Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-108.35.168.58-20170531205843/@comment-25101089-20170602193603

Bear in mind that Allegory is not just the same thing as Similarity. When Tolkien included elements from Judeo-Christian mythology, such as Eru Ilúvatar, Melkor's rebellion, and the Fall of Man, he wasn't doing so to communicate some kind of hidden meaning through allegory; but rather, I think, because to him those elements were universal truths about our reality, as fundamental to a story about Earth and mankind as the inclusion of trees and rivers. But it's not an allegory just because it's drawn from the real world - nobody would suggest that Tolkien was trying to communicate an allegory when he chose to include trees and rivers in Middle-earth.

When Tolkien stated his dislike of allegory, I think he had in mind things like people interpreting the One Ring as an allegory for the danger of nuclear weapons, or Sauron as an allegory for Hitler, or the Shire as an allegory for the ideal Marxist utopia. Which weren't his intentions, of course.

And even direct influences like Isengard being inspired by the Black Country and the Dead Marshes by the Somme weren't really 'allegories', just elements of the real world which profoundly affected him and made it into his work.