[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

The fact that some tales which Tolkien intended to complete remained incomplete actually adds to that sense. Completing unfinished tales & writing new ones would actually work against the effect.

Again, we are talking about a personal opinion, being satisfied with it is and what is not. Far from being an objective truth, because an absolute, objective truth in this field does not actually exist; it may be adopted in certain places, in certain times. But that's it.

So, like (fill in the blank) you like to put words in people's mouths in order to create straw men which you can knock down?

Since you qualified his myths, among others, as illusions, I find that me asking you (not putting words in your mouth) if you consider myths as lies, is quite an appropriate question - and the parallel I drew with Lewis a valid one.

One person cannot create a mythology.

That is quite a statement. What evidence do we have in that regard, seeing that we are talking about past, oral traditions? In fact, since it has been already pointed that myths come down from religions or some spiritual beliefs - it is often the case that a religion or a spiritual belief comes from one individual, through revelation, or other means. Therefore, at least some myths or mythologies, at least in origin, come from one individual. How much did others add to this? I don't know and I doubt anyone can proclaim that he does. And if anyone has concerns about me taking a parallel between Tolkien's myths and religious-originated myths, it was Tolkien's idea, mentioned in the letters or biography, that myths contain religious truths also. When talking about a mythology we have therefore a "semantic" aspect (what it transmits) and a historical/social aspect (who adopts it). I daresay that at least on some level (bening, of course) some of the many readers of Tolkien have adopted, have internalised, the message of his work - and therefore, even the historical/social condition may be satisfied. At least in the modern sense of the word (or in the modern, disperse, conditions), we have a live, "true" mythology, whose message and images are adopted. Maybe not by the majority of readers, maybe not in all cases in a sufficientl way. But even past mythologies were not adopted by all their formal followers, nor were they completely internalised in all cases.