[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

Is there one, right, unvarying, unchanging way to interpret a text? Has the enchantment of Tolkien always been the same? Were the hippie American university students who adorned their rooms with "Frodo lives!" wrong? Were the first readers who looked aghast at them right? What about the tree huggers? Or are later readers now, who have the benefit of The Silm and HoME, the true standard bearers?

I'd say all were 'enchanted' by the text, but in different ways. the author (the enchanter) is not responsible for the result of the enchantment, only for the intent.

Frankly, I don't think you *do* respond to what you think I mean. I think you respond in order deliberately to misinterpret, in order to generate futher discussion. It is a playful move, not at all disrespectful, but it represents in fact how humans make meaning.

My point, from the beginning, has been that an attempt to understand what an author intended should be our prime objective - other objectives may, or may not, follow, as we are so inclined - whether to gain a better understanding of the story, the author, or of ourselves. In what way have I 'deliberately' misinterpreted what anyone said? I said in post 51 that I didn't object to your applying ideas about Lilith to Shelob, but that I wasn't convinced they worked. I was arguing about what you were applying to the text, not with your right to apply it.

As I see your posts here in this thread, your theory of reading has no place for historical change of meaning, has no place for the generation of new awareness, has no place for the future, no explanation for imagination. (Forgive me if I see definite elvish traits here.) It is you, I fear, who would impose on readers, as a text themselves, your own reading, because you think you know how to interpret Tolkien, since the enchantment is always and ever with you. 'I am completely happy and in thrall to the text, therefore I think as Tolkien wants me to think.' There's something solipcistic there that worries me.

What I'm saying is not denying a place for 'historical change of meaning', nor does it leave 'no place for the generation of new awareness, no place for the future, no explanation for imagination'. (Perhaps I'm not the only one guilty of reading things into other's post's that they didn't put there?) All I've ever said was that the experience of the art (in as pure a degree as we are capable of) must come first, then we must (again as far as we are capable of doing it) attempt to understand what the artist intended to communicate, what he/she wanted to say to us, then, finally, can come - if we so desire it - our own interpretation of the text/painting/symphony.

My theory - take it or leave it, but please don't think I trying to silence all alternatives. I believe in my position, so I'll defend it, but I wouldn't expect any less from anyone else.