| The article doesn't even mention his religion/beliefs which is odd despite saying > They are shamelessly moralistic, written on the basis of exhaustive literary theory, linguistics, geography and world-building, and quite devoid of social commentary or Empsonian irony yes, because it was a heavily catholic work. > This mythology, he felt, must “reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth” but must lack all explicit reference to the Christian religion or the “real” world as we know it This is especially true though and undersold. Tolkien's catholicism had an immeasurable impact on his writing and LOTR. he wrote: "[LOTR was a] fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism." his works are absolutely beautiful. |