[davem]

If a reader (or a 'critic') interprets (honestly oor otherwise) LotR as an allegory of WW2, that's up to them. the question is whether Tolkien wrote it as such. I think there's enough evidence to show he didn't. It may have been, in part, his response to WW2, & to other things that he had experienced - WW1, loss of his parents at a young age, etc. He himself stated that Sam was in part a tribute to the Batmen of WW1.

So, the Scouring of the Shire may have been his response to the destrucion oof the English countryside that he loved, but the result is not an 'allegory' of that destruction - it would be more accurate (though still not correct) to say it was his 'dream' of how the reality could be overturned & things brought back to the way he wanted them to be. The Ring is not an allegory of the Bomb (an interpretation he was constantly confronted with - it would be closer to the truth to say that the Bomb was an 'allegory' of the Ring - if the situation can work that way - because the Ring is an 'Archetypal' Image of an absolutely destructive, corrupting force. Thus it can be 'applied' (as with the Rammas) to an number of Primary world objects (& philosophies), from toxic waste to Islamicism or the kind of militant Christian fundamentalism that results in doctors & nurses working in abortion clinics being assaualted & even murdered.

The fact that so many different readers can 'find' so many different 'allegorical' interpretations of the work proves that it either was never written as an allegory of WW2 or anything else, or that if it was it was a very poorly done thing, because in spite of the author's supposed intention to tell the story of WW2 in allegorical form, most readers don't get it, & think he was writing an allegory of something else entirely.

As to Bb's point about the development of Galadriel's character over time, to me this shows that Tolkien didn't see the character as an 'allegory' of anyone/thing in WW2 - by changing her character he would have changed the meaning of the story she played a part in. The most you could say then is that possibly, at some point, Tolkien intended an allegorical meaning, but that almost immediately he changed his mind.

This is a point that is too easily forgotten - the Legendarium was [i]never/i] 'fixed'. It was a developing conception, which only became set in stone at his death - because he was no longer around to continue it. It was like Niggle's Tree - constantly being changed on the canvas because the thing he was painting was a 'living' thing. His attempts in the Letters to 'explain' the characters & events of LotR were not so much attempts at pushing his readers into accepting a particular understanding of the story, but rather his own attempts to understand something not entirely (if at all) of his own making. What one gets from reading HoMe & the Letters is the sense that he himself didn't fully understand 'his' mythology - it was as much a mystery to him as to any of its readers.

To read vols 6-9 of HoMe is enough to convince anyone that it is not an allegory of anything - either specifically or generally. If it was simply (even at the time of writing) simply an allegory of WW2 he would not have struggled so much to produce it - he could simply have read the daily reports in the Times & 'rewritten' them in mythic form. He struggled till he 'discovered' 'what really happened'.

And let's face it, he, & his publishers, would have had a much easier time selling an 'allegory' of WW2 to the public than an 'heroic romance'. For all his protestations about it not being an allegory in the Foreword the Second Edition, his words in the First Edition foreword are even clearer that it is not anything but a 'fairystory'.

This tale, which has grown almost to be a history of the great War of the Ring, is drawn for the most part from the memoirs of the renowned Hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo, as they are preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch. This chief monument to Hobbit-lore is so called because it was compiled, repeatedly copied, and enlarged and handed down in the family of the Fairbairns of Westmarch, descended from that Master Samwise of whom this tale has much to say.I have supplemented the account of the Red Book, in places, with information derived from the surviving records of Gondor, notably the Book of the Kings; but in general, though I have omitted much, I have in this tale adhered more closely to the actual words and narrative of my original than in the previous selection from the Red Book, The Hobbit. That was drawn from the early chapters, composed originally by Bilbo himself. If 'composed' is a just word. Bilbo was not assiduous, nor an orderly narrator, and his account is involved and discursive, and sometimes confused: faults that still appear in the Red Book, since the copiers were pious and careful, and altered very little.The tale has been put into its present form in response to the many requests that I have received for further information about the history of the Third Age, and about Hobbits in particular. But since my children and others of their age, who first heard of the finding of the Ring, have grown older with the years, this book speaks more plainly of those darker things which lurked only on the borders of the earlier tale, but which have troubled Middle-earth in all its history. It is, in fact, not a book written for children at all; though many children will, of course, be interested in it, or parts of it, as they still are in the histories and legends of other times (especially in those not specially written for them).I dedicate this book to all admirers of Bilbo, but especially to my sons and daughter, and to my friends the Inklings. To the Inklings, because they have already listened to it with a patience, and indeed with an interest, that almost leads me to suspect that they have hobbit-blood in their venerable ancestry. To my sons and my daughter for the same reason, and also because they have all helped me in the labours of composition. If 'composition' is a just word, and these pages do not deserve all that I have said about Bilbo's work.

For if the labour has been long (more than fourteen years), it has been neither orderly nor continuous. But I have not had Bilbo's leisure. Indeed much of that time has contained for me no leisure at all, and more than once for a whole year the dust has gathered on my unfinished pages. I only say this to explain to those who have waited for the book why they have had to wait so long. I have no reason to complain. I am surprised and delighted to find from numerous letters that so many people, both in England and across the Water, share my interest in this almost forgotten history; but it is not yet universally recognised as an important branch of study. It has indeed no obvious practical use, and those who go in for it can hardly expect to be assisted.Much information, necessary and unnecessary, will be found in the Prologue. To complete it some maps are given, including one of the Shire that has been approved as reasonably correct by those Hobbits that still concern themselves with ancient history. At the end of the third volume will be found some abridged family-trees, which show how the Hobbits mentioned were related to one another, and what their ages were at the time when the story opens. There is an index of names and strange words with some explanations. And for those who like such lore in an appendix some brief account is given of the languages, alphabets and calendars that were used in the West-lands in the Third Age of Middle-earth. Those who do not need such information, or who do not wish for it, may neglect these pages; and the strange names that they meet they may, of course, pronounce as they like. Care has been given to their transcription from the original alphabets and some notes are offered on the intentions of the spelling adopted* But not all are interested in such matters, and many who are not may still find the account of those great and valiant deeds worth the reading. It was in that hope that I began the work of translating and selecting the stories of the Red Book, part of which are now presented to Men of a later Age, one almost as darkling and ominous as was the Third Age that ended with the great years 1418 and 1419 of the Shire long ago.