Greyhavener, interesting post. You say -
"he infused the world he created with the basic spiritual realities that were present in his own life"
Thanks for expressing it so precisely. But this is really as far as I think it goes. The Christian sensibility at work is, in effect, a traditional morality with particular emphasis on self-sacrifice, loyalty, humility, resistance to temptation and so on ... all very Catholic in essence. And this is fully consistent with Tolkien's own writings about the works.
However, the assertion that there is allegory, or rather simplistic symbolism, at work in LotR and Tolkien's other works, is far from clear, and has been analysed rigourously earlier in this thread. Tolkien's own contextual writings (in which he explicitly denies and deconstructs the 'allegory/symbolism' approach), the clear and indeed respectful references to other mythologies (and by inference other religions), the inconsistencies and contradictions that arise if you examine LotR as allegory or assign characters or objects as symbols of particular Biblical archetypes - all of these factors add up to a pretty strong counter to the reading his works as allegory/symbolism. Can I just add that the 'similarities' argument has come and gone. There are similarities in characters, symbols, episodes, and narrative structure between LotR (and other works) and ALL the major mythos (which Tolkien was aware of and had great affection for) - this includes Finnish and Norse (eg. Beowulf), the Irish, ancient English paganism, the Neibelung and so on. And in fact there are 'similarities' also with the Ramayana and other non-Western mythos. It is really not good enough simply to find parallels or similarities to the Bible and ignore all the others - nor does it follow that the clear similarities or parallels between any of these major mythos implies an act of allegory or homage. The idea of an eternal struggle between Good and Evil (and all the narrative in that context) exists beyond Christianity and the Bible.
And as I have said before, this reading of Tolkien's works seems to me also to diminish their value and resonance. From it one would infer lack of originality (instead, simply the ingenuity to cleverly disguise his sources), and a rather pompous and obsessive attempt to proselytise. And I do not think that does justice to the tremendous epic narratives Tolkien gave to us, nor to his attentive and imaginative vision.
The other problem is one of appropriation, which I have addressed in detail during previous posts in this thread. But in summary, there seems to be an attempt by some to associate Tolkien explicitly with modern American evangelical Christianity. The suggestion is that LotR is therefore a kind of advertisement for the One True Faith, and that in fact the works have no real meaning or merit outside of reflecting one specific (and, I would argue, culturally weighted) reading of Christianity.
The Bible itself is a complex and profound work with a number of narrative tensions (ie. contradictions), and in addition the phrases and tenets that are cited are in fact translations (or re-translations) of selected elements only. And surely the Bible can stand for itself - it does for me, and I neither want nor need imitations or allegories when I have access to the Real Thing.
I respect all the arguments and posters who have appeared on this thread, and I am truly impressed by the quality of argument and the eloquence therein. I really wish that before posting to this topic people would actually read and reflect on all 4 pages, as it seems to me that most if not all of the key issues have all been addressed from many viewpoints.
Well done to all (again) for keeping this lively and intelligent conversation alive [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]
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