Tolkien and Allegory

A Relationship Seeking Understanding

Abstract

This article investigates allegory as a conceptual repertoire in the personal letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), edited by Humphrey Carpenter and his son Christopher Tolkien (2006). The aim is to present the discussion about the layers of meaning of a text and its forms of interpretation based on the considerations of Tolkien, who was a participant in a realistic philosophical and theological tradition, according to his early 20th century Catholicism. The methodology utilized is bibliographic-documentary, consisting of a historical review of the allegory in sections XXI and XXII from Aristotle’s Poetics and in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. The conclusion affirms the Tolkienian allegory as a method of literary construction based on a closed sense of literal narrative, different from applicability, which is method of creation and interpretation in which the reader preserves their hermeneutic freedom. For Tolkien, this choice conveyed a moral and gnosiological perspective, with an echo in both Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.