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My Geometry teacher would say the same thing!!!
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Ah, well, my math teacher last year would always say of large equations, "Okay, so you take this mess and multiply it by this mess..." etc. Amusing. (<--
Blatant Sentence Fragment!) I think once his said "this mess" five times in one period.
But on topic, English teachers seem to believe it is their solemn duty to educate us about these literary elements and techniques, and then have us spit information back at them regarding how they affect the story. Oftentimes I am given assignments which consist of the analysis of tone and diction and such-- granted, they are important, but contrary to what my English teacher tells me, I don't believe most writers sit down and say to themselves, "Hmmm... I think I'll use this sort of tone here..." or "Aha! I shall characterize this person through the thoughts of another person about him!" Of course, for example, if one is writing something satirical, the tone will be a little humorous or caustic. But still, I have to wonder how many of the things we must analyze in school were actually done intentionally. I tend to think that things just develop on their own more than anything, as was the case with Tolkien's writing. Personally, I find certain unintentional elements in my own writing -- for example, I put a symbol in something I wrote without even realizing it. It makes me wonder, if ever I should write a great novel, if high schoolers would read it and their teachers would say, "Ooh, just look at that diction! Now why do you think she did that?" And it would be rather silly, because I probably wouldn't have done it for any particular reason at all; I probably would not have even realized what I was doing.
Gee, am I babbling much?
One thing I find a tad ironic (another literary technique!) is that I gripe about this in school and yet I dash to the CbC thread and am engrossed in much of the same thing.
And in Tolkien's case, perhaps we could call it the Six Act Formula: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and a great number of multi-lingual super-long brilliantly-rhymed poems thrown in there for good measure.
