I would maybe push slightly back against Tolkein hating allegory, because I think he meant that as “I don’t write one-to-one correspondences between things.”
Sauron is not Hitler in any way that Aslan is Jesus. But Tolkien is writing something like history which is grown from his specific worldview— I think as it’s reasonable to say “hey, Martin Luther’s use of the printing press is a bit like Donald Trump’s use of social media!” it’s reasonable to draw these correspondences in LOTR. Martin Luther himself is not an allegory; that’s insane. But the assonance is there.
I think this is important because I think the “Tolkien has no meaning” thing has divorced him from his own context a bit, which is some way from all these libertarians I am fairly confident he’d despise. I think it has to be possible to say “Peter Thiel’s view of things is ominous because he has not understood the core lesson of Lord of the Rings,” just as someone might not understand the core lesson of, I dunno, Didius Julianus or someone else who’s real. You can draw lessons from history, including fictional history. That is meaningfully distinct from purposeful allegory
Agreed. I think I was trying to, somewhat clumsily, get at that in the essay (if you can call it that). He said repeatedly that he hates allegory and didn't want people drawing real world paralells - but that didn't mean his worldview, his morals and, indeed, his experiences of war and people weren't part of his work.
I would maybe push slightly back against Tolkein hating allegory, because I think he meant that as “I don’t write one-to-one correspondences between things.”
Sauron is not Hitler in any way that Aslan is Jesus. But Tolkien is writing something like history which is grown from his specific worldview— I think as it’s reasonable to say “hey, Martin Luther’s use of the printing press is a bit like Donald Trump’s use of social media!” it’s reasonable to draw these correspondences in LOTR. Martin Luther himself is not an allegory; that’s insane. But the assonance is there.
I think this is important because I think the “Tolkien has no meaning” thing has divorced him from his own context a bit, which is some way from all these libertarians I am fairly confident he’d despise. I think it has to be possible to say “Peter Thiel’s view of things is ominous because he has not understood the core lesson of Lord of the Rings,” just as someone might not understand the core lesson of, I dunno, Didius Julianus or someone else who’s real. You can draw lessons from history, including fictional history. That is meaningfully distinct from purposeful allegory
Agreed. I think I was trying to, somewhat clumsily, get at that in the essay (if you can call it that). He said repeatedly that he hates allegory and didn't want people drawing real world paralells - but that didn't mean his worldview, his morals and, indeed, his experiences of war and people weren't part of his work.