting to create a mythology. Mythical stories across the world throughout history, from the Bible to Germanic sagas, to Finnish myth, to Greek myth, to middle-eastern myths, feature similar tropes of “not acting until it’s almost too late”, and I honestly think it’s insulting to ignore the fact that Tolkien was tapping into his vast understanding of myth to distill truths about the human experience that have nearly universal appeal, only to instead put him into a shallow box of “he wuz riting about Worl War I/II/nuclear bombs/whatevs lol”.
Did those experiences factor into his Middle Earth writings? Of course they did, but it’s still badly missing the point to claim that his works are allegorical as a result. That’s why Tolkien always reacted so strongly when people accused him of allegory - it’s, frankly, an insult, and a complete misunderstanding of the point of Tolkien’s work in the first place.
Arise now, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Dire deeds awake: dark is it eastward.
Let horse be bridled, horn be sounded!
Forth, Eorlingas!
Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!
One of my very favorite scenes in the story. Gives you chills
Exactly. It’s the difference between “the ring is a great power that corrupts” that the reader can draw parallels to their own experiences with, and “ring = nuclear bomb, Isengard = No Man’s Land” like it’s a slide puzzle with only one right answer.
A work can be deeply personal and reflect your beliefs without having to be strictly allegorical.
Myths are one of the most allegorical kind of story-telling, though. The fight between good and evil is how the world came to be. This guy is wisdom, that guy is trickery. This is why the seasons are. Don’t fly too close to the sun. The gods behave much like the kings and emperors, and maybe they’re even related. It’s a very Christian take to call these mere fables, just stories, divorced from any reality or historical context. No! They were renditions of the philosophical questions and material forces in the lives of the people who told them. That’s why they were so important to them. Just as those people did, Tolkien told myths which drew on the questions and experiences of his own time. That is allegorical, whether he liked the word or not.
On the surface to a casual observer, sure, but once you spend any time with myth at all, you start seeing the powerful similarities and tropes shared between these age-old stories across the world, regardless of culture and what natural phenomena the individual stories happen to be about, and you realize that there’s something much more fundamental, universal, and human about myth than just “a bunch of allegorical stories about why the sun rises every morning”.
That’s the difference between studying a myth and studying myth. And that’s not a Christian take - it’s an anthropological point of view that places these stories in their proper context and realizes that they are expressions of a shared humanity.
It’s no coincidence that Tolkien’s work in philology and linguistics came precisely during the structuralist revolution that grew out of the anthropological linguistic work of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Shared human behaviors have local, contextual realizations, and individual myths are a reflection of that fact.
Just as those people did, Tolkien told myths which drew on the questions and experiences of his own time. That is allegorical, whether he liked the word or not.
I could not disagree more strongly. All works of art draw on experiences of the artist’s life, and to conclude that all art is therefore allegory is not just doing Tolkien a disservice, but allegory as well.
Allegory is a powerful tool, one of the most effective ways of speaking truth to power, and is one of the main reasons that bards and poets across the world throughout history have been so feared and respected by authorities.
As such, “allegory” is far too useful a term to water down to “any story that has any sort of meaning to it whatsoever”, and I think that doing so is a mistake.
That doesn’t mean that each reader can’t take whatever meaning is relevant to them from a work, of course, and I believe that Tolkien would certainly encourage this - it only means, specifically, that the ability of a reader to attempt to practice allegoresis does not entail that the work in question is necessarily therefore allegorical.
That is to say, you’re still conflating a story being allegorical with a story being meaningful.
Of course they are, I’m in complete agreement here. People all around the world tell myths and they describe universal human experiences. People around the world have a great deal of experience in common. One of them is telling stories where characters in some way represent big ideas, superhuman forces of the world, or great human figures renamed. There are other good uses for the word ‘allegory’ but this correctly describes the form of so much of myth.
I really would never describe them as
just “a bunch of allegorical stories about why the sun rises every morning”.
at all. On the contrary, it is noteworthy in it’s universality. But it’s not the only kind of storytelling, and not the only universal kind, and it is certainly not the only universal kind of art. So I think it’s not watering anything down or doing either of them a disservice to make the distinction this way.
Anyway, despite disagreeing with you I want to say I do respect your opinion, you’ve clearly read and thought about it a lot, and I think it’s a valid position to come to. Agree to disagree I guess.
I think this, along with most of the comments in this thread, is oversimplistic and does Tolkien and his work a pretty serious disservice.
Tolkien was an academic, a student of myth. The reason his works are some of the best-selling books ever written, and that they still resonate with people so strongly seventy-five years later, is not because LOTR is a gritty take on the realities of trench warfare - it’s because Tolkien understood, possibly better than anyone else ever has, feelings, experiences, and tropes that are timeless, ideas that are innate to the human experience.
Everyone saying “Tolkien based LOTR on his experiences in WWI” is entirely missing the fact that Tolkien was attempting to create a mythology. Mythical stories across the world throughout history, from the Bible to Germanic sagas, to Finnish myth, to Greek myth, to middle-eastern myths, feature similar tropes of “not acting until it’s almost too late”, and I honestly think it’s insulting to ignore the fact that Tolkien was tapping into his vast understanding of myth to distill truths about the human experience that have nearly universal appeal, only to instead put him into a shallow box of “he wuz riting about Worl War I/II/nuclear bombs/whatevs lol”.
Did those experiences factor into his Middle Earth writings? Of course they did, but it’s still badly missing the point to claim that his works are allegorical as a result. That’s why Tolkien always reacted so strongly when people accused him of allegory - it’s, frankly, an insult, and a complete misunderstanding of the point of Tolkien’s work in the first place.
Goddamn, your comment inspired me to reread the trilogy. Well done!
I’m right in the middle of my yearly reread now as well. :)
Hey, me too! Rohan has just arrived to aid Gondor. God I love these books.
One of my very favorite scenes in the story. Gives you chills
Exactly. It’s the difference between “the ring is a great power that corrupts” that the reader can draw parallels to their own experiences with, and “ring = nuclear bomb, Isengard = No Man’s Land” like it’s a slide puzzle with only one right answer.
A work can be deeply personal and reflect your beliefs without having to be strictly allegorical.
Myths are one of the most allegorical kind of story-telling, though. The fight between good and evil is how the world came to be. This guy is wisdom, that guy is trickery. This is why the seasons are. Don’t fly too close to the sun. The gods behave much like the kings and emperors, and maybe they’re even related. It’s a very Christian take to call these mere fables, just stories, divorced from any reality or historical context. No! They were renditions of the philosophical questions and material forces in the lives of the people who told them. That’s why they were so important to them. Just as those people did, Tolkien told myths which drew on the questions and experiences of his own time. That is allegorical, whether he liked the word or not.
On the surface to a casual observer, sure, but once you spend any time with myth at all, you start seeing the powerful similarities and tropes shared between these age-old stories across the world, regardless of culture and what natural phenomena the individual stories happen to be about, and you realize that there’s something much more fundamental, universal, and human about myth than just “a bunch of allegorical stories about why the sun rises every morning”.
That’s the difference between studying a myth and studying myth. And that’s not a Christian take - it’s an anthropological point of view that places these stories in their proper context and realizes that they are expressions of a shared humanity.
It’s no coincidence that Tolkien’s work in philology and linguistics came precisely during the structuralist revolution that grew out of the anthropological linguistic work of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Shared human behaviors have local, contextual realizations, and individual myths are a reflection of that fact.
I could not disagree more strongly. All works of art draw on experiences of the artist’s life, and to conclude that all art is therefore allegory is not just doing Tolkien a disservice, but allegory as well.
Allegory is a powerful tool, one of the most effective ways of speaking truth to power, and is one of the main reasons that bards and poets across the world throughout history have been so feared and respected by authorities.
As such, “allegory” is far too useful a term to water down to “any story that has any sort of meaning to it whatsoever”, and I think that doing so is a mistake.
That doesn’t mean that each reader can’t take whatever meaning is relevant to them from a work, of course, and I believe that Tolkien would certainly encourage this - it only means, specifically, that the ability of a reader to attempt to practice allegoresis does not entail that the work in question is necessarily therefore allegorical.
That is to say, you’re still conflating a story being allegorical with a story being meaningful.
Of course they are, I’m in complete agreement here. People all around the world tell myths and they describe universal human experiences. People around the world have a great deal of experience in common. One of them is telling stories where characters in some way represent big ideas, superhuman forces of the world, or great human figures renamed. There are other good uses for the word ‘allegory’ but this correctly describes the form of so much of myth.
I really would never describe them as
at all. On the contrary, it is noteworthy in it’s universality. But it’s not the only kind of storytelling, and not the only universal kind, and it is certainly not the only universal kind of art. So I think it’s not watering anything down or doing either of them a disservice to make the distinction this way.
Anyway, despite disagreeing with you I want to say I do respect your opinion, you’ve clearly read and thought about it a lot, and I think it’s a valid position to come to. Agree to disagree I guess.