course I have read the thread, or at least most of it. Although perhaps I
missed a particular post that you consider relevant. Are you saying that
I have complete missed your point, or misunderstood what you are trying to
say? Note, by the way, that I was not responding to you, but to
notlost. So if I did not address one of your posts below, that may be the
reason.
And of course you are "allowed" to find meanings in LotR that Tolkien did not
intend. Indeed Tolkien insisted upon it, and resented authors who
demanded their meanings and no others. But if you don't want an argument
about whether, for example, LotR is an atheist text, you would be well-advised
to add a disclaimer that "I am well-aware Tolkien would think nothing of the
kind."
“I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language. (And, of course, the more 'life' a story has the more readily will it be susceptible of allegorical interpretations: while the better a deliberate allegory is made the more nearly will it be acceptable just as a story.)” (From Tolkien Letter # 131.)
