Quote:
Originally Posted by Balfrog
Nerwen
I like the way you used the phrase: 'fiction within a fiction'.
Nevertheless its' all fiction and its all the work of Tolkien – however we gloss his application of allegory!
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I'm not quite sure how to reply to this. Perhaps I didn't make the point clear enough. Basically, I am contending that no, they are not "all the same".
Quote:
Her link to Fastitocalon, for me, projects a good practical example of what Tolkien possibly meant by calling Tom a “particular embodying” of allegory.
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How so?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Balfrog
Morthoron
I'm surprised and to be honest a little perturbed as to why you unable to acknowledge Tolkien's statement that Tom is an 'allegory'. I am even more surprised that you are unable to entertain that Tom was an exception – and to Ms Seth's inference - fell outside the general use of no allegory.
Either Tolkien said/implied these things or he didn't. But because he did, we have to live with them.
We can try pushing Tom as 'allegory' under the carpet (as so many scholars have done). Or we can try to come up with some rational explanation as to what he meant or why he said it.
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That's rather a tall order, I think, given that in the very post you quote- the very sentence, in fact- he
also states that Tom is
not an allegory.
Quote:
“I do not mean him to be an allegory – or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name – but 'allegory' is the only mode of exhibiting certain functions: he is then an 'allegory', or an exemplar, a particular embodying …”.
Letter #144
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Really, what
are we to make of this?