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Old 04-22-2018, 09:42 PM   #7
Balfrog
Haunting Spirit
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 87
Balfrog has just left Hobbiton.
Huinesoron

"Thankfully, there is an extremely simple way to prove that The Root of the Boot (in its original form) must be allegorical, as you propose in your last paragraph to me: simply demonstrate the same thing for the other Tolkien poems in the volume!"

I think that would be an entirely unreasonable expectation for a pamphlet titled Songs for the Philologists. It wasn't: 'Allegorical Songs for the Philologists'.

"One other point: shin/Tim may not be a perfect rhyme, but it's a darnsight better than leg/John."


I get your point – but equally as previously noted – it wasn't an absolute necessity to have a perfect or even pseudo rhyme sequence – nor does the final result possess it. In any case, one might theorize that the change could have been a dual one - for both your reason and Ms. Seth's.

In other words Tolkien may have killed two birds with one stone (troll) !
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