‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Bêthberry]

Humming and in a gentle temper tonight, Bethberry glides in with trays full of smoked Stilton cheese, camembert, paté, light salads and leafy greens, crackers and a variety of fresh breads. Sniffing the air, she quietly throws open the windows to air the room out and then pours herself a large glass of port. She lights candles in empty wine bottles and takes a chair.

Leaving aside for now the categories and classifications of readers, I would like to refer back to something davem.

No, but you'd know that the monkeys weren't trying to write a beautiful piece of music, that they weren't trying to communicate anything to you, or inspire any emotional response, so any response you did have to the music would have its source solely in you. That's not the case if Beethoven wrote it - that fact adds another 'dimension' to the work - it was written with intent - specific intent, to produce a specific response in its hearers. Beethoven wrote it for a reason, it exists for that reason, & if he hadn't had that reason to write it, it wouldn't exist, & you wouldn't ever have experienced your favourite piece of music. From this point of view, the artist/composer/scientist is as iportant as what they produce, even if their intention/motivation is ultimately unknowable. The work is in a sense a 'manifestation' of the worker, the effect the worker has on the world, the 'imprint' he makes on the physical or mental universe around him. There must be some personal aspect to the work, & some 'transcendent' aspect, if the work is true art (imo).

Let me draw on a personal experience here. From time to time, I come across old letters, notes, commentaries, recipes, written by hands who are no longer here. These written messages are inexpressibly precious to me, coming as they do from those who will never write again to me. These messages were no grand expressions of literature. They express nothing greater than the daily routine and activities in the lives of the writers and some thought and reflections on those affairs. Sometimes to my chagrin and shame I found them tedious in their banality. They were written with no greater intent than out of love for me and to share something of their time with me, who lived thousands of miles away.

Now my fingers trace the letters, because for me handwriting is the ineffable trace of the human being. And in the absence of the authors who wrote them, those messages take on new meanings, meanings which the writers did not intend and which I never at the time thought of. The passage of time and the absence of the writers has given them new meaning.

Now, I collect those flimsy pieces of paper and ink and store them in a box. Someday someone will find that box, looking through the effects I leave behind and, if I am important enough or if my own writing reaches enough people, maybe someone will pore over those shards of memory, trying to piece together their importance for me and the meaning the messages disclosed. Or maybe just those I leave behind, close to me, will do that. And they will provide another layer of meaning upon those pages and the handwriting. And I could say the same thing of the delicate pieces of crochet work which my mother produced before she could no longer use her hands. Those pieces had a beauty at the time of their creation, but they have a more substantive meaning now, for in the tiny stitches I can now see the evidence of her struggle with her looming incapacity and fate. I could not see that then. It is only later, in retrospective, that the evidence comes forth.

We read intent backwards, just as you say, davem Tolkien did in his work on the Beowulf poem. In order for Tolkien to arrive at his understanding of the poem, he, as you say, "attributed motives, desires and beliefs" to the poet. This, then, is Tolkien's process as a reader and interpreter. Yet we have no way of ascertaining whether these motives were in fact the poet's motives or whether they rather functioned to help Tolkien produce his interpretation. He as reader uses this poetic personae as an entry point to help him arrive at an understanding of the poem. He reads backwards. Our understanding of intention is often like this, arrived at reading backwards.

This is an important part of the reading process, but it does not necessarily or logically reflect the actual intentions of the author at the time of writing.

*stops to refill her port and then sits back comfortably in a large leather chair.*