Happy Tolkien Day!
Tolkien Day fell on Thanksgiving last week and i was busy and out and about that day so didn't get to post.
Will post today though and in subsequent weeks. :)
Letter 163 to WH Auden in 1955 about LotR critique
The Lord of the Rings as a story was finished so long ago now that I can take a largely impersonal view of it, and find 'interpretations' quite amusing; even those that I might make myself, which are mostly post scriptum: I had very little particular, conscious, intellectual, intention in mind at any point. Except for a few deliberately disparaging reviews--such as that of Vol. II in the New Statesman, in which you and I were both scourged with such terms as 'pubescent' and infantilism' --what appreciative readers have got out of the work or seen in it has seemed fair enough, even when I do not agree with it. Always excepting, of course, any 'interpretations' in the mode of simple allegory: that is, the particular and topical. In a larger sense, it is I suppose impossible to write any 'story' that is not allegorical in proportion as it 'comes to life'; since each of is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale sand clothed in the garments of time and place, universal truth and everlasting life. Anyways most people have enjoyed The Lord of the Rings have been affected primarily by it as an exciting story; and that is how it was written. Though one does not, of course, escape form the question 'what is it about' by that back door.
Interesting how Tolkien deals with critique. I do think he is write that most people think LotR is an exciting story but also it's a story with so much heart, intricacies and lovely tale of heroism, loyalty, sacrifice that is timeless and resonates through time.