How not to read Tolkien?

Tolkien explained three wrong readings of his works - Biographical, Allegorical, and Source Analysis.

Biographical

• Focus on the story rather than the story-teller.
• Knowledge of author to garner insight in his work, is vastly overrated.
• He mentions in a letter, "I object to the contemporary trend in criticism with its excessive interest in the details of the lives of authors and artists. They only distract attention from an author's works and end as one now often sees in becoming the main interest."

Allegorical

• Most speculated LOTR as an allegory to World War 2.
• His stories are not allegory trying to portray an underlying different reality using motiffs.
• Unlike Lewisian approach, where Narnia's great lion Aslan is clearly representing Jesus.
• Although Tolkien is no less Christian than Lewis. Infact, Christian worldview is the bedrock where his world lays.
• They are though not diconnected with life.
• He differentiates "applicability" with "allegory".
• Laters is a domination of author, former resides in the freedom of the reader. Carefully crafted symbolic narrative, author tries to steer readers into a specific point.

Source Analysis

• Tolkien was a philologist, fluent in dozens of language, a midievalist, wrote angosaxon
• Soup is amalgamation of flavors. Cannot be dissected and understood. Has to critiqued as a soup not its constituents.
• Tolkien's work is like a soup rather than a salad.

Fantasy seldom merits a place in the serious study of literature. With the advent of modernism and post-modernism it is discarded with a smug as being childish. However, epic fictions remain gateways to profound truths.