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Lalwendë · 03-30-2005, 06:52 AM

That's a nice artefact you've dug up, H-I! I'm sure davem can be lured into this, as this is something we were talking about the other day after watching a documentary looking at the early twentieth century through the lives of Churchill and Orwell.

What initially struck me was the contrast between Orwell and Tolkien. The former's writing was allegorical, while the latter took great pains to say that his work was not allegorical. Both were working in the same period, and both men were products of the British establishment, even to the extent that both had experienced life in the 'empire'. In both 1984 and in LotR we see new worlds created, one a dystopia set some time in the future and the other an entirely different world, seemingly in our past. And at this point their paths diverge, or do they?

1984 and Animal Farm are often mistakenly said to be anti-communism, but the former is anti-totalitarianism, and the latter specifically anti-Stalinism. Orwell hated the machine of state and chose to express this in the form of allegory. One of Tolkien's most important themes is also the machine and how it crushes not only nature but people. Yet he expressed this by creating Middle Earth, which he stated was not allegorical.

Even though we must take what Tolkien says as a 'given', it is extremely easy to read all kinds of parallels between his work and the world/time he lived in. If LotR is not allegory, and I do not think it is (though I'm without the time to give a lengthy explanation why I think that), then there must be something else about the work that enables us to read so much into it. Many different ideologies, philosophies and notions can be backed up by reference to Tolkien's work, and we can bring all these to our own reading, as seen in discussions right here. What I see in the nature of LotR is that it is representative of the 20th century in some way so the title of Shippey's book, Author of the Century, is an appropriate one.

What are the parallels between Tolkien and the 20th century? There are examples all over the 'Downs so I'm not going to start a list. But you only have to look at the range of clever, intriguing and sometimes downright mad parallels posted on here to get a rock solid argument for why Tolkien's work was so good and why he is the 'author of the century'. I don't know if this is relevant to all the "what is art?" discussions though.

03-30-2005, 06:52 AM	#79
Lalwendë A Mere Boggart Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: under the bed Posts: 4,737	That's a nice artefact you've dug up, H-I! I'm sure davem can be lured into this, as this is something we were talking about the other day after watching a documentary looking at the early twentieth century through the lives of Churchill and Orwell. What initially struck me was the contrast between Orwell and Tolkien. The former's writing was allegorical, while the latter took great pains to say that his work was not allegorical. Both were working in the same period, and both men were products of the British establishment, even to the extent that both had experienced life in the 'empire'. In both 1984 and in LotR we see new worlds created, one a dystopia set some time in the future and the other an entirely different world, seemingly in our past. And at this point their paths diverge, or do they? 1984 and Animal Farm are often mistakenly said to be anti-communism, but the former is anti-totalitarianism, and the latter specifically anti-Stalinism. Orwell hated the machine of state and chose to express this in the form of allegory. One of Tolkien's most important themes is also the machine and how it crushes not only nature but people. Yet he expressed this by creating Middle Earth, which he stated was not allegorical. Even though we must take what Tolkien says as a 'given', it is extremely easy to read all kinds of parallels between his work and the world/time he lived in. If LotR is not allegory, and I do not think it is (though I'm without the time to give a lengthy explanation why I think that), then there must be something else about the work that enables us to read so much into it. Many different ideologies, philosophies and notions can be backed up by reference to Tolkien's work, and we can bring all these to our own reading, as seen in discussions right here. What I see in the nature of LotR is that it is representative of the 20th century in some way so the title of Shippey's book, Author of the Century, is an appropriate one. What are the parallels between Tolkien and the 20th century? There are examples all over the 'Downs so I'm not going to start a list. But you only have to look at the range of clever, intriguing and sometimes downright mad parallels posted on here to get a rock solid argument for why Tolkien's work was so good and why he is the 'author of the century'. I don't know if this is relevant to all the "what is art?" discussions though. __________________ Gordon's alive!