‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

So, back to Faerie...

Our ancestors believed in Faerie, the Other World, Heaven, in short, in other dimensions of 'reality', beyond this one. Middle earth may be a secondary world, an imaginary dimension, yet it partakes of one of these 'dimensions' - Faerie. Now faerie was believed to be absolutley real, & still is by many people (just as Heaven is, though I'm not implying equality between the two). There are numerous works - Evans-Wentz's Fairy faith in Celtic Countries, Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth, etc.

Now, I know we've been here before, so I won't go over old ground, but merely make the point that simply because an 'imaginary' (fictional or one accessed through the imagination/second sight) has no basis in physical fact, that does not mean it does not 'exist', or have an internal 'reality'. The texts are our means of accessing that 'imaginative' dimension, & the 'fact' that we may each percieve that imaginative dimension slightly differently, does not in itself mean that we are not experiencing the same thing, anymore than the fact that I & someone who is colour blind don't see a red flower in exactly the same way means that we are looking at different flowers. We are see the same flower in different ways, & the flower has an objective existence.

Tolkien was writing about a 'place', a self consistent world, & it has an 'objective existence in the sense that even though each reader of the texts may not 'see' it in exactly the same way, they are all 'in' the same place, mentally, when they read it (ok, not 'all', in that some of them may find events which Tolkien presents as tragic as being hilariously funny, but I'm speaking about all those who respond 'normally' - as opposed to abnormally, not implying any 'moral' judgement - the death of a good person is tragic, etc)

What Tolkien does is to tap into archetypal situations & figures, & they have an 'objective' 'reality' in that they arise/exist in the collective rather than the personal unconcious. So, while Middle earth is 'fictional', & all we have 'physically' are the texts, the question arises as to the extent to which Tolkien is allowing us access to that 'objective' dimension (whether internal or external to the human mind). Middle earth or faerie is an objectively existing 'realm', internally consistent, & the inhabitants & places described by Tolkien are 'real' within that dimension. Tolkien gives individual forms & personalities to those things, but did they arise out of the 'archetypal' unconscious dimension, 'given' to him - as he seems to have believed, or did he consciously make use of archetypal/mythical images - which he didn't believe he was doing?

If the images & stories did arise out of the mythic imagination, & he didn't invent them consciously, then they have their origin in the objective psyche, & so have an objective origin & existence, & that is perhaps the reason why they strike us as 'real', & why Middle earth may be the particular experience of Tolkien, (but it is an experience of an 'objective reality') which he passes on to us, but the 'real' Middle earth is just that - 'real'. So Canonicity would require faithfulness not just to the texts, but to what the texts arose out of & have their existence in.

So the question is about the extent to which Tolkien communicates his experience of that objective reality, & how close what he sets out for us in his writings is to that 'reality'.

Or in other words, how much are Tolkien's writings about Faerie in line with 'canon'? Is he simply making use of old ideas & beliefs, or is he attempting to recreate them, give them a new face, make them accessible, & this is all tied up with what he wanted to achieve. Why did he feel it was important to give England back its lost mythology - merely because he didn't like the idea that 'Johny Foreigner had something that dear old Blighty didn't have, or because he felt that a national mythology gave a people access to something ineffable, but at the same time something life giving. Form the TCBS' comments it would seem to be the latter.

Whether he succeeded or failed is down to the individual reader to answer, but his (original, at least) intent was to put us in touch with something that did have an objective 'reality'. The texts 'refer' us to that reality, or at least are attempts on Tolkien's part to open us up to the possibility of connecting with it.

[HerenIstarion]

Well, let me present you with several statements, which, alas, are not original, but the result of which I immensely enjoyed when expressed in literature, like to, say, Stanislav Lem's short stories (probable and improbable dragon (dragon was [im]probable, not hunt), hunt one was concerned with, but I do not remember the name right at the spot to refer you to)

Let us, in the light of recent developments, go, than:

Humanity is the part of the universe. Allegedly, it's mind/imagination can not reach outside the universe and imagine things which are from outside. Being the reverse of said, the following maxim states, that, therefore, human mind is capable of imagining what is in this universe. Following this crooked logic, one may argue, that, since it can imagine all things which are part of the universe and so exist, all things human mind can imagine may be parts of the universe and exist.

With which, let me take your leave

[davem]

It strikes me there may be an analogy with Atlantis. Originally we had Plato's Timaeus, which is the text that began the whole thing, yet that text sparked multiple searches for remains of the 'real' Atlantis - ie, it struck a chord in people, & they began a search for what the text 'referred' to. Its irrelevant whether Atlantis ever 'really' existed in this world, because something symbolised by the text was 'calling' to those who read it.

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

The texts are our means of accessing that 'imaginative' dimension, & the 'fact' that we may each percieve that imaginative dimension slightly differently, does not in itself mean that we are not experiencing the same thing

It's not just a matter of individuals seeing things differently, though (that's only part of it). Tolkien saw things quite differently at different times, and the texts contradict each other.

Actually, I'm not sure to what extent our disagreement is real. You say the texts describe a place; I say the place is described by the texts. The crux of the disagreement would seem to be causality - whereas you think of the fictitious place giving rise to texts about it, I think of the texts as creating the fictitious place.

It's almost a moot point, except that I think your way of thinking about it gives rise to a pseudo-problem about canon. That is, if you say, as you do, that Middle-earth is a place and that the texts were written about it, then it makes sense to ask the question "what is the truth about Middle-earth?" Which facts really correspond with Middle-earth and which do not? Was Gil-Galad the son of Fingon or the son of Orodreth? If we apply a correspondence theory of truth to the texts then these questions make sense, and it is troubling when there seems (as often happens) no good way to answer them.

The problem is resolved by looking at things from my perspective. There is no single truth about Middle-earth because there is no single, original Middle-earth. It is of course true that you can take various coherent sets of statements from the texts and use as the basis for the imaginary place. But there's no need to be shocked or dismayed when you discover that someone else has taken a different set and done the same thing.

Of course I don't deny that archetypes and such are objectively real psychological features. But let's not confound these archetypes with the facts about Middle-earth. The archetypes are present in countless works of literature stretching back over thousands of years; many, if not most, of these works of literature contradict each other. They involve the same archetypes but the specific facts they assert are in contradiction.

So I certainly would not be averse to saying that, in a sense, the texts of the Silmarillion, LotR, and The Hobbit are about objectively real archetypes. But the specific, self-consistent reality of Middle-earth arises from them.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

It's almost a moot point, except that I think your way of thinking about it gives rise to a pseudo-problem about canon. That is, if you say, as you do, that Middle-earth is a place and that the texts were written about it, then it makes sense to ask the question "what is the truth about Middle-earth?" Which facts really correspond with Middle-earth and which do not? Was Gil-Galad the son of Fingon or the son of Orodreth? If we apply a correspondence theory of truth to the texts then these questions make sense, and it is troubling when there seems (as often happens) no good way to answer them.

Yet Tolkien clearly believed that he was 'discovering' rather than inventing, so he clearly felt that there were such 'facts' & that was the reason he continued working on the stories & making changes till they felt 'right'. Middle earth had an 'objective' existence for him. He may not have 'discovered' who Gil-Galad's father was, but he knew it was one or the other, & he couldn't bring himself to simply toss a coin, because he 'knew' that one of them was the father of Gil-Galad & the other was not, & his role was to discover his parentage, not dictate it.

This is as much a matter of understanding & acknowledging how Tolkien thought about & approached his work. Middle earth was an 'objectively existing place as far as he was concerned, & we can't actually prove him wrong.

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

This is as much a matter of understanding & acknowledging how Tolkien thought about & approached his work.

But there's a difference between understanding how he worked and understanding how we ought to think of the texts.

If I understand you then the "objectively real Middle-earth" you speak of is the imaginary place inside Tolkien's head - specifically, the imaginary place inside his head where every aspect of the history "feels right" to him. I of course have no problem with this as a definition. But you cannot so define it and then use the fact of the definition to show that the author's intent is the ultimate aribiter of canon - unless you so define "canon" as to make that statement trivial.

The trouble with this claim is, again, that Tolkien is dead - and even if he weren't, he's a distinct person whose mind cannot ever be fully read. How, then, are we to know which Middle-earth is the right one? Of course, we can always try to choose a set of statements from the text that we think correspond with his wishes - taking the latest statements where we can and so forth. This is what we are doing in the Silmarillion project. But this ultimately comes down to choosing a set of rules and then applying them to the texts.

[davem]

Well, all we can say is that Tolkien accessed Middle earth through his imagination, not that it is all only imagination. I can't see that its a more 'rational' or logical approach to state that there are millions of different Middle earths out there, each existing in the mind of one of Tolkien's readers.

How, then, are we to know which Middle-earth is the right one?

How can we know which Atlantis is the right one?

Those 'searching' for Atlantis - whether its physical remains in this world or as some kind of 'imaginative' place/state - don't believe they're all searching for a different place - as far as they're concerned there's only one Atlantis which they are using the text/s to find. So, did Plato invent Atlantis, or did he merely use the already existing idea of Atlantis as a useful metaphor?

Your approach fails to answer what for me is the central question - why do we respond as we do to Middle earth, why do some of us feel it to be 'real', where does that sense of longing for it arise? Your position would seem to be that if we do respond to it in that we we're over-reacting (at the very least), or even that we're not responding in a sufficiently 'sane' & detatched way, that' there's something 'wrong' with us that we take a collection of texts so seriously.

Perhaps.

But for me that explanation doesn't work, because in my experience the more intensely people experience Middle earth, the more 'real' it is to them, the nicer people they are, & I can't explain how something that isn't 'real' can have a REAL, practical, & most importantly beneficial effect on people.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

The problem is resolved by looking at things from my perspective. There is no single truth about Middle-earth because there is no single, original Middle-earth.

Hmmm. . . I wonder if we're not all barking up the wrong tree at the moment. It seems to me that rather than considering whether or not there is a single 'authorised' or 'true' or 'real' or 'canonical' version of Middle-Earth, we might not get further by examining how these questions pertain to the primary world. There really is "no single truth about [the primary world] because there is no single, original [primary world]." We all know that while we all share the same reality we do not live in or percieve that reality in the same way, with the effect that we all have our own versions of reality that occaisionally meet up with or overlap other persons' versions (I am very fond of Child's criss-crossing railroad tracks image here -- although there is a terrible risk of crashing into one another from time to time, isn't there!).

In this respect, I think that LotR accomplishes an almost perfect act of mimesis in its reflection of our world. Just as we have conflicting versions of the world, which we attempt to render into one meaning-full version that we can call our own, so too is Middle-Earth wonderfully incomplete and multiple. We are forced to address it as such and come up with our own versions of it.

The big difference in this thread seems to be a very simple one:

Some of us tend to refer to the author's version of the world that he created as but one among many. It may be a priviledged version with much to offer, but it is by no means definitive or final. Let us call these members of the thread the agnostics (they know there is meaning, they know what their relation is to meaning, but they aren't going to pin it down on any one specific entity or utterance).

On the other hand, some of us tend to look to the author's version of the world that he created as the best or, even, the only valid one. It is definitive and final. These people are not arguing that it makes perfect sense all the time, or that it is plainly or clearly written, but they do maintain that the truth is out there ( ) and that it can be found with enough work and time (and faith?). Let us call these members of the thread the believers (they know there is meaning, they know what their relation is to meaning, and they know that this meaning -- however fuzzy -- can be pinned directly to Tolkien).

I rathar think that -- true to form -- Tolkien either wanted or had it both ways. On the one hand, he created a variegated world that reflects in its complexity the complexity and incomplete nature of the primary world. He wanted readers to apply it to their own experience and draw what meaning they could or would from it. Total freedom. Agnostics rejoice.

On the other hand, he saw himself as a reader of the text -- particularly given his stance that he is merely an editor/translator working from source materials. As such he could not resist putting his own imprimanatur upon the text in the form of his own privileged interpretation. Believers rejoice.

These two stances are not entirely compatible, nor are they -- I think -- entirely contradictory. Who among us doesn't want to simultaneously create meaning for our own lives, and seek meaning in some other source or authority (God, any -ism, a loved one, etc).

It's not that Tolkien was being truthful or realistic -- I just think that he was being excruciatingly honest.

NOTE: I do not include in this the category of "atheists" -- those who believe the text has no meaning -- for the simple reason that the mere act of reading implies a faith that contradicts this idea: if reading were truly meaningless, why would anyone do it?

[davem]

Aiwendil makes the point that we have been going over old ground, but that's inevitable, because the author's intent & purpose is either central to our understanding & interpretation or it isn't. If an artist paints a picture of a tree (Eru alone knows where I got that idea from ) then it is either a picture of a 'real' tree or its a picture of an imaginary tree. Of course, we could agree to discuss the picture as a work of art, & ignore the real tree of which its a picture (if it is one), but if the author's intention in painting the picture was to refer us to the tree (the tree is in danger of being felled & he wants our help to prevent that happening, or the area in which it stands is in danger of being developed, or perhaps we've lived in a city for so long we've forgotten that there's a real tree there & he wants to tell us about it so we can go there & experience it, whatever), then by treating the painting simply as a beautiful work of art, we ignore the artists purpose.

My own feeling is that we cannot ignore the artists intention, & that until we take into account the painter's purpose in painting the tree we will never get a true understanding of the meaning, the reason the painting exists at all. So inevitably we go round & round on the question of whether it has an objective referent (is that the right term?), because until we have agreed on that we can't go any further in our discussion of the painting. Why did the artist paint that tree, & is it a real tree or not? We could split off into two groups, & discuss our respective understandings, but if we are to come together & discuss it as a single group then we have to agree on our understanding of the meaning for the artist of what he painted, & why there's a painting at all.

[Aiwendil]

Note: I started writing this response before Fordim's and Davem's last posts but had to rush off to class; so the first part doesn't take them into account.

Davem: All right, I think I understand your view, though I continue to find it strange and of course I still disagree with it. Can you say the same of my view? I only ask because I wonder whether I have not been sufficiently explicit or whether we are simply at a dead end.

It seems improbable in the extreme that either of us will convince the other. But it still might be interesting to discuss one view or the other without agreeing on it.

In your view, as you say, there is an objective fact about whether Turin returns at the end of the First Age or at the end of the World, but that fact is not knowable by us. Would you then say that the "canon" is unknowable? And if it's unknowable and yet people read the books and enjoy them and have intelligent discussions about them, then can it really be that important anyway?

In a way I keep feeling that our views are not actually in contradiction, but rather that we're simply talking about different things. I cannot deny that Tolkien had intentions, and that given enough time and suitable pressure for publication he would have arrived at a final version; nor can you deny that the texts do form a body of statements and that we can extract coherent sets of them and thus envision our own imaginary Middle-earths. But then you say that Tolkien's intention defines the "truth" about Middle-earth and I say there is no single truth about Middle-earth. Yet both of these are simply definitions, which are arbitrary anyway. It's as though you insist "Apples are sweet" and I say "Wrong! Lemons are sour!"

So what I wonder is what specific consequences you draw from your view and whether these differ substantively from mine.

Fordim wrote:

These two stances are not entirely compatible, nor are they -- I think -- entirely contradictory.

Yes, this is something like what I was just getting at with respect to my view vs. Davem's. What does it really mean to say that "Tolkien's version is final and authoritative"? Does authoritative merely mean that it's the view of the author, the authority? Well, no one denies that! Or are we really dealing with a moral directive here, something like "One ought not to hold a view of the texts that differs from that of the author"? Besides being a bit presumptive, that's problematic since it's impossible to divine the exact thoughts of Tolkien, and in many cases his own thoughts were very different at different times.