tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post19496578856727269..comments2024-03-28T14:05:25.134-07:00Comments on Sacnoth's Scriptorium: Tolkien and Fr MurrayJohn D. Rateliffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12324926298336489295noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-45976597431607828832020-03-17T13:25:16.181-07:002020-03-17T13:25:16.181-07:00We were very excited to get Richard West's pie...We were very excited to get Richard West's piece, which came in quite close to the deadline. But it was important enough that we made room for it in that issue rather than postponing it.<br /><br />I do not read Tolkien's statement in his letter to Fr Murray as saying that he intended, either consciously or unconsciously, for <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> to be an allegory for Christianity or Catholicism in particular. "Allegory" was a loaded word for Tolkien, and the fact that, for instance, the spiritually healing quality of lembas was invented by an author who had the ritual of the Eucharist imbued into him from childhood, and even that he might have realized that he was doing this, does NOT mean either that lembas is actually a communion wafer in disguise, or stands for it in some kind of larger code. That's what an allegory would be.<br /><br />In other words, I agree with Fr Murray, who in his letter to Mr Witt is warning against precisely this kind of misreading.<br />David Bratmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08090662884600828582noreply@blogger.com