Leaf and Key

Volume 12 Number 4 Article 7 6-15-1986 Leaf and Key Paul Nolan Hyde Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hyde, Paul Nolan (1986) "Leaf and Key," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 12 : No. 4 , Article 7. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol12/iss4/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Reviews various definitions of allegory and Tolkien’s writings on the subject to determine more precisely what type of allegory Tolkien disliked. Discusses “Leaf by Niggle,” which skirts closer to allegory than most of Tolkien’s works, but avoids becoming one. Additional Keywords Allegory in J.R.R. Tolkien; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Attitude toward allegory; Tolkien, J.R.R. “Leaf by Niggle”; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol12/iss4/7 MYTHLORE 46: Summer 1986 Page 27 Leaf and Key Paul Nolan Hyde There is a primal cry within mankind which has story of the search for the Holy Grail may resounded throughout the m illennia. Regardless of the illustrate an inner spiritual search. 2. an topic, the event, or the circumstances, someone instance of such representation. 3. Any invariably queries, "But what does it all mean?" symbolic representation. Literature is particularly susceptible to the question, especially in academic circles where enjoying a story The semantic range between (1) and (3) is enormous for its own sake is often not enough. When the author and because it is so vast, the word (at least in emphatically protests any outward significance, other American vocabulary) has no real power of meaning. The than simply that of a good tale, m ultitudinous reams of Oxford English Dictionary constrains the definition a paper mount up to the heavens, frequently buttressed by little , but not substantially: Freud and/or Jung in order to explicate to the masses what lies below the conscious mind of the w riter. 1. Description of a subject under the Protestations on the part of the teller of the tale are guise of some other subject of aptly to no avail because (as the analysts declare) he does suggestive resem blance... 2. An instance of not really know what he writes anyway. A classic such description; a figurative sentence, example has been J.R.R. Tolkien. discourse or narrative, in which properties and circumstances attributed to the apparent From the first publication of The Hobbit in 1937, subject really refer to the subject they are the readers of Tolkien's fiction wanted to know what meant to suggest; an extended or continued the M iddle-earth books "meant". As early as 1938, m etaphor... 3. An allegorical representation; American fans were writing for "an authoritative a n em b lem . exposition of the allegory of The Hobbit (L etters. 41). With reference to that request, Tolkien explained to Thrall and Hibbard's Handbook to Literature Stanley Unwin that The Hobbit was not an allegory, but narrows the semantic spectrum significantly: simply a story as would be its sequel, the Lord of the Rings. In the Foreword of the second edition of the A form of extended metaphor in which trilogy, Professor Tolkien announced publically his objects and persons in a narrative, either in aversion for allegory. prose or verse, are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. Thus "I cordially dislike allegory in all its it represents one thing in the quise of m anifestations, and always have done so since another — an abstraction in that of a I grew old and wary enough to detect it concrete image. The characters are usually presence. I much prefer history, true or personifications of abstract qualities, the feigned, with its varied applicability to the action and setting representative of the thought and experience of readers. I think relationships among these abstractions. that many confuse 'applicability' with Allegory attempts to evoke a dual interest, 'allegory'; but the one resides in the one in the events, characters, and setting freedom of the reader, the other in the presented, and the other in the ideas they purposed domination of the author." (LR. p.7) are intended to convey or the significance they bear.(p. 7-8) With this simple statement of intent, J.R.R. Tolkien undoubtedly thought that the burgeoning numbers Thrall and Hibbard conclude with an interesting of A llegorists poised to "interpret" the Lord of the w a r n in g : Rings would redirect their collective attention to the writings of those who did enjoy the art of Allegory. It is important that one distinguish clearly between "allegory" and "symbolism", Notwithstanding the rather candid denials of any hidden political, psychological, sociological, or any other which attempts to suggest other levels of meaning without making a structure of ideas a "-ical" agendas in the stories, the "yeah-but" critics formative influence on the work as it is in insisted on interpretations, expositions, and a l l e g o r y . inferences. Since they were not forthcoming from Tolkien him self, then necessity begot invention. Part This is, perhaps, as clear a statement about the of the problem involved with accepting Tolkien's difference between "allegory" and "applicability" insistance on there being no allegory in the M iddle-earth volumes has to do with the definition of outside of Tolkien's own w ritings. It is the insistant the word "allegory" itse lf and Tolkien's usage. "structure" informed by the metaphor pervading every character and event that allegorizes a story. Mere TOWARD DEFINING ALLEGORY symbolism, notwithstanding the dictionary, is not allegory, but a facilitator for "application". The American Heritage Dictionary gives three operative definitions of the word ’'allegory": TOWARD TOLKIEN'S DEFINITION 1. A literary, dramatic, or pictorial As was quoted above, Tolkien's objection to representation the apparent or superficial Allegory had to do with the author's domination over sense of which both parallels and illu strates the "interpretation" of the story. The meaning is to be a deeper sense just as, for example, the discovered by the reader and he can only arrive at true P age 2 8 MYTHLORE 46: Summer 1986 enlightenment when he perceives the density and scope all human abstract characteristics. A fully of the informing metaphor. Tolkien preferred to have intelligible story is one that so perfectly describes the reader find his own meaning in the stories rather the human condition that it is allegorical by than discover all of the motivations for the w riting. definition. The better w ritten a narrative is, the more He was not so naive, however, as to believe or assert likely a reader can find the allegorical. With regard that he was untouched by his own life. As in all to the Ring, Tolkien te lls Unwin: writing, Tolkien's works were influenced by his experiences and environment. As Tolkien said to Unwin You can make the Ring into an allegory of the Lord of the Rings. "The darkness of the present of our own time, if you like: an allegory of days [1938] has had some effect on it. Though it is not the inevitable fate that waits for all an allegory" (L etters, p. 41) If impending World War II attem pts to defeat evil power by power. But had been symbolized in a structured metaphorical way, that is only because all power magical or the trilogy would then have been allegorical. Tolkien mechanical does always so work. You cannot is quite clear, however, that the depiction of the War write a story about an apparently simple of the Ring is not intended to resemble war of the real magic ring without that bursting in, if you world (LR. 7), He explains the sim ilarity. really take the ring seriously, and make things happen as they would happen, if such a An author cannot of course remain wholly thing existed. (Ibid.) unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of Natural consequences can be understood experience are extremely complex, and allegorically, but if that truth is presented without a attempts to define the process are at best metaphorical superstructure, it is to Tolkien a guesses from evidence that is inadequate and narrative moral, an application of the pattern and not ambiguous... One has indeed personally to The Pattern itse lf. come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it In a letter to W.H. Auden on 7 June 1955, Tolkien seems now often forgotten that to be caught says of his readers: in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and ...w hat appreciative readers have got the following years.

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