‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, no, it isn't. A telegram has no artistic purpose or merit. It is designed for other purposes of communication. Any understanding of LotR has to consider the special nature of literature as Art. To the best of my knowledge, LotR has not yet been performed in Morse Code, although I have seen Wuthering Heights attempted in Morse Code.

A most annoying thing about this Allegorical/Canonical/Applicable/Nonsensical threads is that Metaphor can never be taken as Metaphor or a Simile for a Simile. It has to be taken as literal. Any attempt to use a parable in illustrating a point is immediately attacked as being not the same. This hasn't just happened to me, it's happened to others.

I suppose, being a discussion of "applicability", applying the problem to another situation can only confuse it, but the decisiveness with which people crack down on the metaphor and declare "Ah, but it is not the same!" is not only irksome, but is related to the issue at hand.

After all, if the reason that metaphor is "not the same"- and therefore non-applicable to the discussion- then surely all the linguistic evidence that is being debated should be taken in a similar manner, a manner which is purely literal.

A metaphor or simile, after all, does its work by giving its message with the understanding that the person hearing/reading it understands the intended message. Does not a book work the same way? Yet if Tolkien says that his book is not an Allegory, that it was not written as a Metaphor or a Simile, but that it is intended to be taken at face, or literal, value.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this yet, and it may well just stop here, but I found it most amusing that Bêthberry, who is weighing in on the Readers' (and thus the "Metaphorists") side is attacking the use of the my Simile. After all, if one cannot use another situation to explain or describe another, then surely there is no point in debating canonicity, since the text can only describe one situation- the one it literally describes.

Maybe that was my point... I don't know. I'm so confused...

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

This is why Fordim's new thread, the Canonicity Slapdown thread, is quite appropo and significant. Look at how many Downers have responded to the poll, at least voting if not posting their opinion. The poll invites people to participate whereas this thread, maybe because it tends towards long windedness and, now, a certain amount of incestuous reproduction of ideas, tends to drive people away. I don't see that as requiring thread closure--I mean, after all, what is the point of debate when it is foreclosed, and, any way, how many successful threads other than RPG threads are closed?

And please to remind all who claim that this thread is merely a rhapsody in reproduction, let me point out that last summer's posts did not consider the issue of allegory. This is actually a new application.

Quite.

As a relative newbie who has not read the parts of the discussion that occured prior to my arrival, I have been hesitant to enter into what, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be an "Verbose Old Guard" private debate...

Fortunately (or unfortunately?), I got over that...