‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

Helen

Suppose I wrote a 'fanfic' about a Hobbit called Trotter (complete with broken pipe & wooden shoes) rescuing Idis, Theoden's daughter, from the dungeon's of Giant Treebeard, encountering along the way some of 'pretty little fairies'? How many people unfamiliar with Tolkien's early work & the first drafts of LotR would consider it totally 'wrong' & entirely unacceptable?

Would that story be classed as 'uncanonical'?It would certainly be AU. It would have been entirely possible for Tolkien to have written a story like that, if he had taken a different road imaginatively. So, to what extent can a fanfic be said not to be 'canonical'? What 'period' of Tolkien's creative work does a piece of fan fiction have to correspond to in order to be acceptable?

A work of fan fiction may not correspond to the later vision, but it may capture the mood & spirit of the early work. Or it may get many 'facts' wrong & still be a good story. On the other hand, I've come across a lot of fan fiction, replete with 'facts', even large chunks of perfect Elvish, which bored me senseless. Of course, knowing Tolkien's creation as well as I do (though I'm certainly no 'expert'),I do find many things in otherwise good fan fiction which annoy & break the spell, but I suspect that that is because the inner consistency of reallity has not been achieved, the spell of the story not sufficiently well cast - because if it was I would have been too enchanted to notice the odd slip.

Maedhros

I don't know that I would agree that the first part of Tuor & his coming to Gondolin is 'better' or more effective than the Fall of Gondolin. They are simply different - in the same way that the revised Hobbit is not 'better' than the first edition, just different. There is more detail in Tuor, but it is unfinished, & for all we know the finished story might have been very poor, & not compared at all with FoG in terms of narrative effect.
When you say that T&HCTG is superior 'in your opinion' you point up the problem with your approach. You decided to leave out a note in the Parentage of Gil Galad because you consider it would adversely affect the Narn. For me this approach is only going to produce, as I said, an entirely idiosyncratic version - another group of scholars could decide to include the residence of Gil Galad at the Havens & let the Narn go hang. You cannot approach Tolkien's work in this way, in my opinion, because there is no way to prove that Tolkien, if he'd had the time, or inclination, wouldn't have rewritten the Narn to accomodate the Gil Galad idea. Leaving in the mechanical monsters from FoG creates even bigger problems for a 'consistent' version, in that it changes our whole understanding of Morgoth & what capacity he had for technological development. If he could produce tanks & flame throwers, why didn't he use them against the Valar in the War of Wrath, & decide instead on using living creatures (Balrogs & Dragons) which could be killed.

FoG is his attempt to mythologise the horrors of mechanised warfare, which his was the first generation to witness. It's the horror of the Somme battlefield seen (as Garth puts it) through 'enchanted eyes. It is far more that than part of a 'revised' Silmarillion. If you revise it to fit into a 'canon', an 'official' version (though I have to ask who the 'officials' are who will give final approval - is there an officiating body to whom you will offer up your completed version, who will stamp it 'officially approved', & declare all the other versions (including some of Tolkien's own) 'unofficial') you make it into something it was never intended to be.

In the same way, I don't think there is a 'canonical' Galadriel. The Galadriel of LotR is an exiled Noldor, who has been forbidden to return into the West, & only recieves forgiveness & permission to return through her rejection of the Ring, & her aid in the War of the Ring. The later Galadriel is not an exile, & could return at any time, but stays in order to fight Sauron. 'What Ship could bear this later Galadriel ever back across so wide a sea'? Well, presumably the first one she came across heading in the right direction.

Quote:'The casual reader doesn't need to be helped because to me the casual reader won't truly submerge himself into the legendarium of JRRT.'

I disagree with this profoundly - the reader, 'casual' or otherwise, does not 'submerge' himself - he is either 'submerged' or 'enchanted', or he is not. And if he is 'submerged' he will be 'truly' submerged.

When you refer in such a negative way to 'normal fans' -

(Quote: A normal fan of JRRT is certainly welcome to enjoy those tales, but I believe that if you want more, a more scholarly approach to the works and evolution of the legendarium of JRRT, one cannot be content with that. I think that one has to look for more.)

- as opposed to 'abnormal' ones (& I suppose I must feel grateful for my 'normality' here!) My blood begins to boil

Sorry, but there are simply 'fans' - albeit some who simply love the tales & some who seem to want to dictate which tales shall be loved & which shall not.

Findegil

Quote:'The goal is a as fully told legendarium of Eá as possible which is self consistent and which is true to the ideas of JRR Tolkien as fare as possible'.

One: it is simply not possible to make the Legendarium 'self consistent' without throwing away some of the most interesting bits & pieces - you make me think of a 'tree-surgeon' going in with a chain saw to 'tidy up' Niggle's Tree, & make it 'nice & symetrical'.

Quote:'The benefit of such a text would be an easier approch to the spell casting texts like The Fall of Gondolin.'

Two: No it wouldn't. It would more likely break the spell - its simply an attempt to break a thing to find out what it is made of, & then put it back together in what you consider to be a 'better' form, with all the bits that you consider 'don't belong' left out'.

Quote:'How many readers have rebuke The Silmarillion as being boring an styled like an historical compendium?'

Three: I neither know nor care.

Quote:'Didn't you enjoy The Narn because it was much fuller in styl then the short chapter in The Silmarillion?'

Four: No, I enjoyed both because they both work perfectly in their own way. Why should anyone have the right or the authority to choose one over the other & declare one 'canonical' & the other not?

Quote:'How many readers have ever enjoyed The Wanderings of Húrin?'

Five: As many, I'm sure, as wanted to, & I can't see that your 'official stamp of approval' will increase the number of future readers of that particular work.

(Erm...

Think I may have gone a bit far there. Please don't take it as a personal attack. Its just that I feel very strongly about this issue. I sincerely feel that your approach is mistaken. I hope you enjoy the process, but for me it is simply a form of 'fanfic' - you're taking what you enjoy from Tolkien's work, & creating something new. Good luck to you, but as with all fan fic, you shouldn't expect all the rest of us 'fans' to dub you, as the oft repeated blurbs on numerous forgettable fantasy novels will have it 'worthy successors of Tolkien', let alone my own personal favourite 'Comparable to Tolkien at his best'.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I’m glad to see that Child and I fairly close together on most of the points that we raise. The only real differences between our positions are, so far as I can see, the result of my sloppy phraseology above, and in our choice of metaphors in describing the relationship between reader and (subcreated) text.

I believe none of us fall solely into one category or the other: slavishly following in Tolkien's footsteps, or going off on our own with creative interpretations that may or may not relate to the Professor's expressed views. To suggest such an extreme picture is misleading. In approaching Tolkien's writings, we are all on a sliding scale, some nearer one end, and some closer to the other. We all have moments when we think in terms of what JRRT meant by "X" or "Y", and others when we confront the text as individuals and come away with thoughts and insights that are uniquely our own.

I hope that I did not really give the impression that I think all readers are divided into two camps: the Nazgûl-readers combatively versus the Fellowship-readers (although going back to my post I can see that perhaps I did. . .confound me for posting late at night!). I did, however, state that “our reading experience is some mixture of this – more importantly, that our sense of the truths and/or Truth of Middle-Earth is an (unhappy?) mixture or composite of these positions.” What I meant to suggest is that within each individual reader (or act/moment of engaging with M-E) there exists simultaneously the potential for a Nazgûl-response and a Fellowship response. That is, we are subjected at once to the promise of the enchantment (the release and freedom from the Primary world through the magic of the story) as well as to the great danger of enchantment (of being ensorcelled and made subject to or of the magic). Again, this split response is, I think, anticipated in LotR by Gandalf and Saruman: the former enchants beings with the voice of counsel that provides hope; the latter enchants beings with the commanding power of his Voice.

Where Child and I do differ, and I think significantly, is in our revealing choice of metaphors about this mixed response. Child refers to a “sliding scale” and I to a “composite”. For Child, then, the act of engaging with the subcreation of Tolkien is one in which the reader can move back and forth between these responses, achieving some kind of balance? (Child wrote: “We all have moments when we think in terms of what JRRT meant by "X" or "Y", and others when we confront the text as individuals and come away with thoughts and insights that are uniquely our own.”). I suppose that what I mean by a “composite,” however, is that the reader is not moving from one position to the other in a happy and “balanced”(? – is this the right world Child?) manner, but that we are caught or suspended between positions that are in many ways irreconcilable (the subcreator or the reader – you can have it both ways, but not at the same time).

This is one way of portraying these particular viewpoints but it is possible to suggest another, which is equally plausible and also has roots in Tolkien's writing. We are all subcreators. But perhaps those who are cognizant of the Original Music and try to incorporate its themes in their own creations are in effect following in the footsteps of the Great Creator (in this case, Tolkien himself). By contrast those who create melodies of their own which have no bearing to the original Music are merely pumping out discordant and jarring notes that are highly reminiscent of Melkor.

I’m really not happy with the idea of elevating Tolkien to the status of “Great Creator,” for two reasons. First, M-E is clearly not a created realm on par with the Primary World. Second, Tolkien himself would resist this characterisation of his world. He is a subcreator and we are the readers. We do – I cannot agree more heartily, Child – participate in the act of subcreation through the act of reading, but the instant we do so in an unequal relationship, I believe that we begin to move (perhaps too far) down the road to Minas Morgul (“following in the footsteps of the Great Creator (in this case, Tolkien himself)”) and become Nazûl readers, by taking Tolkien as the Creator (as the Nazgûl take or have forced upon them Sauron in place of Eru).

It would be very hard to piece together the full picture of who Eru is, all the various Catholic interpretations that can be applied to things like lembas and Galadriel, and a host of other related things.

And a thanks to Child for this as it highlights a problem in my usage of Eruism – which I am delighted to see is catching on…perhaps much like a fungus. By Eruism I mean only that sense of a providential plan within which the individual becomes heroic in M-E, without any reference whatsoever to the Catholicism that, through Tolkien, informs it. (In other words, Eruism does not equal Catholicism, it is Tolkien’s subcreated and recovered version/vision of Catholicism). In this sense, I think once more that Child and I agree on this point: Eruism (but not Eru) is plainly evident to all who are enchanted by LotR insofar as we accept/enjoy/find satisfaction in moments like Gollum’s fall. Catholicism, Tolkien’s views on individual liberty and duty, and all the elements of the Primary World that inform Tolkien’s subcreated moral order of Eruism, are not.

[Novnarwen]

This is such an enjoyable thread! Finally, I'm being able to reply!

From Child's post:

But I would still maintain that it's possible to read Tolkien without knowing all the ins and outs of the author's religious stance, to appreciate it simply as a good yarn. (The same holds true for someone who knew nothing about the northern myths.) But without the three published works I mentioned (Silm, bio, and Letters), it would be very hard to piece together the full picture of who Eru is, all the various Catholic interpretations that can be applied to things like lembas and Galadriel, and a host of other related things.

Regarding the Picture of Eru: I think that too is individual... First of all because of the reader's own belief. If he/she is a Christian, who believes in God, he/she would naturally want to know the explanation of why things happen, just like in Real Life. The point I am trying to make, (which isn't working very well, is it?) is that it's natural for a religious reader/person to think there is something 'behind' LOTR, (The Silm, The Hobbit? And 'life' if it's 'just' a 'person'..) other than Tolkien. And discovering the Eruism (and who Eru really is) wouldn't be that 'difficult' as they already by nature seek after Him.

From Fordim's post:

Allow me to return to my favourite example for this thread: Gollum’s little ‘tumble’ at the Cracks of Doom. You say that when you read the text, you did not consciously formulate any thought that there was a Force or Guide, beyond the characters, giving Gollum a little push there: you were unaware of the Eruism.

Is the little push, which caused to the Ring's destruction and "Fall of Gollum" (the big eyed, nice little guy), automatically Eruism because it can't be explained? (I mean, he just fell, or stumbled, or tripped, or was just VERY clumsy. I think I know what you mean, but I feel 'obliged' to question it.)

From Fordim's post:

And a thanks to Child for this as it highlights a problem in my usage of Eruism – which I am delighted to see is catching on…perhaps much like a fungus. By Eruism I mean only that sense of a providential plan within which the individual becomes heroic in M-E, without any reference whatsoever to the Catholicism that, through Tolkien, informs it. (In other words, Eruism does not equal Catholicism, it is Tolkien’s subcreated and recovered version/vision of Catholicism). In this sense, I think once more that Child and I agree on this point: Eruism (but not Eru) is plainly evident to all who are enchanted by LotR insofar as we accept/enjoy/find satisfaction in moments like Gollum’s fall. Catholicism, Tolkien’s views on individual liberty and duty, and all the elements of the Primary World that inform Tolkien’s subcreated moral order of Eruism, are not.

(Marked in bold; my own.)

Eruism isn't necessarily an "evident to all who are enchanted by LotR insofar as we accept/enjoy/find satisfaction in moments like Gollum’s fall." I assume you mean that you'll find it satisfying, as it's a poof that there is a higher power (God) in LOTR? If so.. Then take for example; people who don't believe in Eru (God?), wouldn't think of Gollum's fall other than the fact that it was an accident, or that Tolkien wanted it that way. Eruism, which comes from Eru, the creator of Eä, wouldn't mean anything to a person who has no personal belief, or simply don't consider Eru as a God, a creator.

If it is not so, then ignore the paragraph above, or the post. Both would be just fine...

Cheers,
Nova

[davem]

Maedhros

My position is that you don't have to choose between the stories, & classify one as 'better' or even that one expresses Tolkien's vision better than another. If we were talking about a collection of completely unrelated tales this wouldn't arise - so, the question is - are we actually talking about completely seperate stories? If we take BoLT as a different work than the pre-LotR Sil, & both as different from the post LotR Sil, there is no need to make these choices. And I think the premise you are working from is simply wrong. Because Tolkien uses many of the same characters, settings & events acoss all three (& in the Annals, etc) it simply 'fools' us into seeing them as the 'same' story evolving over time. But each was the 'definitive' version of the work when they were composed. Lost Tales was not written as a first draft of the post LotR Sil. It was a work which expressed Tolkien's desires at the time it was written. His desires had changed when he came to write the Sil in the 30's, so it was a different work. When he returned to the legends in the post LotR period, he was again writing something entirely different.

He is attempting to tell a number of stories, construct a number of 'Legendaria'. The characters, settings & events remain (in their 'essential' form, at least in some cases), but what Tolkien has to say changes, his world view changes. His life changes, so, in many ways, he is a different person, with different things to say. Probably his understanding of his faith & his relationship to God & the world changed as he matured - so the references in the Qenya Lexicon to Germans as 'barbarians' was a reflection of his beliefs & attitudes at the time he wrote it. They are neither 'canonical' nor 'non-canonical'. They reflect his feelings at the time of WW1. Later, his attitudes towards the German people changed. They are no longer 'barbarians'. But once they were - even the 'Elves' thought so.

The idea that you can take bits from the Fall of Gondolin, add to them bits from 'Tuor', written half a century or so later, by a 'different' writer - because Tolkien did change as a man & as a creator - & produce an 'official' version of the story of Gondolin is, in my view, mistaken. Its almost equivalent to taking some scenes from Marlowe's Jew of Malta, & Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice & trying to produce a 'canonical' Elizabethan view of 'Jewishness'', or combining Marlowe's Faustus & Goethe's Faust to get at the 'true' version of the legend. There simply isn't a 'canonical' Silmarillion - its the fox that isn't there. What is there, is JRR Tolkien, a writer who throughout his adult life was telling stories, with many of the same characters & events in them, but with different meanings & intentions. You can no more produce a 'canonical' Silmarillion, by choosing some bits from here, there & eveywhere from his ME writings & casting aside other bits, than you can create a 'canonical' JRRT, by taking some bits from his biology, his academic career, his personal life, his fictional & non fictional writings & rejecting other bits. Tolkien, as I said, is his creative life, the Legendarium, & the Legendarium is Tolkien. There is no 'definitive' version of either.

I'm glad your forays into trying to create a 'canon' have increased you appreciation of Tolkien's work, but I can't see what you hope to end up with, or what value you think it will have - I suspect that in the end you'll find that the process of creating it will be more important than what you end up with.

Bethberry

I think there is an essential difference between fairy stories & Tolkien's creation. The very process of tales being handed down by word of mouth, possibly over centuries, means they soon cease to be the work of a single mind, or reflective of a single person's worldview, at a particular time in that person's life. They accrue & discard details & references as they are told & re-told. They become something totally different to a book written by a particular author ('living shapes that move from mind to mind' as Tolkien put it is Mythopoea). Tolkien's legendarium is Tolkien's story (or, more accurately, as I said above, Tolkien's stories ). They come out of his mind, & in effect are him, speaking to us, mind to mind. To risk falling into the trap of 'Zen & the Art of interpreting Tolkien , we can almost say that while he was in the process of telling the stories - in the various periods of his life - he 'was' the story - his mind was focussed on them, his total attention was on the tale. So, when we read the stories, we encounter Tolkien 'mind to mind'. We are reading his thoughts - even if we know nothing about him or his day to day life or his beliefs, it is still Tolkien's mind that is communing with our mind. We cannot say that Tolkien is not there, because in effect we would be saying our minds are communing with nothing, or that our minds are communing with themselves. The author introduces new ideas - 'living' shapes move from his mind to ours' - 'living' because ideas & images are mental processes - processes transmitted from one living brain to another. So, the author & the reader are both 'really' present in the experience - the author doesn't 'cease' to be while the story is being told - even if he happens to be physically dead. His mind is 'alive', because his mind is the source of the living ideas we are experiencing as we read - & how can something dead produce life? Once we put down the story and think of something else, the author - whether still physically alive or not, is 'dead' to us, because we are no longer aware of his or her existence. Tolkien 'lives' when we read his writings - 'living' mind meets & interacts with 'living' mind - and if you can only offer that 'illusion' of serial time as an argument against that theory then I will be disappointed

No, The author of a tale is always present when the tale is told- whether we realise it or not.

[Lord of Angmar]

Its almost equivalent to taking some scenes from Marlowe's Jew of Malta, & Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice & trying to produce a 'canonical' Elizabethan view of 'Jewishness'', or combining Marlowe's Faustus & Goethe's Faust to get at the 'true' version of the legend. There simply isn't a 'canonical' Silmarillion - its the fox that isn't there.(davem)

I would say that it is more akin to reading earlier drafts of The Merchant of Venice and trying to form a 'canonical' view of Shylock, rather than solely analyzing the Shylock who made it through to the final script. I can understand what you are saying about Tolkien as a writer, but what you classify as an attempt "to tell a number of stories, construct a number of 'Legendaria'" I tend to see more as a gradual revision and refinement of a single 'Legendarium'. I do agree fully that there can be no 'canonical' Silm, and that under the parameters above only LotR (and possibly the Hobbit) can truly be considered 'canonical' to the legend of Middle-earth. Thus, I also agree with you that the Revised Silmarillion can and should be no more than a hobby.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I have one question for the whole which-works-are-canonical-and-which-aren't strand of this thread:

What is the purpose of constructing your canon -- whatever it may be? Are you striving for a comprehensive version of Middle-Earth or a truthful one? That is, are you trying get it all, or are you trying to get it right?

[Lord of Angmar]

What is the purpose of constructing your canon -- whatever it may be? Are you striving for a comprehensive version of Middle-Earth or a truthful one? That is, are you trying get it all, or are you trying to get it right?

That is a very pertinent question, since I think the word canon has been thrown around far too much. For myself, I love the Silmarillion, the BoLT, HoME, etc. I am a little "iffy" on the authenticity of each or all as a comprehensive history, since while I do tend to use them as a historian might use his history books when making an argument, at the same time I recognize that they may not entirely (or even remotely, who knows?) resemble what Tolkien intended to be a part of the history of Middle-earth. As far as 'canon' goes, I do believe that only LotR is a 100% 'canonical' part of Middle-earth. The rest of the 'Legendarium' as we know it, with the possible exception of The Hobbit, is a cluster of branches on a tree which, beautiful and enthralling as it may be, will never bear any verifiably canonical fruits.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Oh, Bethberry , I'm sorry but I couldn't resist. It was late at night and all I could see was an image of myself as a Nazgûl. I just didn't want to go to bed with that embedded on my brain. It seemed nicer to consider the Music of Creation and my own small niche as a subcreator trying to weave a tune that would blend in with the main themes!

But, all kidding aside, I think your suggestion is an excellent one to look at how Tolkien himself worked with text and consider how freely he utilized ideas from Beowulf, the works of Shakespeare, and similar sources.

I guess what I am wondering about is what Tolkien thought he was free to do as a reader and then as a writer. And, of course, what applicability that has to what we do.

Would it also be useful to look at Tolkien's personal response when others took his own texts and ideas and drew meaning from these, whether a meaning that was consonent with his own or one that was different? Obviously, this process is laden with emotion. It is easier to make a calm decision when drawing ideas from another author's text than when confronted with someone doing the same to your own. The fact that so many of the early reviews of Tolkien refected such extreme views would also make this task more difficult.

Still, to understand the process fully, you'd ideally examine things from both sides: what Tolkien thought he was free to do as a reader and writer; and how he responded when others exercised their freedom to do the same.

The first thing that comes to mind is the well-known passage from the Letters that someone quoted earlier on this thread (or at least I think so). The italics are my own.

I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yest leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.

In theory at least, this suggests JRRT did not object to others coming into his own subcreation of Middle-earth, and further developing his legendarium using the same peoples and places that he wrote about. His list of artists does not explicitly include other writers, but, in order to produce a drama, someone must set pen to paper. Moreover, if he purposely intended to leave some tales only roughly sketched, it sounds as if he was inviting people to do more than simply repeat existing plots and ideas but rather to create something, almost in the manner of a fanfiction. How much freedom he would allot such artists in deviating from his own vision is, of course, another matter, but he did not slam the door in their faces.

Does anyone know of another artist who expressed a similar view: suggesting that others come in and create within his world, helping to develop the legends even further? And not just one subcreator, but potentially a whole host of them... Such an attitude is extraordinarily generous. The only one who comes to mind is the late Marian Zimmer Bradley who encouraged young writers to dabble in Darkover. There were a number of such "fanfiction" essays published during her life, and some of these folk went on to become fantasy writers with worlds of their own. But although she was a good writer and an early fan of Lord of the Rings, she was nowhere near the artist that Tolkien was.

***********
Fordim

Thanks for clarifying the part about Eruisms. I do see our positions as not that different.

Child

[The Saucepan Man]

Heavens but it's a job participating on this thread. Just as I've absorbed one set of views and forumulated (I rather like that typo ) my responses, a whole new set of them comes along.

Then take for example; people who don't believe in Eru (God?), wouldn't think of Gollum's fall other than the fact that it was an accident, or that Tolkien wanted it that way. Eruism, which comes from Eru, the creator of Eä, wouldn't mean anything to a person who has no personal belief, or simply don't consider Eru as a God, a creator. (Novnarwen)

I would disagree. Just because one doesn't believe in the existence of God in the real (primary) world, it does not follow that one cannot appreciate the importance of Eru within the sub-created world. And I now rather subscribe to Fordim's view that, even if someone who is not deeply religious is unaware of the role of Eru when he reads LotR, he will still receive from the text a strong sense of providence (on a subconscious level at least). The text implies that "something" made Gollum fall at that moment, just as "something" made Bilbo find the Ring, whatever that "something" may be.

They chose to accept the Rings of Power and to keep them. Insofar as you talk about the reader being “bound by what is said in the text unless he himself chooses” to exercise his or her free will – you are describing not just Melkor in response to Eru, but the Nazgûl to Sauron and, I would suggest, that instinct in us as readers to say “my individual truths are not equal to the intended Truth of the Creator of Middle-Earth, so He must tell me what the Truth is.”(Fordim Hedgethistle)

Point of order M'lud! Melkor had numerous opportunities to repent (and indeed pretended to do so on at least one occasion), as did Sauron. Yes, the Nazgul chose to take the Rings but, from the moment that they did, there was no going back. I see what you are saying: The "Nazgul-reader" is "ensorceled" (is that a word?) into the view that he must abide by the author's "truth" and is then effectively bound by that view. But surely he's not really bound. Surely he does still have the choice to break the spell and adopt a different approach to his interpretation of the author's works.

Your Nazgul-reader might just as well be labelled a Frodo/Gandalf-reader. His initial reaction is to follow his own interpretation, just as Frodo's initial reaction was that Bilbo should have killed Gollum when he had the chance. But Gandalf (the reader's wiser side) counsel's him in the "Eruistic" ("Eruian"?) way of mercy (acceptance of the author's own interpretation).

And I think the premise you are working from is simply wrong. (davem)

In whose eyes is it wrong? Yours maybe. But presumably you would not regard the efforts of Christopher Tolkien, who was seeking to acheive much the same thing when he compiled the Silmarillion, in the same way, or would you dismiss the published Silmarillion as ultimately valueless?

And it is certainly not wrong in the eyes of those undertaking the project, who clearly regard it as a worthwhile endeavour. And not necessarily in the eyes of others, some of whom will be interested to read it.

Lost Tales was not written as a first draft of the post LotR Sil. It was a work which expressed Tolkien's desires at the time it was written. His desires had changed when he came to write the Sil in the 30's, so it was a different work. When he returned to the legends in the post LotR period, he was again writing something entirely different. (davem)

That is a very good point, though. Does it perhaps point to a fundamental flaw in Tolkien's approach that he was unable to finalise one text written at one point in time reflecting his world-view at that time and then move onto another text (and perhaps another sub-created world) in order to express his changing views. Why did he feel the need to continue to express his developing perpsective on the primary world in the same sub-created world using (broadly) the same characters, and generally by re-working the same tales? He was able to conjure up other sub-created worlds (witness the tales of Farmer Giles, Smith and Niggle). If he had adopted this approach to all his works, he may well have published a lot more within his lifetime. But where would that leave Middle-earth? Would it still hold the same "enchantment"?

There simply isn't a 'canonical' Silmarillion - its the fox that isn't there.

Assuming that one excludes the published Silmarillion from Tolkien's "canon" (and, like Lord of Angmar, I can see the force in this argument), then the closest that one can get to a "canonical" Silmarillion, I suppose, is the form which it was in when LotR was published. The reason being that it is this form of the text which will represent the history on which LotR, which is part of the "canon", was based.

That's all for now folks. More later, undoubtedly ...

[drigel]

This thread is interesting and its why i come back to this site again and again. Its wonderfull thoughtfull contributors like u guys that make it so.

Nothing i can add at this point. We all love and re read the stuff over and over and over and..... at a certain point we feel like we know the author and what his intentions were.

Here are my two cents anyways hehe:

Cannon: What would be the authors desire? Published work. period. If it was fit to be published according to his standards - its cannon. Since all other writings IMO would not be considered "finished" by the author, they should be considered as fluid and "undefined" as any peice of artwork at "conception".

While I am as guilty as everyone else at trying to gleem insights into the unfinished work or the early ideas, its subjective - its my interpretation ... After all, (toungue in cheek - i guess i am in the second group) he was laying down a history of what his mind/imagination saw. IMO, his interpretation was just a fragment of that mosaic. But it was HIS vision - this was his work after all. The pieces were all laid down, its the details that we are arguing. He would be shocked at all this analysis - dismayed. He was never "inside" the work as we are - or would like to be. All the time spent analysing this point or that point could be cleared up in (if it were possible) a 5 minute conversation with the man.

Letters as Cannon: good to get general insight but leave it at that! These were personal letters to people. Every thought or word uttered by the man is not cannon. You cannot dissect the creative process as you can a crime scene or a frog. I love the letters but they were not intended by JRRT to be published

Carry on

[The Saucepan Man]

Fordim

I'm sorry, but I don't get this Fellowship: Nazgul analogy. Why are those who are creating a text of the Silmarillion which they feel sticks as closely as possible to Tolkien's ideas and intentions analagous to the Nazgul? Yes, they are binding themselves to a particular manner of interpretation (with, in this case, a closely drawn set of interpretative "rules"), but they are doing so of their own free will and they could withdraw at any time if they felt that it wasn't right for them. In addition, a cursorary glance at the Revised Silm threads will show that there is still ample scope for discussion and interpretation, even within the confines of the interpretive rules which they have set themselves. The Nazgul had none of these luxuries. As soon as they accepted the Rings of Power, their fate was sealed and there was nothing that they could do about it. They were irreversibly bound by Sauron's "interpretation".

I have to say that I prefer Sharon's analogy:

We are all subcreators. But perhaps those who are cognizant of the Original Music and try to incorporate its themes in their own creations are in effect following in the footsteps of the Great Creator (in this case, Tolkien himself). By contrast those who create melodies of their own which have no bearing to the original Music are merely pumping out discordant and jarring notes that are highly reminiscent of Melkor.

I don't see any problem with representing Tolkien as the Great Creator since we are talking about Eru who is himself a sub-creation.

Indeed, I would suggest a development of Sharon's analogy. Suppose we take Tolkien as Eru, the reader as the Ainur, the text of LotR as the Theme of the Music, and our interpretation of the text as Arda. Tolkien the Creator knows from the outset what will happen but the (first time) reader does not. The reader interprets the text as he reads it (sings the Music) and by the time he comes to the end, he has a complete interpretation (the creation of Arda). Most readers are bound by what is stated in the text (the Theme of the Music), but their own beliefs and experiences will shape their interpretation, just as the Ainur shaped Arda based upon the Theme of the Music. Take five different sets of Ainur and you will have five different Ardas, although each will follow the same basic pattern based upon the Theme, just as five different readers will have five different interpretations of LotR, but based upon the same pattern, namely the text. The reader who rejects what is said in the text and seeks to rewrite it as he would prefer to see it is in the position of Melkor rejecting the Theme laid out by Eru and seeking to reshape it according to his own wishes. He is free to do this, in the sense that he has free will, but it is wrong because it runs counter to the text (Eru's theme). (Hmm. Implications for Jackson's screen interpretation? Er - let's leave that aside for now.)

With me so far?

Now, let's take the materials in the Letters and the "unpublished texts", add in Bêthberry's social and political developments, and equate all of these with the Children of Eru. The Children, acting with free will, have a limited ability to change the Ainur's interpretation of Arda (the reader's interpretation of LotR), but they cannot alter the underlying Theme (the text of LotR). The Ainur's interpretation of Arda therefore changes as they encounter the Children and witness their freely willed behaviour, just as the reader's interpretation of LotR may change as he encounters and considers these secondary materials and experiences these external events.

So where does this analogy get us? Well it says to me that the reader has free will at every stage to interpret the text in the whatever manner seems most appropriate. Although that interpretation will be affected by the secondary materials and external influences, the reader is still free to accept or reject such influences if they do not resonate with him. But at all times, the reader is bound by what is said in the text itself unless he chooses (exercising free will) to act like Melkor and reject it.

OK, it's not a perfect analogy, and it will probably get shot down in flames. But it works for me, even in its imperfect state. What I would maintain, however, is that the only readers who have no free will, who truly are in the position of the Nazgul, are those who are prevented form reading the book in the first place, or who are told in no uncertain terms how they should interpret it (whether by their governemnt, their parents, their teacher, their preacher or whatever).

And just a quick word on this concept of "Eruism". I am glad, Fordim, that you got round to defining what you mean by this in your last post:

By Eruism I mean only that sense of a providential plan within which the individual becomes heroic in M-E, without any reference whatsoever to the Catholicism that, through Tolkien, informs it.

I most certainly agree that this sense of providence is an inherent part of the tale told in LotR. It should be, as it is, as you have said, imbued within the text itself. Yes, when I first read of the events at Sammath Naur, it seemed "right" to me that Gollum should fall into the fires of Orodruin with the Ring. I am not sure that I consciously thought about it, but the sense of providence must have been there on an unconscious level at least. Otherwise, as you say, I would have felt cheated by it. My concern was that you were suggesting that the text provided clear evidence of the existence of a Supreme Being and was necessarily open to interpretation only by reference to the values of a montheistic religion. Gollum's fall could be explained in any number of ways which does not require the existence of a single Supreme Being, and still fall within the ambit of providence. But you have explained yourself now, and I think that we agree.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I very much like your (sub)creation analogy Saucepan Man: I think it makes sense to me…

You say, however, that my Nazgûl-Fellowship analogy doesn’t resonate with you. Fair enough. But allow me to take one more run at it, using a paragraph from your own post as demonstration:

So where does this analogy get us? Well it says to me that the reader has free will at every stage to interpret the text in whatever manner seems most appropriate. Although that interpretation will be affected by the secondary materials and external influences, the reader is still free to accept or reject such influences if they do not resonate with him. But at all times, the reader is bound by what is said in the text itself unless he chooses (exercising free will) to act like Melkor and reject it.

Right here I think I can see the very relation that you and Child (I don’t know why I resist proper names so much) refer to as a “sliding scale” and that I call a “composite” – your own formulation of the reader’s response enacts both a Nazgûl and a Fellowship approach:

“Well it says to me that the reader has free will at every stage to interpret the text in whatever manner seems most appropriate” – the freedom of the Fellowship to be take up the Quest or lay it aside at will (“On those who go, no oath or bond is laid”).

“Although that interpretation will be affected by the secondary materials and external influences, the reader is still free to accept or reject such influences if they do not resonate with him.” – Still, the freedom of the Fellowship, but now a somewhat constrained freedom, or a mitigated one. The choice to continue on the Quest is couched by the advice of Elrond, the Counsel of Gandalf, the injunctions/testing of Galadriel, the role and effect of Eruism (“And then, as though some other will were using his voice, Frodo spoke. ‘I will go to Mordor. Although I do not know the way’.”)

“But at all times, the reader is bound by what is said in the text itself unless he chooses (exercising free will) to act like Melkor and reject it” – An extremely ironic sentence insofar as you seem to be linking the exercise of free will to Melkor; I understand perfectly what you are suggesting (Melkor chose to rebel against Eru), but it does re-emphasize my point: that in the same manner, the Nazgûl willingly gave themselves over to Sauron. They chose to accept the Rings of Power and to keep them. Insofar as you talk about the reader being “bound by what is said in the text unless he himself chooses” to exercise his or her free will – you are describing not just Melkor in response to Eru, but the Nazgûl to Sauron and, I would suggest, that instinct in us as readers to say “my individual truths are not equal to the intended Truth of the Creator of Middle-Earth, so He must tell me what the Truth is.”

Again I must say that I am not suggesting that any one group of readers, or even that any individual reader is either a Nazgûl-reader or a Fellowship-reader. Both stances are impossible in any kind of total form: we never can become wholly ensorcelled by the text to the point where we lose the ability to think for ourselves, nor can we willy-nilly generate whatever we want in response to the text without doing violence to it. We are all of us both Nazgûl and Fellowship at one and the same time. All I am trying to suggest through this analogy is that in our encounters with the subcreated world of M-E we are being put into a very difficult and fascination position as readers – we are being presented with a text that pits the Fellowship against the Nazgûl as bitter and opposed enemies, even as we are having a reading-experience in which we are at one and the same time both Nazgûl and Fellowship.

In effect, the text presents us with a vision of Nazgûl versus Fellowship, and then puts us into the position where we can see that we are both!

Again, great art does this…(but not effective propaganda)

[Bêthberry]

Oh thank heavens, SaucepanMan. For a bit there I was indeed thinking that Child's analogy--

By contrast those who create melodies of their own which have no bearing to the original Music are merely pumping out discordant and jarring notes that are highly reminiscent of Melkor.

--

was going a bit far. I mean, I can''t carry a note myself, but I think the point has always been to keep an ear tuned towards the original Music. Think of what Glenn Gould did with Bach's Goldberg Variations, after all.

My meagre contributions here have been dedicated towards examining what happens when we read (and, by extension, write), more towards a psychology of reading I suppose than an exploration of what is the right way to respond to Tolkien, although what I have hoped to do is show how important On Fairy Stories is to giving us a glimpse into how Tolkien regarded narrative.

That said, I wonder where, in any of the "allegories or applicabilites" any of us have put forth here, we could actually place Tolkien.

How did he regard his responsibility towards the texts he read as he came to create first the languages and then the characters who could go forth and speak the words?

We all know what he thought of Shakespeare's elves. He felt no compunction in "correcting" what he regarded as a species of error. Burnam Wood and the Ents, of course, we can also acknowledge.

We know what his essay on Beowulf did for the manner in which that poem had been used and interpreted.

On the other hand, how did Tolkien determine what he should take and use from Norse mythology for his mythology? or from Celtic legend?

I guess what I am wondering about is what Tolkien thought he was free to do as a reader and then as a writer. And, of course, what applicability that has to what we do.

[HerenIstarion]

Well, here is an article by Michael Martines on Suite 101 Is your canon on the loose?

And here is the profile for him on the Barrow Downs:

Michael Martinez

sincerely

edit: on close examination, article which the link is provided to is the selfsame as indicated in Lord of Angmar's post above. Sorry for repetition

Here is the weregild for the fault: Creating a new Silmarillion -- some ideas...

[drigel]

This argument really began with CT's providing us the Silm, which we all agree is not 100% JRRT. thank goodness it was produced. Looking back, I think the revision that took place was done with much regard to what JRRT originally intended - I think the thought was (at the time) to make the Silm a complete read - a book for us hungry JRRT fans. A "publishable" novel.

The argument (IMO) largely affected how the later Histories were laid out - where CT's input is clearly separate from JRRT. I would love to see a "New Silmarillion" published in the fashion of the Histories. Where JRRT's differing versions covering the same subject are presented in a manner where the reader makes his/her own "conlusion" of interpretation. CT's input would involve nothing more than background information and any other comments he likes. Just keep it separate from the work (canon?). Clearly, those of us who can read through any of the histoies (or even the Letters for that matter) dont need a "novel" format. Id buy that book!

[The Saucepan Man]

This argument really began with CT's providing us the Silm, which we all agree is not 100% JRRT. thank goodness it was produced.

I wonder if it might be considered more "authoritative" if the corresponding texts in UT and the HoME series had never been published?

And here is the profile for him on the Barrow Downs

It rather amused me that the Reputation box states "Michael Martinez has started the path to adventure". A bit like the statement that the Barrow-Wight "is getting the hang of it". He (MM that is) seems to have been a bit touchy.

[Novnarwen]

I would disagree. Just because one doesn't believe in the existence of God in the real (primary) world, it does not follow that one cannot appreciate the importance of Eru within the sub-created world. And I now rather subscribe to Fordim's view that, even if someone who is not deeply religious is unaware of the role of Eru when he reads LotR, he will still receive from the text a strong sense of providence (on a subconscious level at least). The text implies that "something" made Gollum fall at that moment, just as "something" made Bilbo find the Ring, whatever that "something" may be.

I assume you are referring to this in LOTR, Mount Doom:

Suddenly Sam saw Gollum's long hands draw upwards to his mouth; his white fangs gleamed, and then snapped as they bit. Frodo gave a cry, and there he was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm's edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger thrust within its circle. It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living fire.

"Precious, precious, precious!" Gollum cried. "My Precious! O my Precious!" And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail Precious, and he was gone.

Be honest, really honest. Do you see that 'something' (of Eruism) in that? I see your point about the fact that people could, and should, appreciate the Eruism in LOTR (And in the other works by Tolkien), but exactly where is the Eruism in that? I mean, if you’re not intentionally looking for it, wanting it to be Eruism, you, or at least I, can't find it! The poor fellow is toppling because he is dancing, not very well, I might add; but I honestly don't see the 'something' in there. I might be narrow-minded, but... help?

There are places in LOTR where there is indeed Eruism. But there is not place in LOTR where 'Eru' actually is mentioned, at least not, according to my little precious. Metaphorically, yes, perhaps. And for a normal reader, who is enchanted (but not overly convinced), the text in LOTR will give him/her nothing or very little of Eruism. However, I would think that Elbereth (Gilthoniel) would give every reader an implication of being a Goddess or at least someone who people look up to. Three times in LOTR Elbereth has singing Elves under her stars. This gives a certain impression, you know.

*hurries off to read the last posts of this thread*

Cheers,
Nova

[drigel]

Clearly the author intended some impressions of "providence", but likewise, any impression of ME "eruism" is intentionaly omitted. What one sees as "providence", I think others see as "plotline". The fundamental message to me is individuals making choices. The fact that there is one creator stands on its own. If there is any otherwordly influence being nuanced, i see more cases of Vala involvement in LOTR, than i do "eruism". In fact (sorry to offend), when i think of the term "eruism", then the term "rolling over in his grave" quickly thereafter comes to mind

[The Saucepan Man]

I see your point about the fact that people could, and should, appreciate the Eruism in LOTR

I am not saying that people "should" see it. But it does seem to me that the story conveys an inherent sense of providence that comes to a head during that scene.

I mean, if you’re not intentionally looking for it, wanting it to be Eruism, you, or at least I, can't find it! The poor fellow is toppling because he is dancing, not very well, I might add; but I honestly don't see the 'something' in there.

I think that the term "Eruism" may be misleading, as it implies an awareness of Eru, which was my bone of contention with Fordim in the first place. And that awareness will not come from a reading of LotR alone. I would prefer to use the term "providence", since it seems to me to be clearly implied in many parts, from the comments of Gandalf, Elrond and others, that providence of some sort is at work.

You are right. There is nothing in that passage, taken alone, to suggest anything other than that Gollum simply tripped and fell. But, taken together with the references mentioned above, it is surely implied that there is something more at work here than mere fortuity. The reader may only be aware of this on a subconscious level (as was the case, I think, with me the first few times that I read it). But, if it was not there, this scene would just not feel "right". As Fordim put it, we would feel cheated. If the Quest, which has been central to the story, was fulfilled by pure chance, it would not be at all satisfactory. However, I am sure that no one who has read and enjoyed the book would describe this resolution as unsatisfactory, even if they did not consciously analyse how and why it happened. Rather they would say that it "felt right". And how could it feel right if it was simply an accident?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I think I would like to cling to my horrific term for the time being. I consciously chose not to call the Guiding Hand in LotR Providence as that is a concept from the Primary World and I wanted something that would more correctly refer to the version of that (Christian) concept as it is subcreated in M-E. The point has been made quite rightly that Eru is not mentioned in LotR, but neither is Providence: the Guiding Hand of Eru (eruism) is most often referred to, I think, as “luck” or “chance”.

The advantage that I see with eruism over Providence is that I wish to emphasise how this providential model of history is one that Tolkien has himself subcreated and ‘inserted’ into his story in such a way that it guides our interpretation of the story (of his entire historia to cite my other dreadful terminology – rolling over in his grave indeed!). The concept of Providence is something that I need to bring from ‘outside’ the text (it’s this kind of a project that Nova is, I think, talking about), whereas I find eruism within the text.

But this is rapidly becoming just the kind of argument over terminology that I fear afflicts the debate over canon and whether text A is or is not within the purview of that term (whatever it means).

The real reason I’m posting right now (other than the need for a bit of a break in a terribly tedious and laborious day) is to address the excellent question put to me by Mister Underhill:

your analogies tend to pit author against reader in a titanic struggle, with the free will of the latter at stake…where exactly are author and reader (potentially) at odds? What freedoms do you seek that Tolkien as author might restrict?

I do realise that my initial posts on this tended this way – I had not yet had the benefit of others’ response to push my thinking into a more subtle form – but my current position (and I’m comfortable with it) is that the “struggle” that takes place is entirely internal to the individual reader (or, more appropriately, lest Bêthberry should read this ) to the individual moment of readerly engagement with the text. That is, we are ourselves torn between the desire to interpret for ourselves (Gollum jumped into the fires to save the world; he fell by accident), and the demands placed upon us by elements of M-E – such as eruism – to interpret events in a particular way (Gollum got a little push from a Guiding Hand – revealed in the Sil to belong to Eru, and most closely connected in the Primary World to Christian Providence).

Note to Saucepan Man – Yes, ensorcelled is very much a word, in the OED and everything. It also happens to be one of my very favourite words, and I love getting the chance to use it:

ensorcelled ensorcelled ensorcelled ensorcelled ensorcelled ensorcelled ensorcelled!!!

[Bêthberry]

Mr. Hedgethistle,

my current position (and I?m comfortable with it) is that the ?struggle? that takes place is entirely internal to the individual reader (or, more appropriately, lest Bêthberry should read this to the individual moment of readerly engagement with the text.

I cannot express how pleased I am that you have found a position you are comfortable with.

That is, we are ourselves torn between the desire to interpret for ourselves (Gollum jumped into the fires to save the world; he fell by accident), and the demands placed upon us by elements of M-E ? such as eruism ? to interpret events in a particular way (Gollum got a little push from a Guiding Hand ? revealed in the Sil to belong to Eru, and most closely connected in the Primary World to Christian Providence).

I think this is not quite my point, although it could be yours. The text does, I would argue, provide a comfortable setting in which to accept that moment of the fall/jump is aesthetically significant and in keeping with other elements in the text. We might have here an example of a confusion between the poet's act and Eru's act. I might think that Tolkien hoped readers to make that leap between the two, substituting Eruism for his own faith, but it seems to me that what we have here is a unified heterocosm which works against any kind of interpretation which would support randomness in Middle-earth.

I am , al always these days, rushed. Does this make sense?

[Bêthberry]

This is a reply to davem, post #98, wherein he states the argument, if I may paraphrase it, 'You are what you write.'

They [Tolkien's stories] come out of his mind, & in effect are him, speaking to us, mind to mind. To risk falling into the trap of 'Zen & the Art of interpreting Tolkien , we can almost say that while he was in the process of telling the stories - in the various periods of his life - he 'was' the story - his mind was focussed on them, his total attention was on the tale. So, when we read the stories, we encounter Tolkien 'mind to mind'. We are reading his thoughts - even if we know nothing about him or his day to day life or his beliefs, it is still Tolkien's mind that is communing with our mind. We cannot say that Tolkien is not there, because in effect we would be saying our minds are communing with nothing, or that our minds are communing with themselves.

Well now, let's see. What is the nature of this living life form's reproductive capabilites? Clone or new life form? If you ask a question of this textual mind, can it answer back, creating new expressions of communication itself, or are we limited to receiving repetition in the original language/mind only? I would tend to think it can only clone or echo and so your organic model of Tolkien as text strikes me, if I may be allowed such an outrageous analogy, as a kind of resurrection fallacy.

Furthermore, if you state that his textual mind continues in our new creations, then you are, in effect, denying both our presence in our own thoughts and subjugating them (oh, that Nazgû allegory again!) to Tolkien's mind, or crowning this thorny issue with questions of virginal gestation: where did his mind/text originate-- in previous mind/texts? Who indeed is the Word with. Or where.

This organic/ textual mind model also assumes that language is a transparent window between minds. Yet, if I may use an analogy from St. Paul, "we see through a glass darkly" (Corinthians 13). (Some have even called it a mire or swamp rather than glass. Nods to Sam Coleridge and Jonathan Culler.) Language is opaque; it follows its own predetermined code of paradigmatic and syntactic structures, already in place before our minds form the expressions. Tolkien may have created many languages, and he may have invented Middle-earth to give expression to them, but he wrote The Hobbit and LotR in English, using the fiction of translation between the 'original' and his text.

and if you can only offer that 'illusion' of serial time as an argument against that theory then I will be disappointed.

I hope, then, I have not only not disappointed you, but entertained you as well.

[davem]

LoA

I can see what you mean with the 'Shylock' point - but if we did construct such a Shylock, would he be recognisable as the figure we know - even to Shakespeare? I think the attempt would be futile, as what we would end up with would really tell us nothing in regard to the play. We may find out a bit more about Shakespeare's thought processes & how he created his characters, but we wouldn't gain any more insight into the play itself - which is the thing we would be after. A 'canonical' Sil might reveal something about Tolkien, but it would seem a very roundabout way of doing so.

Saucepanman

I take the point that CT constructed the '77 Sil in the same way as our colleagues are doing with their attempt at a revised Sil - but the question occurs, If CT was to throw himself under a bus, would they follow his example in that? More seriously, CT has expressed deep regret at his attempt to produce a coherent Sil. In his case, I can sympathise, because there was no way the publishers would have leapt straight into the publicaction of HoME, & he felt an obligation to make his father's Sil writings available to the public. With the publication of HoME this is no longer necessary. I still can't see the value of it, especially not if it is simply to be one among many - this would put off potential readers - which one would they choose?

Aiwendil

Your examples of Beethoven's Ninth & LotR don't work for me - if we only had those works in the forms you describe (which i can't think we would have, as there would be no interest in having them, so no publisher would make them available) & all we got was a slew of different versions, no one would no which one to take seriously. I'm reminded of Eric Morecambe's line, that he was 'playing all the right notes, but not necessarilly in the right order'.

I still think that FoG & Tuor are so different in form & intention that to try taking something from one, & something from the other, suplimented by bits from other references to the story, will not produce anything of real value. If FoG is the young Tolkien's mythologisation of his experience of the Somme, which I feel it is, to a great extent, & Tuor is the Older Tolkien's attempt to write a legend based in ME, detached by time & his own lifetime of other experiences, the two stories will not fit together in the way you assume. Yes, we have characters with the same name recurring throughout the Legendarium, but are they the same characters. I can't see that Gollum (1) (from the 1st ed Hobbit) is the same character as Gollum (2) (from the revised Hobbit), or that Galadriel (1) (from LotR) is the same character as Galadriel (2) (from the later writings - History of Galadriel & Celeborn, etc). To take bits from both versions of these characters & try to create a 'canonical' Gollum (1+2 = ?) or a 'canonical' Galadriel seems doomed to failure - Gollum (2) would never have given up the ring to Bilbo as Gollum (1) would have willingly done, Galadriel (2) would have no need to be forgiven & allowed to return into the West as Galadriel (1) did - which part of her story do you throw out - The beautiful scene of her rejection of the Ring, & repentance for her 'sins' in LotR (G1) or her role as leader of the forces of the West against Sauron, a role which Tolkien says is equivalent to the role of Manwe in the battle against Morgoth (G2)? Sauron is simply not Thu, let alone Tevildo.

Maedhros

We can't know whether the 'Fall of Gondolin' referred to in QN is to be the same FoG as the one in BoLT, or whether Tolkien had in mind a new version - which I suspect is the case , as QN is such a radically different work from BoLT- if he'd rewritten the other stories in line with what is a different intention for the work, why would he leave such a major story untouched? If he had wanted to retain the stories of BoLT as they were, why not just finish it - or simply remove the 'Cottage of Lost Play' elements?

Bethberry

I don't see this 'clone' analogy working - the creative mind was not a clone whenn it created the stories (produced the ideas). We are simply exposed to the living idea, 'across time' as it were. It was 'alive' (ie, a product of a living conscious entity). It enters our currently 'living' consciousness, so it is the interaction of a living thing with another living thing. This is very much like the ideas Tolkien was exploring in the Lost Road & the Notion Club Papers. Living minds from Numenor - their present - our past interact mentally with living minds in the 20th Century - our present - their future. Time, as Tolkien is saying in these stories, is not a fixed thing, moving constantly forward. The 'past', the 'present' & the 'future can interact with each other - not physically, but living mind to living mind. Ideas, experiences, can be transmitted is what Tolkien is saying here (is that idea 'canonical' or not?) It does not involve 'resurrection' at all, as none of the parties involved is 'dead', just living in different places in space-time. We are currently communicating across thousands of miles of space-time & neither of us had to be brought back from the dead to do it (well, obviously I can only make that statement in full confidence as regards myself )

I don't think this does require 'the purposed domination of the author' either - we 'co-create' - neither mind is dominant (as in this discussion - though we mayeach try & achieve such dominance ). Neither is there any requirement for an 'original' thought - a point which Tolkien makes in Fairy Stories - it would not be possible to discover one even if it existed. The issue is not 'language' - unless we mean a 'symbolic' form of such, & spoken/written language surely originated in the need/desire to communicate, & in the connection between living minds which creates that need, driven by that desire. I'm sure both Jung & Chomsky are hovering around this discussion somewhere, but I haven't quite worked out what they're saying - its probably that 'language' thing you mentioned.

(This is starting to remind me of my discussion on 'Evil Things' with HerenIstarion - I don't think there's enough of this kind of thing on these boards !)

[davem]

Aiwendil

I think Saucepan Man is probably right in that the 'revised' Sil discussion has gone as far as it can - We do disagree on our ideas of 'Art' because for me a work of art is the expression of certain ideas by a particular artist. Our understandings of what, exactly, Tolkien's 'art' was 'for' or what it 'means' also seems to differ. I can't for the life of me see a 'coherent' Sil, constructed from bits & pieces of different stories written over a period of 50 odd years, giving any insight into the artist himself or the creative process involved.

And in a way this brings us to Saucepan Man's 'Jungian Gauntlet'.

Aiwendil & the others involved in the RS project seem to be thinking in terms of an 'Archetypal' Middle Earth, which has some kind of 'objective' existence in some other kind of 'reality', which Tolkien himself was attempting to set out in as perfect a form as he could - he got 'flashes' of the truth here & there, but not in every story he wrote, so its simply a matter of studying the texts, finding the 'true' parts, whether they are in Bolt, QN, QS, LotR, Hobbit, or 'Myths Transformed, & putting those 'true' parts together & constructing the truth about this alternate world. If we could do that, they seem to think (unless I'm completely misunderstanding them - as I've admitted I probably am, because their reasons for doing what they're doing still don't make sense to me) we will end up with a 'truer' vision of Middle Earth than we have so far.

The question is, are we dealing with such a case - does ME have an 'objective' existence of that kind, or are the writings the product of Tolkien's 'personal' unconscious, using Archetypal images & themes? Probably the Legendarium is a combination of the two - at least Tolkien himself believed he was not 'inventing'. But he is not simply 'channeling' tales from an alternate/objective (psychological) 'reality' unquestioningly, as he also states that the in the revision of LotR he deliberately worked to make the story conform to Catholicism. Of course, we don't know how hard he worked to make it conform.

If it is the case that Tolkien was in touch with some archetypal 'other world' then to the extent that we ourselves are able to tap into that archetypal (& if that 'reality' is truly Archetypal, we should be able to) then we would have a sense of what was 'true' & what was not, & so we could produce a 'true' account of the History of that World. But... We are then throwing out Tolkien the artist. He becomes simply a pioneer, the 'first' explorer of that world. We would then be in the position of following him & 'colonising' this 'New World', confirming some of his 'discoveries' & rejecting others as false or mistaken. Yet H-I would have us think in terms of all the different versions/accounts of that world as being in some sense equally valid, coming from different people at different times, each with their own value system & agenda.

So far so good. But if this is the approach we are to take, then it is entirely possible that another 'explorer' of Middle Earth, you, I, or those involved in the RS project, could disprove one of the 'pioneer' Tolkien's discoveries, show one of his accounts to be wrong, & we would have to accept this explorer's account over Tolkien's, as being a 'truer' account. So 'canonicity' goes out the window, as we replace that idea with one of 'true' or 'false'. In that case, a work of Fanfic which contradicted Tolkien's writings would not, should not , be automatically rejected, as the writer may be right & Tolkien wrong. And then we will get factions arising, denominations forming, heresy trials & possibly writers as well as texts being consigned to the flames

Or we can see the Legendarium, unfinished & incomplete as it is (much though we might wish it wasn't - & personally, I like the fact that it isn't complete, or set in stone ) as the work of one individual artist, attempting to share his unique vision with us, & simply accept the vision itself, without concerning ourselves overmuch with what inspired the vision. Whether the 'world' Tolkien saw & presented to us as Middle Earth is 'another reality' (whther an 'inner' or an 'outer' reality is not really the issue) & is as he has depicted it (when he was 'successful') or whether it is merely this 'reality', our own, mundane world, seen 'through enchanted eyes', is in the end beside the point. The vision itself is what enchants, not the world it is a vision of.

So 'canon' comes second to enchantment, & the vision is more important than what is 'actually' seen. But that 'vision' is the vision of a single artist, & it encompasses what that artist has been able to include, at different times, from different 'angles' with many differing reasons over his long life, for what he chose to look at, & how he was able to see it.

As to my fanfic 'game', its difficult to play alone, but the more I think about the implications of it, the more intriguing it seems, I must admit.

[HerenIstarion]

davem, you are very inspiring poster

Saucepen, depsite what you've posted about canon, and though I may be repeating myself a bit, I would be glad to have an opportunity to clarify my position some more

I probably failed to communicate this, and maybe it is the try to eat the cake and have it (or may be you are exaggerating a bit too), but was I driving at was more or less what follows:

A) Tolkien's world is Tolkien's entirely
B) Any writing of Tolkien's is canon
C) No other writing is canon

But, having in mind those three maxims, the accounts inside the scope of those may contradict each other, and yet all be valid. All one needs to do is place oneself inside the story.

So I was in no way implying that other 'explorers' can disprove what 'first pioneer' have said about the world. But if one is to suspend his disbelief (which is an easy task with Tolkien), and place oneself inside the secondary world as 'found out" by Tolkien, than all rules that work in our primary world are perfectly intact inside the secondary one. We may argue that Gandalf of the Hobbit is truer than one of the LoTR, or vice versa, but it would be similar to, say, our choice between intepretations of some event as broadcast by different news stations, and matter of taste and reasoning grounded on it, like in our primary world I tend to prefer BBC broadcast over CNN, but I realise that neither of those gives really true account of what happened, for there may be countless other accounts catching some other angles of it. But, I do not go to the opposite and and do not say by it that any of those accounts is entirely untrue. With Tolkien, the whole evaluation process is inside the secondary world, otherwise processes are similar.

And, as I've said already, the secondary world is defined by what Tolkien have wrought. Inside this, we are free to work out truer versions of anything for ourselves, but are not allowed to add something from outside. So, the bark eaters, which do not originate from what Tolkien himslef wrote, can not be credible but in fanfiction, but, given source material we have, what can be 'revised' and 'combined' out of it can be.

What would be the value of such a 'revised' thing? The same as any broadcast has. Or any history primer has. For it is understood that no primer reflects history as it really happened. And it can be argued that one primer is therefore enough, but primers are written and published dozens by year.

Take the much discussed providence for instance – our research of the case is limited by what is given inside the texts by Tolkien. Some interpret it this way, and some other, but in any argument they are forced to lean on their sources – i.e., by what Tolkien said about the subject. I can not have a valid argument if I say it is drawn directly from the ME as I have had a vision of it in a dream last night (however archetypal my vision may have been, or even if I try to convince you that it was like to experience of Notion Club Papers, and I have been in communion with Elendil himself who have told me so and so), but have to give you an excerpt from the text which is known to be written by Tolkien himself. Those are my limitation, but we all are free to interpret our sources in different way. This is our freedom.

Or, to give another analogy, let us say that genuinely Tolkien texts are stones, and our interpretation is house we build out of those. There are no more stones around than what Tolkien left us, and no one can create another stone. But what house each of us will built out of given number of stones, is entirely up to ourselves.

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

A) Tolkien's world is Tolkien's entirely
B) Any writing of Tolkien's is canon
C) No other writing is canon

About half a year ago i read 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy
It is a book about Russia in the time of Alexander the Great and Napolean Bonaparte (sp?). Reading this book (comprised of 15 books) gave me the distinct impretion that most of what we learn about the french revolution is taken from french sources and that when looking at russian sources and french sources a more accurate account could be established.

At times in the book Tolstoy seems only to be stating historical events and not telling a story, and in these times (usually a chapter or 2 long) the facts are stated with such a "this is fact" tone that i got the feeling that Tolstoy had studied almost all of the sources relating to this event and come to a conclusion based on the consistancy and reliability of sources. (and all of the "facts" have footnotes referring to which source has been used). Although i do not know the history of Tolstoy's life, near the end of the book he writes on the nature of historians and the study of history that i can only assume that he himself was a learned historian.

Now the point of saying that is this... There never will be and never was a completely true account of all the events in the French Revolution but Tolstoy undertook indepth studies to establish an account that is IMO almost as close to the truth as we might ever get. And yet even after the book is written (in the books epilogue) Tolstoy does not claim that he knows the truth).

Now if we consider Tolkien's writings as sources, and apply Tolstoy's attitude, we will be able to, with indepth studies, establish an account that is almost as close to the truth about ME as we will ever get. But we will never have a completely true account and can never claim to have established one.

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

A) Tolkien's world is Tolkien's entirely
B) Any writing of Tolkien's is canon
C) No other writing is canon

In response:
A: This statement can not be falsified, Tolkien wrote the books didn't he
B: Tolkien was the only true witness of ME, and his writings on it are the only sources of ME we have. Nobody else could see into Tolkien's mind and witness ME.
C: No other writings are sources, they are deductions of sources.

therefore if "canon" is considered to be "a reliable source of ME" then i agree with HerenIstarion completely in these 3 maxims.

hope that helps

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

I think Saucepan Man is probably right in that the 'revised' Sil discussion has gone as far as it can

I concur. I would just like to emphasize, though, that when you say:

I can't for the life of me see a 'coherent' Sil, constructed from bits & pieces of different stories written over a period of 50 odd years, giving any insight into the artist himself or the creative process involved.

. . . I completely agree. It will give no such insight whatsoever.

[Bêthberry]

First, an apology to anyone reading this. I attempted early this morning (before I had my coffee) to revise my post from yesterday ('sleeping on the post' did wonders for my thinking--not that I fell asleep here at the keyboard ) and in the process somehow lost much of what I rewritten. And so in a fit of typerly pique, I nuked the whole thing. Let me reconstruct again.

SaucepanMan, your story about the spider brought a gleam to my eye as I remembered Jung's own dream where scarabs and flying beetles led him to develope his idea of synchroncity. However, the question you post to me and others is this:

Does the presence of these archetypes from our shared experience (collective consciousness?) mean that there will be a level upon which we will all react to these materials in the same way, just as spiders evoke in all of us at some level a feeling of revulsion, if not fear? Does this mean that there may in fact be a "right" approach towards interpreting Tolkien at some level?

I don't think the collective unconscious--which is what I think you meant here--even if there is one, would operate this way. Let me turn to some thoughts about interpretation in contemporary critical theory. I will be taking a different tact from that suggested by davem, so for now I won't comment on his observations about archetypes.

To the best of my knowledge (which is faulty on Jung I must acknowledge) there is no current critical theory on literature which uses Jungian archetypes as a metalanguage (paradigm or model) which will produce an interpretation of the material, "the text.' This was what critics such as Joseph Campbell did with Jungian archetypes in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. (That book remains, to me, fascinating to read in context with Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories.") What I mean here is interpreting a text by equating Tolkien's characters with Jung's archetypes, such as Galadriel with the all-powerful Mother archetype, or even seeing how Jung's own dream of the wise old man accompanied by a young girl (who represents Jung's female aspects, we are told authoritatively) or the rough dwarf who helped him slay the beautiful young Siegfried relate to Tolkien's narrative.

For those who might not know Campbell, I have a rather reductive explanation of his work on narrative plots, the monomyth, but the link is not working now. Perhaps I will return to insert it.

However, there is another way to regard the relationship between psychoanalysis and literature and this is currently an interest in critical theory, to examine how the process of interaction between the therapist/analyst and the patient can stand for what happens when we read texts. This act is called in psychoanalysis transference and it is most commonly used in conjunction with Freudian analysis. I'm no authority on it but I can provide a small explanation of it and then consider whether Jung's idea of the psyche would lead to a monolithic interpretation of "one right way", as SpM has wondered.

In transference, the truth of the events or the unconscious is not revealed by the therapist telling the patient what the patient's dreams mean. The truth is more properly understood to arise from the performative act, from how the therapist becomes involved in the relationships which the dreams present, from how the patient displaces feelings from past events onto the therapist. That is, we can ask ourselves how a particular reading of a text or dream--our search for meaning and origins--in fact re-enacts a primordial quest, like the Oedipal drama or the myth of Narcissus. Seen in this light, our own interpretations repeat archetypal narratives and relationships. As Jonathan Culler explains it:

Awareness of the centrality of transference, recognition that the truth of a text may lie not in what an authoritative interpreter says about it but in the interpreter's unexpected relationship to it, makes possible a subtle and fruitful investigation of the problems of interpretation. The Pursuit of Signs

Using this idea of transference, we could ask what particular archetype comes most into play in our own, individual interpretations. (There are critics who say that Freud, in attempting to interpret the Oedipal story, himself repeats that myth, or acts it out, in The Interpretation of Dreams.)

However, I don't think that Jung's ideas about the psyche would result in one interpretation valorised over others. After all, he himself posited a psyche comprised of persona, shadow, anima (the female aspects of the male) or animus (the male aspects of the female) These interact in different ways, which for Jung became Psychological Types based on dichotomies of intuition, introversion, etc. So it would seem to me that we would have not one way to interpret the text (again, the master interpreter telling us what the text means) but a variety of ways in which our own psychological makeup infact has us repeat the archtypes in our own interpetations.

I'm sure that Fordim would have more to say about this.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Fordim does! (But not nearly so much, or so useful, as Bêthberry has already provided above.)

I am about as far as one can get from an expert on Jungian analysis (or Freudian psychology for that matter). But I do have some experience with the kind of interpretations that come about through psychological-based ‘readings’ of texts. My concern with all such attempts is that they far too often (although by all means not always) are merely a more terminology-laden way of avoiding the difficult and ethically demanding task of interpretation that I’ve been hammering away on in this thread. That is, whereas the question of “What Tolkien meant” is far too often used as a way to either,

a) avoid generating one’s own interpretation (and thus become a Nazûl) or
b) generating one’s own interpretation and then pretending that it is Tolkien’s own (and thus become a very petty version of Sauron)

the turn to Jungian archetypes is merely the same attempt in disguise. “What did Tolkien intend/mean?” becomes “What does this archetype mean?” and we’re back to options a) or b) above as we look for answers either outside the individual experience of the text, or we project our own experiences onto the text and then claim that they’re from an ‘outside’ source of truth.

The example of the spider is fortuitous, for it helps demonstrate how the spider is not an archetype at all – at least, not in the sense that we “all” react to spiders the same way. In West African cultures, Spider is a trickster figure: a spirit of creation and destruction who embodies the chaotic and random elements of the natural cycle. Not evil at all, or frightening, just a force to be reckoned with. The African who were brought to the Caribbean as slaves brought their memories of Spider with them, and in the historical struggle by the slaves for liberation, he became Anansi – a powerful spirit who embodied all the rebellious tricksterism, the survival tactics, wit and ingenuity required by the enslaved. (Anyone familiar with Native American legends might be thinking of Coyote here – and you’d be right to! ) What’s more, I know several entomologists who would be horrified by the idea that they are “supposed” to be horrified by spiders.

This is why I would resist any simplification of a figure like Shelob into something like an archetypal spider, when the ‘real’ (that is, subcreated) history of her is much more interesting and revealing. And here we go back into the author/text relationship again, for Tolkien wrote in his letters that one of his earliest memories was of running across the lawn at his home in South Africa after being bitten by a spider – he attributes his dislike of arachnids to this event. (He also wrote of a recurring dream he had throughout his life of a wave coming from the west and destroying the land – the birth of Numenor.)

Images, symbols, tropes and figures are the result of historical processes that we can watch and trace and study. And once more, I am led to the interesting case presented by Tolkien’s subcreated world in this regard. One example of what I’m talking about is the Evening Star. In ‘our’ (Western/European tradition) the Evening Star is associated with either Venus – and thus love – and/or Lucifer – and thus the glory of the fallen angels. But what about the Evening Star in Middle-Earth? Tolkien gives us a long and elaborate history for Earendil that includes not one jot (at least overtly) of the mythos of Venus or Lucifer – does this mean that the symbolic value of the Evening Star in Middle-Earth is divorced from its symbolic value in the Primary World? Or can we (should we) be able to look for concordances between the Secondary World symbol and the Primary World symbol? That is, how much – if any – Venus and/or Lucifer is there in Earendil? Is such a question even valid?