SOURCE: Nelson, Charles W. “The Sins of Middle-earth: Tolkien's Use of Medieval Allegory.” In J. R. R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, edited by George Clark and Daniel Timmons, pp. 83-94. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Nelson examines the ways in which the characters in The Lord of the Rings personify various sins and virtues in the traditions of medieval allegory.

During the Council of Elrond, the elven lord declares that “nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so” (The Fellowship of the Ring [FR] 350). This statement reflects Tolkien's version of creation in which Erú intended that everything should be good. Yet even early in The Hobbit, evil obviously exists in Middle-earth—and not only in Dol Guldur—as first the trolls and then the goblins demonstrate their wickedness all too clearly. After the almost fatal adventure on Caradhras...