I'm sorry if I sound disagreeable; that is not my intent. And I am sorry
if I misstated what I thought your grandfather had said about Tolkien.
I only object to the notion that philology was Tolkien's "ruling passion," if
and only if that means it takes precedent over several other passions, also
discussed in his letter. He expressed a passion about trees, about
creating a mythology for England, about fairy-tales, about Catholicism, about
many things. The letter in which he insisted that LotR was philological
in origin sounded, to me, rather defensive; he was explaining some remarks
quoted in a public interview.
Many times in his letters he expressed some chagrin at spending so much time on
LotR when some might have expected more scholarly publications. He also
talked about being attracted to the dangerously fascinating "game" of creating
a fantasy world. I'm not at all sure he was convinced that he had spent
his time wisely, as the story Leaf by Niggle shows.
Was he in fact niggling? That was, I suggest, a doubt that he had at
least as of 1955, when he wrote the letter Madtheow quoted. Perhaps in
the 1960s, when he retired from his profession and LotR achieved amazing
success, he had less doubts, which gave "Smith of Wootton Major" a very
different tone. But in 1955 he may have taken some pains to justify his
avocation as somehow related to his vocation, when an interviewer apparently
implied that the two were in no way
related.
“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.)
Tips for posting in the Reading Room.
