The Canon

[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Well, of course not.

Well, as obvious as the question admittedly was, here's another, what does that say then, about author-published work being canon?

The thing is, we know that T was willing on occasion to contradict published material, and then regularize the change in print: vide Finrod > Finarfin and Inglor > Finrod.

For that matter, even the published "canon" is not necessarily consistent. Were we to take the Lorien chapters alone, Celeborn would clearly be a Danian (Nando by the later system); he had become a Sinda by the time the Appendix was written but the main narrative was never revised to match, and you have to kinda squint to make the retcon look consistent. See also TRGEO version of Celeborn/Galadriel, especially the "ban."

To me this is noting inconsistency within canon, which affects canon not at all. The first edition Hobbit was notably changed, as well as described by Tolkien as Bilbo's inconsistent version. Bilbo's not Tolkien's; the canon contains at least two versions of the same story. And if we want "closer to the truth" we can follow the lead of internal characters like Gandalf.

As for Celeborn canon, the reader is free to hold up, for comparison, various descriptions, in effort to find out/interpret/discern the "truth" of a thing. For example the suggestion within the chapter The Mirror of Galadriel versus two direct statements that tell the reader, clearly and easily, that Celeborn was one of the Sindar. We can squint if we know the "posthumous reality", or wink knowingly, though on the other hand, for all we know Tolkien felt no need to revise certain statements here, since a Sindarin Celeborn can (arguably) work well enough... and even if a given someone thinks a Sindarin Celeborn doesn't work well enough, the canon remains -- sometimes it's grey instead of black and white.

... like Celeborn the "Grey" [I know WCH knows, but Sindar means "Greys or Grey Ones"]. Okay bad pun, moving on.

Did a Troll really bake bread for a Hobbit named Perry-the-Winke? To my mind it's canon whether it happened or not, 'cause Tolkien published it as part of the (imagined) real texts from which he translooted stuff (verb tense: "past afflicted" of translate).

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Galin

Well, as obvious as the question admittedly was, here's another, what does that say then, about author-published work being canon?

Ah- but in that case we would be talking about author publication of the very work in question. Canonicity debates, with very few exceptions, always swirl around the First Age material precisely because T never published any of it. We don't have arguments over LR canon, other than noting internal inconsistencies which really isn't a canonicity issue at all.

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I would submit the following classes of "canonicity:"

Class I: Published and never subsequently contradicted either in or out of print. Exemplar: almost all of the LR, almost all of The Hobbit save Chapter 5.

Class II: Published but subsequently contradicted in print, and the original publication revised to match. Exemplar: Hobbit Chapter 5.

Class III: Published but subsequently contradicted in unpublished material, then publication revised to match. Exemplar: Finrod > Finarfin.

Class IV: Published but subsequently contradicted in print, no revision. Exemplar: Galadriel's Ban in LR vs RGEO.

Class IV-A: "Ghosts" remaining in the LR narrative subsequently contradicted by the Appendices, written years later. Exemplar: Celeborn's origin.

Class IV-B: Internal contradictions in a published work, remains of earlier drafts overlooked in revision. Exemplar: Sleeping without fear in Caras Galadhon "for the first time" since Rivendell.

Class IV-C: Internal contradictions in a published work, dormitat dulce Homerus. Exemplar: Gimli's wood-cutting axe.

Class V: Unpublished, not contradicted by any published or subsequent unpublished material. Exemplar: Akallabeth

Class V-A (strongest): Unpublished, consistent in part with published material where parallel, uncontradicted elsewhere, result of development over multiple texts. Exemplars: Beren & Luthien (1937); The Quest of Erebor; Akallabeth again.

Class V-B: Unpublished, consistent in part with published material where parallel, uncontradicted elsewhere, one-off. Exemplar: The Battles of the Fords of Isen

Class V-C: Unpublished, neither confirmed nor contradicted by other material. Exemplar: The Wanderings of Hurin.

Class VI: Unpublished, contradicted by other unpublished material.

Class VI-A: Unpublished, contradicted only by earlier unpublished material. Exemplar: the "Long Tuor."

Class VI-B: Unpublished, superseded by later unpublished material. Many examples.

Class VII: Unpublished, superseded by later published material. All drafts of published material &c.

Class VIII: Unpublished, contradicts previously published material. Exemplar: Celeborn-as-Teler.

Class IX: Material by CT which contradicts JRRT material. Exemplar: the Fall of Doriath material in The Silmarillion.

Class X: Material by others which contradicts or makes spurious additions to JRRT material. Exemplars: Peter Jackson's movies, fan-fic.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

But a note on the word 'canon' now -- I think we are working through something of a shibboleth. A canon is not a group of set or finalised texts: every canon is always in motion, being changed, being reinterpreted, etc. Even the Biblical canon was arrived at in historical time (at the Council of Nicacea) and continues to be reworked to this day (some Bibles have the apocrypha in a separate section, some do not). The 'canon' of American literature didn't use to include writers like Mark Twain (too childish) or Toni Morrison (too black): but as American society changed, so did the canon, and now just try finding any course or program in American Lit anywhere in the world that doesn't include both these writers.

Yet these changes still appear to me to be an attempt to define a group of "finalized" texts, and in any case the matter of a single author who produced a handful of works (Middle-earth based) should not nearly be so complicated as the "canon of American Literature" in my opinion, or of such Biblical proportions.

I think the attempt here to determine a final set of 'canonical' texts for Middle-Earth is doomed to failure (as is becoming perfectly clear). I think the list of canon provided by Mark 12:30 above is about as close as we're going to get.

Ahh, but let's look again at Mark's post below. Maybe we aren't doomed just yet.

The real issue is, I think, what is it do we want to accomplish by the act of making some texts 'canonical' and others not.

Great question! My admittedly poorly expressed and simplified answer starts with the desire to engage with the writer/artist/subcreated-world; and perhaps especially readers dealing with fantastic subcreation naturally want to know the story. It's part of the joy of reading, and when there is confusion (or seeming confusion), as Sam's Elanor might say at some point: "is it true?" Yet we don't know what is true about Celeborn (to continue the example), as arguably his clan hints at his history (even when employing posthumously published texts to fill out that history), and so if Celeborn is a Nando, and a Teler, and a Sinda all at once, then in another sense he is none of these things...

... and a false sense of contradiction is injected, where none was intended by the artist/writer/subcreator. And Elanor, naturally, still wants to know what the story is.

My position, in brief: the search for the 'canon' of Middle-Earth is futile at best, misleading at worst, for it maintains the fiction of an authorially established 'truth' when what we should be doing is looking at all available texts and evaluating, thinking about and arguing about each of them on their own merits (as well as how they relate to one another) without worrying about if they do or do not 'fit' into some idealised (and wholly imaginary) Canon of Truth (which will only ever really be the truth-as-imagined-by-the-person-putting-forward-the-canon).

Yet you/we can look at all available texts, think about them and discuss them on their own merits, without worrying about if they fit into the canon or not. I don't think anyone would claim that canonicity must lurk over every discussion to the effect of weeding out opinions and ideas. Anyway, looking at Mark's post that you referred to, but here with my emphasis [makes me think Mike Myers from View from the Top, something like: don't put the emphAsis on the wrong syllable]:

levels of 'canonicity' for original Tolkien work:

(A) Tolkien's Original published works in his lifetime. Most agree on this.

(B) Tolkien's Original works whether published or not. Hotly debated in terms of timeline and "final word".

(C) Letters. Also hotly debated. C7A: Use to clarify author's intent when stated.

Over the years I have found that most do agree that anything Tolkien himself published, or approved for publication in his lifetime, is canon. And like Mark I have to say "most", because in my experience there are some who do not hold The Hobbit as canon. I think that's, yet again, a matter of inconsistency within canon rather; and anyway, it appears that the "translator" himself considered even the first edition Hobbit canon.

But what folks often enough don't agree on (in canon discussions) concerns the posthumously published works, which of course includes the letters. Again, what does that say about finding an all agreed upon canon? Is the line in the collective sand becoming clearer? Can I try to say something by rather annoyingly putting it in question form?

Originally Posted by davem

He clearly was not writing them as part of a 'canon' - which is the point. Tolkien probably wouldn't have thought of some (any?) of his writings as 'canonical' & others as not.

But for instance, Tolkien did actually reject an idea because it conflicted with something already in print. And not only do we have a neat example (ros), we have Christopher Tolkien illustrating his father's worry about this late in life. I say: of course Tolkien had to mind what's already in print, and can't we use "canon" for this? Tolkien had to mind the color of Boromir's boots, or had to mind keeping a character "consistent" [by the writer's measure anyway] throughout the work, and plenty of stuff in between and all around!

And even when Tolkien consciously decides to inject an inconsistency, I argue that this concern is still there, very arguably illustrated by the author's attempts to keep things internal, to smooth the inconsistency in an internal way: again, Bilbo wasn't telling the whole truth about Gollum and the Ring, but that is his version nonetheless, and notably, it's also found in "Red Book related" writings. It remains canon.

To my mind Tolkien is quite aware of what this dance is about. In my opinion this is part of the "Elvish-craft", part of casting the spell on the reader, part of the art of writing and the joy of reading.

I would say that he wouldn't consider any of the letters in that way. We can't even know if he was being serious in all of them.

Agreed. Tolkien letters were never in the hands of a readership at large while he was alive -- the letters were never meant for a readership at large, and were never going to be published, from Tolkien's perspective. To me it seems bordering on silly for Tolkien to feel he needed to mind what he had written to one person, a number of days, months, years, decades ago, if a new and/or better concept came to mind.

How folks employ the letters today is another matter, and some do appear to take the "Death of Author" stance.

Obviously, we have to make a clear distinction between what Tolkien himself produced (to the extent that we can separate it from Christopher's contributions), but once we start trying to pigeonhole certain of Tolkien's writings as 'canonical' & other writings as not, we will not find any clear demarcation lines to help us, because Tolkien didn't think about his writings in that way.

I disagree here, Not only did Tolkien think of already published text differently than private writings, but to me it's only reasonable that he do so. For example, Tolkien cannot (as he himself says) make ros a Beorian word because "canon" already notes that ros is a Sindarin word -- most of this fails, he noted, meaning the ideas that went along with Beorian ros too. But actually, in my opinion, Tolkien can make ros a Beorian word, if he really wants to -- but the distinction for me is that the new idea, whether taken up or not into "canon", is compared to a different animal, a different animal compared to something he wrote last year/last month/yesterday, in some story or note that no has ever seen, and only will see if he allows it.

It's not the same simply because the art of subcreation will not be undermined in any way. Inconsistencies and purposed inconsistencies are weighed, but yet if the Red Book never numbered Feanor's sons, Feanor can have seven, or five, or however many sons Tolkien wills it; and he can change Amras to Amros without a thought that any foundations of Middle-earth might stir.

Christopher Tolkien notes (Unfinished Tales, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn): "It may be noted that Galadriel did not appear in the original story of the rebellion and flight of the Noldor, which existed long before she did; and also, of course, that after her entry into the stories of the First Age he actions could still be transformed radically, since The Silmarillion had not been published."

Of course! And the other side of that coin would seem to be, what had already appeared in publication is a natural concern as far as transformation goes, radical or not.

By the way, JRRT actually did change Amras to Amros. So what's this character's real name according to canon

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Of course, what may have been in Tolkien's mind as much as anything was simply that published matter couldn't be changed, at least not easily (neither the Hobbit revisions nor the LR second edition were exactly planned), at least as much as reflecting the completely fictional "underlying truth."

OTOH, T loved to play Patience (Solitaire), and I think part of the "game" to him was working around the constraints of the cards as dealt, even though he had dealt them himself.

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NB: I agree that a younger, more flexible Tolkien could have saved Beoran ros, simply by positing that Gondorian Sindarin was a "medieval" rather than a "classical" Sindarin, which like Latin in the ME had absorbed some vernacular loan-words. Ros' acceptance into Dunedainic Sindarin would have been all the more easy given that every Numenorean knew the name of their founding King. T of all people knew that living languages are never static!

[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Of course, what may have been in Tolkien's mind as much as anything was simply that published matter couldn't be changed, at least not easily (neither the Hobbit revisions nor the LR second edition were exactly planned), at least as much as reflecting the completely fictional "underlying truth."

Agreed. And as I would put it, when doing this Tolkien is essentially drawing the line between canon (what he himself had published for a readership at large) and everything else. And even when he decides to alter what Frodo said to Gildor (second edition) he is still aware of this line in the sand, and of course why it exists [and in WPP he again tries to come up with an internal explanation for Frodo's "mistake"].

OTOH, T loved to play Patience (Solitaire), and I think part of the "game" to him was working around the constraints of the cards as dealt, even though he had dealt them himself.

Agreed again, as I think the matter of Glorfindel shows -- not only could Tolkien have simply changed the name of the Gondolinic character, but at one point he acts like he needs to stick to the "fact" that Gondolin was mostly populated by Noldorin folk, which itself was the older and seemingly "rejected" idea in any case, given that he had later added plenty of Sindar into the Gondolin mix! Memory glitch in my opinion, but it goes to the point I think. Although even in the late text, if "most" of the Gondolin Elves were Noldorin -- say if Tolkien was actually going back to the old idea here, which I doubt -- most still isn't all in any case.

And maybe it's the back of the same hand, as the matter of Glorfindel shows -- when Tolkien realizes he "cannot" make the Rivendellic Glorfindel one of the Sindar due to what was published.


And agreed for a third time about ros. I'm not sure why even an older Tolkien didn't try the path of loan word here... though I say this with the reservation that: I am no linguist, and he... well, he is JRR Tolkien!

If loan-word does work, perhaps Tolkien didn't think about the matter for very long, for whatever reason.

Edit: actually I think the old idea about Gondolin was that its folk were all Gnomes/Noldorin... ah my pedantry, even I'm not safe from it!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Yes, the original story was that Gondolin wasn't founded until after the Nirnaeth by Turgon's regiment fleeing the battle,* all of them of course Gnomes. The new story arose pretty 'late'- IIRC not until the Grey Annals ca. 1951-2 - where Gondolin had been founded long before by Turgon's mixed-race people from Nevrast.

That however runs into the problem of language- why would the people of Nevrast not have followed the rest of Beleriand in speaking Sindarin save the Noldor among themselves? Probably because in the GA as written the old linguistic system was in place, where the language we know as "Sindarin" was still "Noldorin." (It's really sort of a wonder to me that Tolkien covered his tracks in the Lord of the Rings so well that nobody even suspected that a Great Linguistic Shift had occurred between its writing and its publication)

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*So where did the women and kids come from?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Okay- how would you class the "canonicity" of this very interesting excerpt from a 1965 letter.... not by Tolkien, but by his secretary apparently in consultation with him:

Is there going to be another book? Professor Tolkien is hoping to complete for publication another work, called the Silmarillion, an account of the history and mythology of the First and Second Ages and the early part of the Third Age as it has come down through the Numenoreans, but he is kept from it by other matters....

[Just incidentally, the secretary was the future Mrs. Christopher Tolkien, and the typewriter the same one CT would use for many years including his early letters to me]