The Lord of the Rings is a deeply Christian story ā once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Tolkien's elves aren't just mythical beings; they're Mankind before the Fall.
And Middle-earth is no imaginary world ā it's our Earth, a long time ago... (thread) š§µ
Middle-earth is meant to be our world thousands of years ago. With LOTR and his legendarium, Tolkien was trying to create a mythology for England.
He said himself: "Middle-earth is our world..."
"I have (of course) placed the action in a purely imaginary (though not wholly impossible) period of antiquity, in which the shape of the continental masses was different."