‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

The question turns on what we would agree is the moral value Tolkien espouses in the books. It is an interpretive act.

So, any definition of 'canon' must include Tolkien's moral/ethical position (or our best guess at it), & conform to that, as well as to the historical, linguistic & geographical 'facts' - which means that we can also speak of moral 'facts' & ethical 'facts'.

But doesn't this lead us down the road to treating the work as (moral) 'allegory', rather than (feigned) history? If LotR is viewed as an account of a historical period, then the only 'facts' we have to take into account are the 'scientific' ones - the 'moral' ones become optional, down to the individual's judgement.

In the first instance, a fanfic which 'celebrated' either a gay relationship, or Sauron's corruption of the Numenorean's, would be 'uncanonical', because it would be against Tolkien's moral value system (I must emphasise that I'm neither condemning nor condoning homosexuality here, because I don't want to get into that issue - I am assuming that Tolkien, as a committed old school Catholic would have held to the Church's teaching regarding homosexuality). It would be 'uncanonical', even if all the historical, gegraphical & biological facts it contained were correct - it would be uncanonical purely because it did not conform to Tolkien's moral value system.

So, if this is the case with fanfic, doesn't it also apply to the way we must read & interpret the books - the reader's 'freedom' to interpret is delimited by the author's moral value system?