The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on pa… - J. R. R. Tolkien

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The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allegory, and what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected.

J. R. R. Tolkien

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About J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (January 3 1892 – September 2 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, most famous for his classic high fantasy works.

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Native Name: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Alternative Names: J-R-R Tolkien • Tolkien • John Tolkien • J.R.R Tolkien • J.R.R. Tolkien • John R. R. Tolkien

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It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

"What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked.
"A cage," [Éowyn] said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."

There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done.

The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels ra… - J. R. R. Tolkien

About J. R. R. Tolkien

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