‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[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 ...

[Maédhros]

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.

This is a valid opinion but an opinion nonetheless. I'm really not sure if we have read the same stories though. I think that this approach regarding the manuscripts and typescripts of JRRT is wrong. Take for example the Quenta Noldorinwa. If that version of the "Silmarillion", (the only complete Silmarillion) that JRRT wrote btw, is a complete separate "definite" work apart from the Tales, why would JRRT make a mention of those same Tales in the Quenta Noldorinwa?

From the Shaping of Middle-earth: Quenta Noldorinwa

On a time Ulmo contrived, as is told in the Tale of the Fall of Gondolin, that he should be led to a river-course that flowed underground from Lake Mithrim in the midst of Hithlum into a great chasm, Cris-Ilfing,4 the Rainbow-cleft, through which a turbulent water ran at last into the western sea. And the name of this chasm was so devised by reason of the rainbow that shimmered ever in the sun in that place, because of the abundance of the spray of the rapids and the waterfalls.
Of the deeds of desperate valour there done, by the chieftains of the noble houses and their warriors, and not least by Tuor, is much told in The Fall of Gondolin; of the death of Rog without the walls; and of the battle of Ecthelion of the Fountain with Gothmog lord of Balrogs in the very square of the king, where each slew the other; and of the defence of the tower of Turgon by the men of his household, until the tower was overthrown; and mighty was its fall and the fall of Turgon in its ruin.

If the Quenta Noldorinwa version used part of the Tales in its narrative, does that makes the Tales obsolete? If the definitive version uses the Tales does that means that the Tales are not discared then?

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.

Actually it is the other way around regarding our work in the Fall of Gondolin. I never used the word "official" in any of my posts nor do we claim that our Revised Silmarillion is "canonical". We have certain standards in which we weight the typescripts and manuscripts of JRRT.
As I have said before, there are some people who are happy with just reading the text, while there are others who want more. It is a good thing that CT didn't share your opinion of trying to make a "Silmarillion", because I would never have know any of it.

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?

A truthful version of ME. What is that? How would I know if I get it right? We just have a set of principles and we strive to make a "more complete" Silmarillion that takes into account some of the latter ideas of JRRT.

[Lord of Angmar]

I don't mean to be rude to Maédhros, Child of the 7th Age, mark12_30 and The Saucepan Man by posting without looking over or addressing their most recent additions to the conversation, but I found an article that may be of some interest to all those involved in this thread. I don't know if the author, Mr. Martinez, is or has ever been a member of the Barrow-Downs, but he certainly sounds like one.

Edit: Having read just a little farther down (I was interrupted from reading the entire essay in one sitting), I have found that Mr. Martinez is (or appears to be in some capacity) a member or frequent viewer of the Barrow-downs:

Some folks at the Barrowdowns are asking whether the "Myths Transformed" section of Morgoth's Ring could or should be used in establishing a canon.

Quite interesting.

[Mister Underhill]

This is a fascinating discussion and I regret that I don't have more time to post my reactions to its finer points in more detail (hey!-- I heard those sighs of relief!).

Here's what compelled me to post: Fordim (greetings, welcome to the Downs, and all that good stuff), your analogies tend to pit author against reader in a titanic struggle, with the free will of the latter at stake. As the conversation has gotten a bit abstract for a pragmatist like myself, I wonder if you might be so good as to provide examples of the chief battlegrounds on which this war is fought. Or more plainly, where exactly are author and reader (potentially) at odds? What freedoms do you seek that Tolkien as author might restrict? Does the subtext of this concern have mainly to do with RPGs, or does it have broader application?

Kudos to all for a very thoughtful and thought-provoking thread.

[Aiwendil]

Is A New Silmarillion Justified?

It is necessary first to inquire into what exactly a "New Silmarillion" is, then into what it might mean for such an object to be "justified" or "unjustified".

The phrase "New Silmarillion" or "Revised Silmarillion" implicitly assumes that there is some "Old Silmarillion" or "Unrevised Silmarillion" with which it can be compared (indeed, in reference to which it is defined). What is this "Old Silmarillion"? It can only be the published Silmarillion, the ‘77, if you like.

But what is the published Silmarillion? It is not a text written by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is rather a continuous narrative constructed by Christopher Tolkien (and Guy Kay) out of the various texts written by his father. The objective of a "New Silmarillion" is the same: to present a continuous narrative constructed out of the various texts. It is thus not really a "revision". It bears no direct relation at all to the published Silmarillion. It is "new" only in the sense that, as it happens, the published Silmarillion was created first, chronologically.

The question, then, must become whether a continuous Silmarillion is justified. If yes, then, at least in principle, the New Silmarillion project is justified. If no, then the published Silmarillion is unjustified.

What can "justified" mean in this context? Obviously, it cannot have the kind of strong moral meaning it does when we ask, for example, whether a war is justified. I suppose we might break it down into two questions: is there any value in a continuous Silmarillion? Is there any harm in a continuous Silmarillion?

To the second question, I would answer "no" without hesitation. No one is being forced to read such a thing; no one is being forced (or even urged) to consider it "official" in any way. The existence of such a thing cannot be harmful.

The real question, then, is whether there is value in it. This is perhaps a bit more difficult to answer, but I think that the eventual answer must be "yes". I am a great fan of the scholarly approach to Tolkien's writings exemplified by HoMe. But the Silmarillion is above all else a work of literature - and a great work of literature. It deserves to exist in a coherent form. Would Beethoven's ninth symphony be great if it were never played, but merely studied in score? Would The Lord of the Rings be great if it existed only as scattered pieces of narrative with complex and oft conflicting indications for how these were to be fitted together? Would Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band be great if it were merely a long string of studio outtakes?

Maybe these things would still be in some sense "great". But when I consider such possibilities, the value of having these things whole, as fully realized works of art, becomes immediately apparent.

Silmarillions Plural

References to "The New Silmarillion", "The Revised Silmarillion", or (worst yet) "The Canonical Silmarillion" undoubtedly sound a bit monolithic. That is because each of these is to some degree a misnomer.

Even if the value of a continuous Silmarillion is admitted, the objection may be raised that the published Silmarillion already exists, so the desire for a continuous Silmarillion is fulfilled. Why is a new one needed? Add to this the misperception that the new one is intended to supercede the ‘77, to be THE Silmarillion for all time, and we have a very reasonable question.

But there is not a single "New Silmarillion"; there is an infinite number of them.

With the publication of HoMe we have essentially all of the Silmarillion texts. This is the primary source material, and nothing can ever alter that. Now it is clear that these texts can be arranged in many ways, can be added to or subtracted from, combined or dissected. It is clear also that the texts bear certain empirical relations with each other, and form something of a complex network. There is an astronomically high number of ways of manipulating these texts to form a new text (when we add the possibility of adding text, it becomes infinite). These ways can be evaluated in terms of the logical structure of the relations among the texts. In other words, there are an infinite number of Silmarillions that could theoretically be constructed out of the source material, and in theory there must be principles that can be invented that will guide the construction of such a text.

All this may seem a bit pedantic, since it is quite obvious that we can invent principles and then apply them to the source material and create a new text. But the chief point to be taken from it is that these are all operations in a purely logical space defined by the source texts - in other words, there are all sorts of continuous Silmarillions more or less inherent in the source material.

Obviously, some of these will be a lot more interesting than others. We could construct a Silmarillion by taking the QS found in HoMe V and replacing every fifth paragraph with the corresponding paragraph from Q in HoMe IV. This would be a very silly thing to do. There would seem to be no point in such a Silmarillion. But it is still a possible Silmarillion, inherent in the source material. We could take all the latest narratives written by Tolkien and put them together in chronological order. This would be a good deal more interesting, if only because we humans tend to think that the author's final thoughts on each particular subject are more interesting than his thoughts from various random intervals in the middle of his life. But such a Silmarillion would also have features that we would call disadvantages; the content of certain sections, for example, would conflict with the content of other sections.

So we can narrow our attention down to those Silmarillions in which there is a kind of consistency from beginning to end (and we need not worry that "consistency" is a vague term, for the set of Silmarillions we are interested in is arbitrary). Even here there are very many options. We could construct a perfectly consistent Lost Tales mythology. We could construct a Silmarillion using the QS as a base text and supplementing it only with earlier texts, altering inconsistencies in favor of QS. We could do the same but supplement it only with later texts. We could make a Myths Transformed Silmarillion. We could make a Silmarillioin in which no words not found in the base texts could be added. We could make one in which we are free to write fan fiction wherever it suits our fancy.

Again, some of these will have advantages and some will have disadvantages. I think that very many of them would be extremely interesting, and would have value in existing. The published Silmarillion is one of this sort. The "Revised Silmarillion" we are working on here is another of this sort. They are two among hypothetical hundreds; theoretical thousands.

When you look at things in this light, it seems almost irrelevant to argue about the principles on which any particular one of these is based - for obviously these are not the only principles upon which a Silmarillion could be based. It is just that this particular Silmarillion has these particular principles behind it, and it happens to be the Silmarillion we are talking about at the moment. We could just as easily speak of that Silmarillion with those principles. "Such and such a Silmarillion," you may say, "was constructed by a committee; I see that as a disadvantage." Fine. Construct one yourself. Seriously - it's quite fun. Better yet, construct two yourself. Choose different principles from which to start and see what results you get in each case. And when you're done, I'll be eager to read them both.

So you see I think that it's no use to argue whether THE Revised Silmarillion ought to be made. There are thousands of possible Silmarillions and there is no harm in any of them being made, and value in many. But you've got to start somewhere, and, since there were several more or less like-minded people on the forum, we chose certain guiding principles and embarked on constructing one as a committee. I happen to think that those principles will make for a Silmarillion of particular value; but then, I helped write the principles, so maybe it's just my personal opinion. In any case, I don't think that any such set of principles is somehow on a different plane from the others, nor that any continuous Silmarillion could ever be called "official" unless JRRT were to return from the grave and write it himself.

Canon and Canon

I think that a lot of confusion in discussions like that in this thread stems from an ambiguity in the meaning of the word "canon" as applied to Tolkien's works. This, I think, is because the word actually has two meanings that are, in the cases of most authors, identical.

On the one hand (and, I think, in its primary meaning), "the canon" can mean the set of works that we can safely say are "by author X". The James Joyce canon is the set of works that we can say are "by James Joyce", etc. It is an important term in literary criticism for it more or less identifies the works that are fair play in the critic's consideration of the author's writings. For Tolkien, this set would include The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, the writings found in HoMe, "Farmer Giles of Ham", etc. There may sometimes be ambiguity concerning certain works, and whether they are to be admitted in to the canon of a particular author. But in the case of Tolkien, I don't think there are really any such works.

If "the canon" for a particular author includes only finished works, then these works will generally be self-consistent. If they are supposed to take place in the same world, they will agree with each other regarding the facts about that world. Other authors may come along later and add their own stories about that world - but of course these are not part of the "canon" of the first author; hence, "canon" can in this case come to be thought of as referring to the facts about the imaginary world. In other words, "canon" can come to be equated with the "true history" of the imaginary world, as opposed to any false or unauthorized stories about it.

Obviously, this meaning of "canon" diverges from the first in the case of Tolkien. For Tolkien left us various writings that are part of the Tolkien canon (first meaning) but that disagree with each other. So the canon (second meaning) comes to refer to the "true history" of Arda. Obviously, such a concept is something of a fabrication (since this is all fiction), and we ought not be surprised when we discover that there is no single, authoritative canon (second meaning).

[HerenIstarion]

Again nothing important to add (I'm just too awed and fascinated to interfere, really) just one minor answer to one minor question:

Mr. Martinez have been visiting the Downs at one time (2000, I believe)

and, yes, well said, Aiwendil