[davem]

Think of these as tributes...

In what sense? Either they don't belong in the story, or they are placed there deliberately. They either shouldn't be there, if the story is to stand alone as a self contained story set in a self contained world, or they are chosen for a specific reason.

This brings us to the question of what Tolkien was doing. Was he really writing a story which had no specific inner meaning, or relevance to the primary world? Or at least no meaning beyond what the individual reader could find there. Did he have any hopes for the story, did he want it to produce any particular effect - beyond the emotional responses he mentions in the forword? And if the work did produce more profund effects in the reader, would he have disowned 'responsibility'?

His exploration of the nature of time & our experience of it, of language, of myth. Its all in the book - deliberately placed there. So does he want us to pick up on that or simply be carried along by the effect of those things - part of the 'spell' he is casting? Does he wish us to read the novel in that 'other' way I described? Its a Catholic work, as he said - does he want us to read it in that way, or is that 'private'? Or does his opinion in that count?

Are such things too personal to him, so that he will go out of his way to disuade us, as in the second forword, from exploring those things, seeking them in the novel? Why introduce the Incarnation into Middle Earth (Athrabeth). In his later writings he seems almost driven to Christianise Middle Earth, bring it into line with the history of this world - would he have published this, if given the chance, or would it have remained private?

All I have are questions. The Christianity is too blatant - perhaps necessarily, given the man. He is clearly writing about things he loves, but he's disguising them - though he disguises them less & less the older he gets. The Legendarium becomes increasingly a reflection of the man himself. How detached from it was he able to be at the time he wrote LotR? It seems that in the first forword he was closer to it (or it closer to him) than he was when he wrote the second one, but is that the case? And his tendency to refer to the devil as Sauron - in the essay its stated he considered the sacraments as a defense against Sauron. Men with chainsaws are 'Orcs'. Is this simple 'applicability'? or has the myth overlaid the primary world to the extent that they in the end they became one?

Perhaps in his mind Elbereth was the Virgin Mary - or her 'manifestation' in Middle Earth, so that Middle Earth really was this world 'seen through enchanted eyes'. In that case how could we treat Middle Earth as a stand alone work of art? To what extent was he able to detach himself from his creation, or to detach this world from the world he had invented?

Or should we even care? If Middle Earth can stand alone, shouldn't it? My weakness in this context is that I can't divorce the artist from the art. It all blurs together in my mind as perhaps it did in his. Perhaps he saw this as a problem, that if it happened it would stop the reader truly appreciating his creation - maybe this is why he refused to write an autobiography. Its interesting to speculate on - because I can't do it any longer - what we would come up with if we only had LotR & Hobbit. If we had no letters, biography, HoME, just the books he published in his lifetime. Yet, did he really want that? If he did then why re-write the forword - the first places him as detached translator, the second is his admission, his claim to be its inventor. It becomes his work, the product of his mind, & brings an invitation to speculate on why he wrote what he did. In the first one he claims he has nothing to do with its content, in the second he claims he has everything to do with it - it takes on a biographical dimension - he even gives us some biography, telling us that he fought in the first world war, that he has a son who fought in the second, that he suffered from writers block, he gives us his opinion on literary critics, & by extension on modern literature. He tells us that he has been affected by his experiences - inviting us to specualte on those experiences, & the way in which they affected him. He tells us about the loss of his childhood friends, & the pain he suffered at he loss of the places he knew as a child. He even gives us information about his financial state - he couldn't afford to pay a typist (we know from the essay I quoted). He even tells us that he was not too organised - 'I have failed to keep my notes in order'.

He is making himself a part of the story - he is not 'playing the game'. He is stating clearly that this story is his invention, that it has come from his mind & out of his own experience. He tells us a great deal about himself. We get to know a lot about him. He must want us to. To say the story has no 'inner' meaning or message is almost to claim that he himself has none, or at least none to communicate - yet doesn't any author wish above all to communicate?

Could he really have written a story that didn't reflect himself, his beliefs & the things that moved him? Yet are those things that have no inner meaning? Or perhaps he is saying that the meaning is not concealed - it is out in the open, for those who can see it. Perhaps for him it is such a blatantly Catholic work that he thought it would be obvious to others, that he expected attentive readers to see Mary in Galadriel & Elbereth - that for them that would not constitute an 'inner' meaning. In that case Galadriel wouldn't be an 'allegory' of Mary, she would be Mary, by another name.

All speculation, yet genuine, & not intended to be 'provocative'. I accept Durelin's point:

This is a perfect example of taking applicability too far. You may see symbolisms that relate to you, as it is your own mind reading and comprehending.

Maybe I am. Yet my 'applicability' corresponds in part with Tolkien's own - Elbereth & Galadriel as Mary, Lembas as the Host - not that either of us has any claim to being right in it. If Tolkien tells us that Elbereth = Mary, or Lembas = the Host, or that they are the Middle Earth equivalent or 'echo' of them, no-one has to accept that, if Middle Earth is taken as a 'historical' place, with its own existence, not as the invention of JRR Tolkien, & as such a reflection of him. Tolkien would probably have said that the reader did not need to see Elbereth as Mary, but would he have denied any connection, would he have rejected the idea out of hand?

So we end up back at the original 'conflict' - do we approach Middle Earth as being an 'objective' historical place, which we can enter, analyse within its own terms, or do we see it as Tolkien's creation? Is there any room for Tolkien - or should there be? Does he want to be there - does he want us to include him?

That's another question I can't answer.