What breaks the enchantment?

[Bêthberry]

A quick quotation from Tolkien apropos of the applicability of the primary world, as I have little time today for replies. This comes from Letter #294 in response to a draft of an interview with Tolkien by Charlotte and Denis Plimmer.

Middle-earth ... corresponds spiritually to Nordic Europe.

Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories. Geographically Northern is better. But examination will show that even this is inapplicable (geographically or spiritually) to Middle-earth. ... Auden has asserted that for me 'the North is a sacred direction.' That is not true. The North-west of Europe, were I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man's home should. I love its atmosphere, andknow more of its histories and languages than I do of other parts; but it is not 'sacred', nor does it exhaust my affections. I have, for instance, a particular love for the Latin language, and among its descendants for Spanish. That it is untrue for my story, a mere reading of the synopses should show. The North was the seat of the fortresses of the Devil. The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome than anything that would be devised by a 'Nordic'.

This was written late in his life, in 1976. I would see this as Tolkien's use of a historical example to elucidate his text, not as a statement of a one to one correspondence between Aragorn/Gondor and the Holy Roman Empire.