Interesting article on Summer films — Page 2

Anchorhead said:

skyjedi2005 said:

books that have no topical allegory whatsoever....like Tolkien's lord of the rings.

Lord Of The Rings is one of the most famous pieces of allegorical fiction there is.

I've read before where Tolkien claimed to hate allegory - he was either deluded, or a hypocrite.  Lord Of The Rings is a thinly-veiled allegorical piece about how the industrial revolution destroyed bucolic England.  It's almost nothing but allegory.  Arguably, it's know as much for it's message as it is for it's story.

 

I find that a rather bizarre interpretation of Tolkien's work. Just because he had concerns and they might have influenced his work doesn't mean he consciously created his work just to bear a message. He was way more into the story than that. He was into stories and art for their own sake and their human value, which is why he despised allegory, which debases such things for the sake of a message. Allegory isn't just when something has a bit of subtext. It's when the subtext is all the work is about.

And it's pointless to talk of unconsciously created allegory. Allegory is when the author deliberately sets out to create such a thing, not when they unconsciously lend a lot of subtext to their work 

Anchorhead said:

C3PX said:

I could be way off here, but I have never had any problem believing that Tolkien really did write Lord of the Rings allegory free (as he claims he did).

 

I believe the term he used to describe his work was applicable, as opposed to allegorical. He was certainly free to use whatever term he wanted, but they are very similar - in this case, a story being used to explain or demonstrate something that at first may appear unrelated.

 

I just don't see how it is even possible for a writer to delude himself out of truly understanding what he himself actually wrote about.

I don't think he was deluded about what he wrote at all.  I think he may not have wanted to appear as a political writer, so he chose to sometimes deny a connection. He said his work was more of a religious-based story about good vs evil - again, allegory or applicable.  He was a devout catholic and very outspoken on the evils of industrialization.  To think or state that those core beliefs aren't present - and at times a major theme -  seems like quite a stretch.

Just because important beliefs influence a work doesn't mean that work is allegory. Allegory is when the story is just code for a message and no more. You can have lots of influence from personal beliefs without having allegory. You can even have plenty of message without making a work allegory. Allegory is when the message is not only the sole reason for the work but when everything in the work is subordinated to the message to the point where the work is nothing but code for the message. Tolkien's Middle Earth work was not that. He knew what allegory was and when he said his work wasn't allegory he meant it.

C3PX said:

 I just don't see how it is even possible for a writer to delude himself out of truly understanding what he himself actually wrote about.

It's easily possible. People don't always know the deeper reasons why they do things and that is all the more the case with a creative work like art that heavily involves the deeper recesses of the mind. Art is not solely of the conscious mind. People in the arts often don't know what they're doing, though they may think they know. But allegory isn't something you do unconsciously. It's something you do consciously and deliberately and I don't think Tolkien consciously and deliberately wrote his works as allegory.

I just don't feel it is always possible to know exactly what the author wrote about unless he specifically explained it himself.

And you may still not know even if they explain it, because they may not consciously understand it properly.