[Bêthberry]

You have written a long and gracious and eloquent post, Child and say much with which I would agree--and, in fact, Fordim has already acknowledged a point I would respect, the need to be inclusive of several different perspectives. You are right--We cannot enter completely and wholly and naively into the mind and sensibility of a previous age!

I remember being told that the right way to go about literary scholarship was to read everything the author read and immerse oneself in the author's age so as to come to terms with what the author meant. How to ignore or overlook the intervening years between any author's and my own I was never told. How those intervening years might impinge upon an understanding of the author and/or text in question was a moot point from this perspective. Such a concern would be dismissed as irrelevant. And we could only study dead authors because they were the only ones who could be relied upon not to publish works which subsequently "proved" us wrong. It was an archeologoy all right. Take a look to see what constituted the study of "English literature" at the time Tolkien taught at Oxford to see this perspective in operation. (I do not ascribe this situation to Tolkien at all. In fact, I think he was ruefully disappointed in it, as his comments and shudders over academic syllabus show.)

You have so graciously acknowledged many of the points here that I almost feel it is rude of me to disagree. Almost. But please bear with me.

It is not any act of disrespect which causes me to question whether we can with absolute certainty say we know an author's intention. It is the experience of seeing that authors often write from depths of inspiration and thought which they themselves do not wholly or completely understand at the time of writing. Or seeing authors wish to withhold their true sense of intention from deliberate statement, wanting the work of art to speak for them. And even seeing authors deliberately engage in disguise and subterfuge as a way to challenge readers.

The difficulty is always what to do with the passage of time. As you yourself pointed out, in the sixties, it was Tolkien's environmental focus which was the topic of interest. Now, with publication of The Silm, HoME and UT, the moral or religious focus is what draws many to Tolkien. Yet this focus--even, both of them I would say--was largely absent from the movies. which has brought the thrill of the ancient epics and sword play to the forefront of some people's interest. Are we to say that those who read Tolkien in the sixties were wrong because they didn't know of Eru? Are we to say that those who relish the warrior aspects are limited in their appreciation because they might denigrate the environmental issues?

This issue of how time changes our perspective, even our definitions, pertains as much to historiography as it does to literary questions. Here in Canada, for both World War I and World War II, our participation was argued over, depending upon whether one felt we must rise to the call of the Empire and help defend England (English Canada) or stay out of the English dog's war (French Canada). In the United States, which entered World War II much later than Canada, there was a certain degree of sympathy for the Nazi Government. Only later in the war, when the extent of the genocide became apparent, did opinion coalesce. The same can be said for other wars. The American Civil War began over the question of the right of the southern states to secede. Only as the war progressed did the issue of slavery rise to the fore. (At least, this is the viewpoint I brought away with me after I visited Gettysburg.) Is there a lesson here in how cultures use moral issues to define historical moments? Maybe.

While bowing to your expertise in historical matters, I would politely suggest that the issues which bedevil our attempts to find a definitive, absolute interpretation of literary works based on an ability to know truly a writer's intention also impede historical research. I think back to the difference perspective which you and Rimbaud had over the question of whether a "middle class" existed in the middle ages. How historiographers define issues can influence their findings and their histories as much as definitions thwart literary scholars.

You suggest that the preferable way to define a response to Tolkien is through history rather than the kind of literary criticism which Fordim and I tend to use, maybe even davem, perhaps even Saucepan. And your justification for suggesting such an approach is Tolkien's own interest in history, which you say was more important than his interest in story.

Yet I think back to 'On Fairy Stories' and his deliberations over the bishop and the banana peel. Things get into the cauldron of story to flavour the story, not because they have any historical objectivity.

Which I suppose is my way of saying that there is indeed a continuum of interpretation and understanding as you suggest rather than davem's either or dichotomy. I don't see why a fanfic which explores an area Tolkien alluded to but left undeveloped, like Sauron's or Saruman's fall, is not possible within his moral universe. But perhaps that hinges on how we each define "hero". At the very least, I don't think 'historiography' is much more helpful to us than literary scholarship. When all is said and done, what we have are our words together, even when we disagree.