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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8322807" data-attributes="member: 42582">You seem to be confusing (at least) allegory, symbolism, trope and theme. JRRT didn't - when he denied that LotR was allegory, he meant it was not allegory in the strict sense. (He did write some allegories - there is a good discussion of this in Shippey's book.)LotR is clearly not an allegory of the fall of the Roman Empire (Eastern or Western) nor of British colonialism in North Africa and Asia nor of either World War.But it is not devoid of meaning. Some of that is linguistic - the book reflects JRRT's own professional views as a philologist. Some of that is theological - it is a very Christian work. Some of that is literary - Lothlorien, for instance, renders the world of the fairy story in the form of the naturalistic novel, which I (at least) think is a major literary achievement. And some of that is racial. No doubt there are many other sorts of meaning also to be found in it.The above is utter non sequitur.This is both false - a denial of difference across different works and authors, and a feeble attempt to flatten them all into sameness - and also a strange assertion from someone who seems to think that the identification of Orcs with a fall is not a mere subjective act of onanism.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8322807, member: 42582"] You seem to be confusing (at least) [I]allegory[/I], [I]symbolism[/I],[I] trope [/I]and [I]theme[/I]. JRRT didn't - when he denied that LotR was allegory, he meant it was not allegory in the strict sense. (He did write some allegories - there is a good discussion of this in Shippey's book.) LotR is clearly not an allegory of the fall of the Roman Empire (Eastern or Western) nor of British colonialism in North Africa and Asia nor of either World War. But it is not devoid of meaning. Some of that is linguistic - the book reflects JRRT's own professional views as a philologist. Some of that is theological - it is a very Christian work. Some of that is literary - Lothlorien, for instance, renders the world of the fairy story in the form of the naturalistic novel, which I (at least) think is a major literary achievement. And some of that is racial. No doubt there are many other sorts of meaning also to be found in it. The above is utter non sequitur. This is both false - a denial of difference across different works and authors, and a feeble attempt to flatten them all into sameness - and also a strange assertion from someone who seems to think that the identification of Orcs with a fall is not a mere subjective act of onanism. [/QUOTE]

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