We will see that, throughout this little story, Tolkien presents something that worried him during his entire life: the incompatibility between the necessities of life (or the satisfaction of daily needs – in a sense almost biological needs) and artistic creation. In fact, Leaf, by Niggle gives us the opportunity to study what Tolkien “meant” whereas usually we have to be content with what his stories may mean through or even despite himself.

For once with Tolkien, the tale is not self-sufficient we do not have to content ourselves with appreciating a “mere story” ( L 144), but we can try to go beyond the words to understand a “meaning”. Indeed, it won’t hurt for once, Tolkien used an allegorical method to write Leaf by Niggle, which is, considering his usual creative process, very uncommon. Nonetheless, if Tolkien told us this we might respond as follows: “Sorry, Professor, but Leaf, by Niggle is not a mere story and we can speak about it as much as we want since in writing it you wanted to do more than entertain us your story is an allegory worthy of special attention”. In fact, it is because he wrote his stories to stimulate literary pleasure that most of them have to be appreciated for what they are: fascinating tales. If Tolkien were among us today he would probably tell us: “you should not talk so much about my stories but you should rather enjoy them for their own sake”. Nobody really knows the “meaning” of Leaf, by Niggle there can only ever be interpretations of the text. The title of my paper, The “meaning” of Leaf, by Niggle, may seem a bit pretentious. Publié dans Franck Weinreich et Margaret Hiley (eds) Tolkien’s shorter works, Zurich, Walking Tree Publishers, collection Cormarë, 2008.

Tree and Leaf by J.R.R. Tolkien