[DesertRhino]

“Tolkein repeatedly attacked these attempts to impute meaning into his work . . .”

True, but to be fair, even he might not really know why he wrote it. Or he might have personal reasons for not wanting to admit his purpose.

He fought in some horrendous fighting in WWI, and lost all but one of his friends. WWI screws this guy up royally, then he writes a book that clearly dissects what is wrong with Europe? Tolkien can deny it all he wants,,, but it’s pretty clear.

His denials are probably for his own tortured reasons,,,,
IE,, an artist does a ton of Church hating art. You find out his dad beat him every week for not memorizing the bible or some such. No matter how much the artist denys that as the reason for his topics,,, it’s fair and correct to make the association. Happens all the time.

[Sudetenland]

No, his denials are out of the fact that he did not do what you in your infinite wisdom and all the other so-called experts in literature claim for him.

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a good rousing "good versus evil" fantasy novel is just a good rousing "good versus evil" fantasy novel.

This does not mean we writers don't rely on our past experiences to inform us of the human condition, but the mere fact that someone has experienced some degree of trauma in their past does not mean that the author has some deeper meaning in his work.

The only admitted deeper meaning in Tolkien's work is his expressed desire to bring Norse mythology to the modern English reader. That's it, c'est tout.

Any other suggestion is merely a projection of the claimants own proclivities, or at best conjecture.