Such hostility in your churlish and pendantic challenge. I am not defining “process” nor are my citations...they looked at perspective, not process...are you truly that dense. Furthermore, Tolkien’s dislike of allegory is precisely my point and others-—it narrows a message-—that is a message he leaves the reader to explore and to discern what one might get out of it. That the work is explicitly Catholic is not in dispute—except by you. Finally, you set up straw men and beat the puss out of them. I never anything about knowing exactly his meaning-—but it does have meaning—which is the very fun of his work.
Again, as Tolkien says he dislikes allegory because it gives the story his intent he then says, if you would for goodness sake read more carefully what he and i are saying—”I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers.” He wants the reader to explore his mythology, even as feigned history-—and for your pride that history is biblical in part. Yet in your earlier silly post you claim that if a reader does what Tolkien insists he do, then that is reductionism. Give it a rest or give it a read but you need not be so pompous over something the author told me to enjoy as i see fit.
Where does Tolkien say that The Lord of the Rings is an explicitly Catholic work? You make a claim, but you offer no support for the claim. Please supply a quote from Tolkien where he says the work is explicitly Catholic.
I never anything about knowing exactly his meaning
You said the work is explicitly Catholic and that is not in dispute. It most certainly is in dispute. Please supply a quote from Tolkien to support your claim.
He wants the reader to explore his mythology, even as feigned history-—and for your pride that history is biblical in part.
For my pride that history is biblical in part? Are you saying that feigned history is biblical? If you are saying it is biblical, then you are reducing the story to allegory. Where does Tolkien say that his feigned history is biblical?
Yet in your earlier silly post you claim that if a reader does what Tolkien insists he do, then that is reductionism.
No, that isn't what I said at all. I said that if you reduce the meaning of an author's story to the author's political party or religion or social conditions, you are using psychological reductionism to find the meaning of the story. The object of this method is to find the "true" or the "real" meaning. I maintain that using that method to claim a true meaning, for example that the work is "explicity Catholic" because Tolkien was Catholic, is to misunderstand Tolkien's story and his intention. That is why he addresses the issue in the introduction with these word:
the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.Simply because Tolkien was Catholic, it does not follow that the work is explicitly Catholic. And again from the introduction by Tolkien:
As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none.Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is not an explicitly Catholic work. As myth, it is open to many interpretations.