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There is a bunch there about how LotR is not not allegory in the least bit. I would be well off quoting all of it, but that bit sums it all up very well.
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Well,
burrahobbit, what you have omitted I will provide, for in literary analysis, context is everything. What you have omitted explains precisely what Tolkien means by allegory. In fact, he does
not deny symbolic kinds of allusion.
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But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestatiosn, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.
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It would appear that the precise "stricture set down by the author" is his dislike of the single-minded control of an author, in allegory, to produce just one interpretation or meaning. John Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progess is a good example here of this kind of limited form of directed meaning or something such as
1984, maybe even
Animal Farm. Tolkien's issue is structural or stylistic rather than thematic.
This form of enforced meaning Tolkien equates with Saruman, with Orcs, with those who would force or demand only their interpretation, if I may be allowed to use a Tolkien allusion. He prefers history because it allows for plenitude of meaning, 'the freedom of the reader'. What I am discussing here on this thread, and elsewhere, is this very kind of 'applicability' rather than 'allegory'.
Respectfully,
Bethberry
[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]