‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Bêthberry]

Ah, but Helen, I do not in fact say you were referring to Child's and Rimbaud's discussion. I said "it brings to mind". Let me clarify my purpose, for I certainly was not trying to mischaracterise your position and if I have given that impression, I am sorry.

I was using your statement as an example of how something triggers an idea, an idea which can then go on to find some elaboration or relevance. It was my way of demonstrating that even misreadings can be fruitful. I meant that the statement "Frodo degraded Sam by calling him a servant" could in fact represent a way in which the very 'error' of the statement leads to a greater understanding of ideas in the text. Even a naive or newbie statement can open up discussion.

That's why, to me, there are no "Wild Themes" or points which should not be discussed. Some, like Balrog Drool Threads, can be dispatched with wit and humour but they need not be censored.

[mark12_30]

Even a naive or newbie statement can open up discussion.

Certainly. And I'm not trying to hinder discussion. The point I'm trying to make is that when Tolkien's intent is called into question, the letters are a handy thing to have. Even if you consider his opinions and admissions about his own works unreliable, his letters are still a window into his heart, as are his published works.

[Maédhros]

The question of Canon is a common concern that we have to deal with in the Revised Silmarillion Project.
I have seen many good ideas in this thread but unfortunately, it really doesn't help a casual reader to regard the validity of each text, typescprit, manuscript, published text, letters, etc.

We have developed some practical rules that guide us in our work. I thought that I would post some of them in here:

1. The first priority is always given to the latest editions of works published during Tolkien's lifetime.

2. Secondary priority is given to the latest ideas found among Tolkien's unpublished texts and letters, except where they:
a. violate the published canon without specifically correcting an error or
b. are proposed changes that do not clearly indicate the exact details that must be changed and how they are to be changed.

5. Information in sources of lower level priority is to be preferred over information in sources of higher level priority where the item of information in source of higher level priority can be reasonably demonstrated to be an error, whether a "slip of the pen" or from inadequate checking of previous writing.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

(And while I make that claim, perhaps I should ask Mr. Hedgethistle why he has conjoined author and text in his dichotomy. To me, the text is separate from the author--and, indeed it is the text which "holds supremacy", for both author and reader, although that text is an ephemeral thing.)

Bless you Bêthberry! You have asked the magic question that has finally unlocked for me the nagging thoughts that led to my initiating this thread in the first place. Yes, 999 times out of a thousand I would agree (and defend with great vitriol and vigour) the absolute ‘divorce’ of author from text necessitated by the centrality of the text (you note, I do not go so far as do Foucault and Barthes – and, I rather suspect, yourself?). But Tolkien is that one in a thousand insofar as his texts exist in a context that is of the author’s (sub)creation, thus forcing me ‘back’ to the author, even as I wish to retain my absolute freedom as a reader.

For example: when I’m reading a novel by Evelyn Waugh, I do not have to make any reference to Waugh “directly” to be aware of the context in which he wrote the novel (that is, to be aware of his intent) – it’s Catholic, middle-class and conservative. The referential context is one that exists outside the text and surrounds me, the author and it. When I’m reading a work by Tolkien, however, I do have to make a “direct” reference to Tolkien to be aware of the context in which he wrote the work, insofar as he (sub)created that context (Middle-Earth: and not the ‘facts’ of that realm, but the moral truths and vision).

The reference to Catholicism occasioned by a Waugh novel is not like the reference to Middle-Earth, insofar as I can accept/reject/question the Catholic context of Waugh’s novel any way I want (that is, accept/reject/question Catholicism). I am not bound to understand Waugh’s novels as a Catholic if I do not hold Catholic beliefs – I only have to be able to understand the novels like a Catholic (should I choose to). But with Tolkien, I don’t think I have that freedom, insofar as his vision of Middle-Earth includes, let’s call it “Eruism” (a terrible word, but please nobody take me to task for it too much). I cannot accept/reject/question this context without accepting/rejecting/questioning the whole fabric of the subcreated world. I can accept/reject/question the Catholicism that lies ‘behind’ the “Eruism” with the same freedom as in the Waugh novel, but that interpretive ‘layer’ of “Eruism” is always there and unquestionable. Middle-Earth has certain moral and interpretive rules, established by the author and embedded in the text, that I must accept – and these rules are of a kind and nature that simply do not exist outside subcreated worlds of fantasy. The “context” of LotR is not one that envelopes me, the text and the author equally.

And thus it is that one case in a thousand, where I am forced to resist the divorce of author and text – even as I want and need to.

Darn you Tolkien!

[The Saucepan Man]

I can accept/reject/question the Catholicism that lies ‘behind’ the “Eruism” with the same freedom as in the Waugh novel, but that interpretive ‘layer’ of “Eruism” is always there and unquestionable.

But only to the extent that you are aware of it. And most people's first experience of LotR, say, will be without knowledge of the existence of Eru or even that it is set in a monotheistic world. Eru only becomes "part of the story" as one reads further into Tolkien's works (unless one starts with the Silm). If a person's direct experience of Tolkien extends no further than the Hobbit and LotR, then surely they are entitled to exclude "Eruism" from their interpretation, even if they are subsequently told of its existence.

[davem]

(Risks the wrath of 'Bethberry uncloaked' )

I don't see how we can completely divorce the teller from the tale. The tale (even if we believe in such outlandish things as 'mediumship' & the phenomenon of 'recieved texts') is told by someone for some reason. Garth in T&TGW suggests that, in the early tales (Fall of Gondolin, Beren & Luthien, etc) Tolkien is 'mytholgising' his own life experiences - 'Gondolin' with its 'mechanical dragons' destroying the ancient Elven city, Beren & Luthien's mythologised 'retelling' of his & Edith's own love story.

Of course, these tales, & the Legendarium as a whole, take on their own 'life', but the seed from which they grew was Tolkien's own life experience. The Legendarium originated in his desire to give England back its lost mythological heritage. To seperate Tolkien from the Legendarium is to treat it as having arisen out of nowhere, or as a 'recieved text', dictated from 'on high'. Middle Earth didn't arise from a vacuum, it arose from the mind of a man, & took root in the 'leaf mould' of that man's imagination.

The Legendarium is Tolkien, Tolkien is the Legendarium. For this reason, I cannot agree with Maedhros approach. Why should the latest versions of any of Tolkien's stories have priority? The pre-LotR Silmarillion is all but complete, & is self contained, & works in its own right. In fact, one could argue that it is a more finished work than the post LotR Sil, which for me starts to come apart quite seriously, & is in some parts a mess. Maedhros' approach seems to be 'evolutionary' in its approach, in that it sees the later work as 'superior' simply because it came later. When the Hobbit was written, Gollum would have willingly handed over the Ring to Bilbo. It was only changed because LotR required it to be, not because the original was in any way 'bad'. For this reason, we can question Tolkien's motivation in changing the Sil stories from their pre- to post LotR forms. Were the changes made because Tolkien came up with what he thought were better, or 'truer' versions in every case, or were some (at least) of them changed in order to make them fit with other stories which he had changed. This is the problem with a collection of interlinked stories - if you change one story you may simply be forced to accomodate those changes in other stories, whether you want to or not. How many of the later changes would Tolkien have made if the stories were seperate enitities?

This is the problem with trying to construct a definitve Silmarillion by simply accepting the latest version of every story as Tolkien's 'best' version. There is no evidence to support this approach. Perhaps the reason he never re-wrote the Fall of Gondolin was because, however full of anachronisms the original may have been, however out of 'synch' it was with the later form of the mythology, it expressed something of his own personal experience in the best way, & he needed it to be left as it was, saying what it said. When we seperate the teller from the tale, & see the legendarium as a kind of 'real world' history, we inevitably run into this problem. We will, consciously or unconsciously, start to remove any difficult aspects (ie 'personal' to the author aspects) in order to create an (illusory) 'perfect' version. Perhaps the Fall of Gondolin with its tanks & troop carriers & Flamethrowers is the 'perfect' version - divorce it from the 'Legendarium' & look at it as a stand alone work - as some do with LotR & Hobbit - & ask yourself whether it needs a final 'perfect' form ('perfect' in this context seemingly only meaning a form which doesn't contradict the other stories Tolkien wrote).

This search for 'perfection' which is persued solely to produce a Legendarium which doesn't contradict itself, doesn't seem to me likely to produce anything other than an idiosyncratic version, which we have no reason to believe Tolkien would have had any time for. If Tolkien had lived another 20 years, & devoted every moment to working on the Legendarium we have no idea what he would have come up with - if we look at 'Myths Transformed' then we could speculate that one by one most, if not all, the 'primitive' or mythological aspects would have been whittled away & we would have ended up with a factual history of this world.

What most of us do is take as much as we like from the Legendarium, & leave the rest, because it doesn't speak to us. Most of us don't take such an analytical approach to an author's work, classifying some as 'canonical' & some as 'uncanonical'. The Storyteller tells us his story & we listen to it, & respond in our own way.

Some lines from David Jones' Anathemata spring to mind: 'It was a dark & stormy night, we sat by the calcined wall. It was said to the Tale Teller, 'Tell us a Tale'. And the Tale ran thus: 'It was a dark & stormy night....'

Tales grow out of the storyteller's own experience, & we respond out of our own. And in the end questions of 'canonicty' don't arise, because when we're 'enchanted' by the tale, those kind of questions are irrelevant. We can be moved by LotR even if we know nothing of the rest of the Legendarium. We can also be moved by the Fall of Gondolin in the Book of Lost Tales without having any context. If the spell is cast sufficiently well the tale will work on its own. If we change it simply to make it fit with other tales the same author wrote, we may only succeed in breaking the spell altogether - & for what result? To say we have a definitive version, we have produced the 'canon' & consigned the 'uncanonical' versions to the flames with the Heretics?

So, Maedhros, I can't accept your approach. I can't even accept the idea of 'casual readers' needing to be helped. There are readers who are 'enchanted' & readers who aren't. No-one who is 'enchanted' into Middle Earth feels 'casual' about it in any way. And pointing a 'canon' (am I the first one to make that joke? sorry if not ) at a new reader won't enchant them. It may drive them away, though, through feelings of inadequacy. That said, I wish you luck with your endevour, because you may well prove me wrong!

[mark12_30]

Maedhros, many thanks for those guidelines; I'm sure they'll travel back to the 'canon' thread in a little while.

davem, canon vs enchantment I think has a lot of answers.

It's true that 'canon' means little or nothing to the new or casual reader.

It seems to mean a great deal to some scholars-- I don't count myself as one (on this board anyway) so I'll leave that where it is.

It can mean a great deal to the writer, and reader, of fan-fiction. After I had read and re-read LOTR, I began began looking for "more". What I wanted was more enchantment. "The Sword of Shanarra" didn't exactly give me what I was looking for. Precious little did.

But there are some fanfics that do. By and large, they are the canonically-friendly ones. These are the works that I read with delight, imagining that perhaps a long-lost manuscript of Tolkien's (and hence, Bilbo's, or even Ælfwine's) has been found in some dusty corner. Mithadan's Tales of Tol Eressea, chapter one, had that effect on me. So did "The Grey Ship" from TORn's greenbooks. Why? Because they were "gap fillers". They attempted to answer, in a canonically-friendly way, the heartfelt cry "but what happened afterwards?"

The sense of enchantment is lost quickly when -- 'scuse me, folks-- canon is violated. When the punchline is, "And then Frodo got married, moved back to the Shire and lived happily ever after", the enchantment is gone. So's the real Frodo.

How many promising writers wrote fanfics after having seen the first movie or read only the first book, that began well and ended "Alternate Universe"? If you wanted AU, that's OK; if you don't-- bleah.


As a fanfic writer, canon becomes a basic threshold for not disappointing the reader. If one is going to attempt to write gap-fillers, then they have to be woven in as seamlessly as possible. And to do that, you've got to define *some* sort of arena for playing in, for weaving into. LotR? Hobbit? Sil? Lost Tales? And it should be clear to the reader too, if you can do it. Otherwise the reader is susprised by that distressing "AU" aftertaste.

Case in point: Mith *never* gave me an AU with his "Tales." His Frodo was entirely plausible from start to finish.

So... canon may not be a big issue for Hobbit/LotR readers. And ask the scholars whether it is for them. But for a writer, it's critical. And once a reader ventures into fanfic, they might want to know, too.

edit: ps-- davem, I can't separate Tolkien from his writings either. Nor do I want to. And if I trust him enough to let him 'enchant' me, I'm not worried about whether his letters are trustworthy.

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

For example: what about the people out there who interpret LotR as a fascist novel? Or, what about people -- who do exist, sadly -- who interpret the novel as supporting white supremacy? What if I want to interpret the novel as an allegory about the rise of Communism (Sauron) in the early 20th century and the reprisal against that by bourgeouis, middle-class humanism (hobbits) and the remnants of a European aristrocratic society (Gondor)?

That is exactly where i apply a condition to interpretations for this reason:
Tolkien was not rasist or white supremisist and i think it would
make him sad if his writing (which he worked on his whole life) were
interpretted as being something bad like that.
For example, if you were compasionate for orphans and decided to write
a book in which you would encourage them and intended to give all the
profit to orphanages... Now if people started interpretting your book
as being prejudiced towards orphans it would in a sense feel like you have
been wrongfully accused of something using evidence against you that
you wrote with the hopes of achieving the opposite of what you are now
being accused of.

(that is not a flawless analogy, just the first one that came to mind)

Of course we are free to interpret in any way we want, but if you truly
apreciate the work you would not want to disrespect the author like that.
And if you did not like the work, you should not critisize it or disrespect
the author in the first place (kind of like saying christmas is pointless becuase you dont like cristmas trees). So although all veiws are equal,
some of them should not be taken in respect to the author.

[again i mention that Tolkiens interpretations of his works are only
suggestions one should accept if one wanted to understand his idea of ME,
they are as equal as ours]

when determining fact...
i would say that what Tolkien has published about ME is fact about ME
anyone else writing on ME (with possible exception of Christopher Tolkien)
is meerly speculation.

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

(Middle-Earth: and not the ‘facts’ of that realm, but the moral truths and vision).

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

Middle-Earth has certain moral and interpretive rules, established by the author and embedded in the text, that I must accept

These last two quotes are exactly what i am referring to, and mr hedgethistle,
with that post i do agree one million percent

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Eru only becomes "part of the story" as one reads further into Tolkien's works (unless one starts with the Silm). If a person's direct experience of Tolkien extends no further than the Hobbit and LotR, then surely they are entitled to exclude "Eruism" from their interpretation, even if they are subsequently told of its existence.

Good Gracious Saucepan Man, but you do want to make me work my brain don’t you – ack!

At any rate, I have to say that on this point I utterly disagree with you. There are so many markers of what I will obstinately now call Eruism without the “” that I cannot see how anyone could miss them. Please note, that my horrific new word is Eruism and not Eru – so, sure, while there may not be any direct reference to Eru in The Hobbit or LotR, there are more than enough examples of Eru’s effect on Middle-Earth (His presence in the unravelling of the story) that the following is fairly palpable to even the most casual reader (dreadful phrase – who amongst us ever felt ‘casual’ when reading Tolkien’s utterly engrossing stories?):

1) Somebody ‘up there’ is very much in charge of events – c.f. Gandalf’s comments in “Shadows of the Past” regarding the finding of the Ring (“there was another power at work in that, beyond the will of the Ring’s Maker. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring”; once more, I am distant from my books so all quotes will be approximate). (Oh, and please nobody interpret this as the beginning of the free-will/fate/providence debate – I’m having a tough enough time processing the current thread.)

2) Gandalf is a ‘divine’ or even ‘angelic’ minister (he’s been around a very long time; he takes on a balrog then comes back from the dead; he performs magic; he says to the balrog “I am the servant of the secret fire”; he utters the above sentiment, number 1 – and many like them – indicating that he’s got some really good inside information; he’s able to ‘save’ Frodo from the Eye – at Amon Hen – from a psychic distance).

3) Aragorn is a ‘divinely sanctioned’ king (the light that shines around his head like a flame when he ‘reveals’ himself; the hands of the healer that show him to be the true king to the people of Minas Tirith).

4) There are ‘gods’ or ‘angelic’ ministers in Middle-Earth or who can affect it (at the council of Elrond, one of the suggestions is to send the Ring “over the sea” to those who dwell in the West).

5) The ancient stories of that constitute the closest thing M-E has to ‘sacred texts’ are presented as verifiable historical facts (i.e. Luthien is somebody whom at least one of the characters we meet in the tale knew personally!)

6) Tom Bombadil and Treebeard both make references to the ‘creation’ of Middle-Earth in such a way as to demonstrate that it came into being not through the slow accretion of dust about a central ball of highly-condensed gas in which nuclear fusion began.

And I could go on, but I haven’t the time or energy. I shall leave off this post by arguing simply that in Middle-Earth there is palpable and demonstrable sense of the sacred and the divine in all aspects of its subcreation. This is, perhaps, why there is no need for formal religion or religious practices in Middle-Earth (at least in the Hobbit and LotR) – the presence of Eru (if not the name, nature or mind) is so apparent that religious practice is irrelevant. It just occurs to me that this is more than likely the source of that lovely sense of enchantment about which davem has been so consistently and eloquently writing.

To return to my thought above: it is possible to develop a non-Catholic interpretation of an Evelyn Waugh novel because Catholicism is as open to question both in the text as it is out of the text. It is impossible to develop a non-Eruistic (yuck yuck yuck) interpretation of Tolkien’s texts (any part of the historia?) without ignoring the abovementioned examples and many many more.

[Maédhros]

This is the problem with trying to construct a definitve Silmarillion by simply accepting the latest version of every story as Tolkien's 'best' version. There is no evidence to support this approach. Perhaps the reason he never re-wrote the Fall of Gondolin was because, however full of anachronisms the original may have been, however out of 'synch' it was with the later form of the mythology, it expressed something of his own personal experience in the best way, & he needed it to be left as it was, saying what it said. When we seperate the teller from the tale, & see the legendarium as a kind of 'real world' history, we inevitably run into this problem. We will, consciously or unconsciously, start to remove any difficult aspects (ie 'personal' to the author aspects) in order to create an (illusory) 'perfect' version. Perhaps the Fall of Gondolin with its tanks & troop carriers & Flamethrowers is the 'perfect' version - divorce it from the 'Legendarium' & look at it as a stand alone work - as some do with LotR & Hobbit - & ask yourself whether it needs a final 'perfect' form ('perfect' in this context seemingly only meaning a form which doesn't contradict the other stories Tolkien wrote).

I don't think that you truly get the point. It is false that we always use the latest version or idea of Tolkien in constructing a more complete Silmarillion if you will. Take the case of the Parentage of Gil Galad, there is a note in the end, which states that Gil-Galad resided in the Mouths of Sirion and that he had escaped the Fall of Nargothrond. If you take that to mean literarilly that, then there would be a huge gap in the Narn i Chîn Húrin, because there is no mention of Gil-Galad in there. This is one case in which, because that note could affect dramatically that structure, we left it alone.
The case of the Fall of Gondolin is interesting. First, it is untrue to say that he never worked on it. Of Tuor and his coming to Gondolin is the beginning of the rewriting of that Tale, and the quality and detail which JRRT added makes that version IMO superior to the first part of the Tale.
If you look into detail the typescripts that are pertinent to the Fall of Gondolin, you would notice that indeed there was never a clear rejection of the Mechanical Monsters used in the original Tale. Thanks to Findegil, we ended up using them in our version.

Tales grow out of the storyteller's own experience, & we respond out of our own. And in the end questions of 'canonicty' don't arise, because when we're 'enchanted' by the tale, those kind of questions are irrelevant. We can be moved by LotR even if we know nothing of the rest of the Legendarium. We can also be moved by the Fall of Gondolin in the Book of Lost Tales without having any context. If the spell is cast sufficiently well the tale will work on its own. If we change it simply to make it fit with other tales the same author wrote, we may only succeed in breaking the spell altogether - & for what result? To say we have a definitive version, we have produced the 'canon' & consigned the 'uncanonical' versions to the flames with the Heretics?

That is your opinion and that is ok, but I don't think that you can truly see the beauty of our Revised Fall of Gondolin. To have a description of the city of Gondolin, with all of the notes of Tolkien in there, the banners of Fingolfin, the house of the King, and the poem of the Horns of Ylmir to me is awesome.
I think that the text by themselves enchant you nonetheless, and definitely can stand on their own. 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.

So, Maedhros, I can't accept your approach. I can't even accept the idea of 'casual readers' needing to be helped. There are readers who are 'enchanted' & readers who aren't. No-one who is 'enchanted' into Middle Earth feels 'casual' about it in any way. And pointing a 'canon' (am I the first one to make that joke? sorry if not ) at a new reader won't enchant them. It may drive them away, though, through feelings of inadequacy. That said, I wish you luck with your endevour, because you may well prove me wrong!

It is interesting your input and appreciated. 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. But what happens when someone reads the Published Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales , The Road Goes ever On and some of the Letters of JRRT and see the different status of Galadriel. Is there is a canonical version, is there a true version, is there a more likely version?

[Bêthberry]

Oh no you don't, Mr. Hedgethistle

Bless you Bêthberry! You have asked the magic question that has finally unlocked for me the nagging thoughts that led to my initiating this thread in the first place. Yes, 999 times out of a thousand I would agree (and defend with great vitriol and vigour) the absolute ?divorce? of author from text necessitated by the centrality of the text (you note, I do not go so far as do Foucault and Barthes ? and, I rather suspect, yourself?). But Tolkien is that one in a thousand insofar as his texts exist in a context that is of the author?s (sub)creation, thus forcing me ?back? to the author, even as I wish to retain my absolute freedom as a reader.

Think you can integrate yourself into the mainstream of referentiality and leave me to be done in by the laundry truck, eh? (Everyone, sorry, that's an inside joke about the critics mentioned.)

Let me characterise my position, and not you, my good sir. For the time being, let me make two observations about your thoughts here.

First, it seems to me that you are suggesting a poetics for fantasy that differentiates it from realistic (for want of a better word) fiction. Do you intend this?

Second, are you making this claim for all writers of fantasy, or just Tolkien? On what basis do you or would you eliminate other writers?

Third, you will have to run by me again your point that since our reading of Middle-earth has no reference to our 'real' world, we are totally dependent upon the author for giving it credibility. This seems to me to overlook many other forms of narrative which aren't 'based' on our real world. How do we read ancient texts of early mythology? Or even translations from other cultures which would not, at least on first read, have this already-known distinction between Primary and Secondary worlds.

I tend to agree with Mr. SaucepanMan that there is no distinction between "Eruism" and Waugh's Catholicism in terms of reading experience. In fact, I recall a very similar discussion years ago in class, on Graham Greens' Brighton Rock, on where lay the "ideology" of Catholicism. Green's method--particularly in the use of colour symbolism among other aspects of the stories--is very close to Tolkien's method. Students who had no knowledge of Catholicism (whether by faith or by scholarly learning) could not 'see' the meaning until, in the process of discussion, they understood what others saw. This did not invalidate their reading per se; it was simply an aspect of the text which gave fuller meaning to some than to others. And, very interestingly, I remember one student pointing out that, even in the absence of this extra-textual knowledge of Catholicism, a reader could begin to see the various patterns shaping the novel.

Now, of course, we don't have this "extra-textual" (hee hee, not extraterrestial) referentiality for Middle-earth. We do have the books themselves. To me, Tolkien's Letters are merely glosses on what the stories provide. There cannot ever be, for me, a "definitive" Galadriel, because any authorising of one version of the character would cancel out the earlier (or later) versions of her character. The "truth" of Galadriel exists in this unfolding and extrapolating of ideas and to limit her to any one of the versions would, to me, violate (ironically here you might add), the story process.

Just as I have to wonder if the formal 'text' of LOTR or of TH supports the interpetation of dwarves which Tolkien puts forth in The Appendix, of their imperviousness to the desire for domination which the ring produces.

davem, I should clarify some points for you but must run. Later.