5 ms·

I’m not sure we can ascribe religious purpose to works that borrow from popular stories that happen to be religious. The books/movies are also profoundly pagan,

I’m not sure we can ascribe religious purpose to works that borrow from popular stories that happen to be religious. The books/movies are also profoundly pagan, and lay out their own religious system for eg the elves which is not especially Christian. As I understand it there is a whole pantheon of god-like figures in the LOTR universe. If the author says it’s not an allegory, and it doesn’t work as an allegory, maybe their identifying as Christian isn’t enough to make it an allegory?

olivierestsage 5y ago
I agree that LotR is not a straightforward allegory, but I'm also going off more than the author's religious identity. In Tolkien's words: "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like "religion", to cults or practices, in the Imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism."
- eCa 5y ago
  I think that's an interesting point, that a book can both be a religious work but at the same time not contain anything overtly religious. As a non-believer, I quite enjoy the lack of anything overtly religious in his works.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    The covert religiosity is perhaps more insidious. The books are drenched in his particular religious world-view: not just Catholic, but a medieval kind of Christianity. The world he's created is deliberately pre-Christian, but the characters and overarching story arc think about the trajectory of the world in a way familiar to medieval Christians. That comes through in a fascinating sense of alien-ness. The books feel both realistic and unfamiliar because he's capturing a sense from the past as a very foreign country. That's a sense available to you as a non-believer because it's not gussied up in the specific trappings of any belief system you've been exposed to (and probably put off by). The highest virtue in The Lord of the Rings is a very Christian kind of hope -- hope for the next world rather than this one. And the key virtue of humans, rather than Elves, is that they get to go there, while the immortals are trapped here. It's easy to miss all that in The Lord of the Rings because it does ultimately depend on hope in this world -- they win and evil loses. But look at the sadness of the Elves, who know that they will ultimately lose and the world will decline. Think of that from the point of view of somebody living among Roman ruins that they cannot repair. And the only hope comes from a far-off entity promising a better afterlife. It's not propaganda, but it's a very real demonstration of the virtues of his outlook.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  I’m not sure even the author is authoritative over their own work. Ray Bradbury once famously ditched a guest lecture because his audience disagreed on the framing of his book. JK Rowling is thought to go back and retrospectively reframe her book, a framing which she has trouble gathering consensus for despite being the author.
  - olivierestsage 5y ago
    It's definitely an interesting question -- the "death of the author." Personally, as a reader, I draw the line at disagreeing with explicitly stated intentions of authors if I find those intentions are well-evidenced in their texts. In the case of LotR, I would be inclined to say that they are -- but an element of subjective judgment will always trouble these discussions.
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sumnuyungi 5y ago
"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision." The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #142
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frostburg 5y ago
It's not (famously) as on the nose as C. S. Lewis was about this, but it's pretty much there, at times rather explicitly (see Gandalf on judging others).

olivierestsage 5y ago

I agree that LotR is not a straightforward allegory, but I'm also going off more than the author's religious identity. In Tolkien's words: "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like "religion", to cults or practices, in the Imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism."

eCa 5y ago
I think that's an interesting point, that a book can both be a religious work but at the same time not contain anything overtly religious. As a non-believer, I quite enjoy the lack of anything overtly religious in his works.
- jfengel 5y ago
  The covert religiosity is perhaps more insidious. The books are drenched in his particular religious world-view: not just Catholic, but a medieval kind of Christianity. The world he's created is deliberately pre-Christian, but the characters and overarching story arc think about the trajectory of the world in a way familiar to medieval Christians. That comes through in a fascinating sense of alien-ness. The books feel both realistic and unfamiliar because he's capturing a sense from the past as a very foreign country. That's a sense available to you as a non-believer because it's not gussied up in the specific trappings of any belief system you've been exposed to (and probably put off by). The highest virtue in The Lord of the Rings is a very Christian kind of hope -- hope for the next world rather than this one. And the key virtue of humans, rather than Elves, is that they get to go there, while the immortals are trapped here. It's easy to miss all that in The Lord of the Rings because it does ultimately depend on hope in this world -- they win and evil loses. But look at the sadness of the Elves, who know that they will ultimately lose and the world will decline. Think of that from the point of view of somebody living among Roman ruins that they cannot repair. And the only hope comes from a far-off entity promising a better afterlife. It's not propaganda, but it's a very real demonstration of the virtues of his outlook.
threatofrain 5y ago
I’m not sure even the author is authoritative over their own work. Ray Bradbury once famously ditched a guest lecture because his audience disagreed on the framing of his book. JK Rowling is thought to go back and retrospectively reframe her book, a framing which she has trouble gathering consensus for despite being the author.
- olivierestsage 5y ago
  It's definitely an interesting question -- the "death of the author." Personally, as a reader, I draw the line at disagreeing with explicitly stated intentions of authors if I find those intentions are well-evidenced in their texts. In the case of LotR, I would be inclined to say that they are -- but an element of subjective judgment will always trouble these discussions.
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sumnuyungi 5y ago

"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision." The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #142

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frostburg 5y ago

It's not (famously) as on the nose as C. S. Lewis was about this, but it's pretty much there, at times rather explicitly (see Gandalf on judging others).