Canon: what ARE we babbling about?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by obloquy

With regard to The Hobbit, it is important to view the story as an embellished or fanciful adventure novel from Bilbo's perspective.

Why? I have never gone along with this idea that Bilbo must have exagerrated the tale of his adventure. Why can we not simply take it at face value (accepting, of course, the changes made to his account of his encounter with Gollum, as explained in LotR)? Why are Giants, for example, merely products of Bilbo's overactive imagination when the Stone Trolls and Dragon are clearly not? Why should we dismiss Bilbo's tale as a collection of febrile ramblings when we take the account written by Frodo and Sam as gospel? Why should Bilbo's account of his own story be considered fanciful, when his collation of Elvish history is taken as accurate?

Of course, you can view The Hobbit in that way if you wish, but it's not compulsory to do so. Nor is it unreasonable to interpret it as a faithful account.

As for the poll, Canon is defined in the dictionary (in this context) as:

... the recognised genuine works of a particular author; a list of these.

Strictly speaking, that includes only the works which Tolkien himself completed and which were published in his lifetime. At a stretch, it might also include his unfinished tales as per the state that they were in at the time of his death and as subsequently published. But it would exclude The Silmarillion, which was edited by his son, and his letters, notes and the like.

Unfortunately, there's no option which precisely matches that, so I'll go with the "published during his lifetime" option, ie his completed works.

Edit: Actually, I'll go with the second option, although I would exclude The Silmarillion as edited/adapted by Christopher Tolkien.