[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

And as far as this 'consciously so in the revison' thing goes, could some of those quoting it as evidence of the essentially Christian nature of the work cite examples from HoM-e?

I cite it only as evidence that, at some stage, Tolkien intended (or at least believed that he intended) his work to be a fundamentally religious and Catholic one. The remainder of the quote, as fully given by Lal, merely addresses the manner in which he addressed (or believed that he addressed) that. In saying that little was planned, I believe that he is reiterating the point that the process was unconscious at first. But the reference to it being conscious in the revision indicates that he understood it to have been intentional.

Of course, my point is that, although Tolkien might have intended his work to be a fundamentally religious one, it does not follow that the reader must react to it as such.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I suggested that Tolkien believed in Chrisitianity because it provided the finest and fullest (for him) experience of that which he found in Fairie.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Recently, a new essay by Tolkien on Smith of Wootton Major has been published. In it, Tolkien apparently defines Fairie as love--the greatest of that trinity, faith, hope and charity.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I'm not in the camp of authorial intention, but it does strike me that there could be a possibility that Tolkien saw a continuum in these topics, saw something inchoate in the early mythologies that he saw working out in his stories.

Interesting points. But, despite Tolkien's reference to Faerie as the "perilous realm", Tolkien's Faerie (the Faerie of Smith of Wootton Major, for example) appears to me to be a rather different place to the Faerie of the original (pre-disney ) Faerie-Tales. The latter, it seems to me, is more accurately portrayed in the novel, Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange - a truly perilous realm. Did Tolkien compromise the original concept of Faerie in order to bring it in line with his faith? If so, might it be said that, as far as Tolkien was concerned, the Christian themes within the book trumped its mythological roots?