What Are We Arguing About?
As I said before, I've been experiencing a growing uncertainty about just what disagreement we actually have in this debate. Initially it was a matter of "canon". Is the canon determined by the author or the reader or the text itself? But this question could not be directly addressed, as there was disagreement over the meaning of "canon" - the question, interesting though it was, was not well formulated.
So there ensued some debate about the term "canon" - debate which seems ultimately futile, since "canon" is just a term and its definition arbitrary.
And here we are on page 12 and as far as I can see we still haven't succeeded at formulating the question.
Is there a fundamental factual disagreement? I don't think so. We all agree that the author had a mind, even those in the "reader's freedom" camp. And likewise we all agree that readers have different ways of understanding the text and different reasons for reading it - even those in the "author's authority" camp cannot dispute that as a mere fact.
So if we do not disagree on the facts, what do we disagree about?
It must be a matter of
worth or
value that is in dispute. There is the claim that it is primarily or exclusively "worthwhile" to study the author. Then there is the claim that each reader's view has equal "value". And there is the claim that it is the text itself that is "valuable".
I can see no way of recasting those different claims without using words like "worth" or "value".
But what kind of worth are we talking about? Monetary worth? Obviously not. Moral worth? I don't think that's it either, though perhaps I'm wrong. I doubt that Davem would say (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that a reader who disregards Tolkien as a person is actually doing something morally bad.
If not these, then what? We might say "artistic worth" but this is a cheat - it's just the replacement of one ambiguous term with another.
The truth, I think, is that we're each talking about a
different kind of worth - and because we all simply say "worth" this gets us into arguments. Each of us has some different goal in mind with respect to which we measure the value of the author, the text, and the reader.
When Davem says that the author's views are the most worthwhile, he means this with respect to the goal of understanding the author and the author's intention. I don't disagree with this. If one's purpose in studying a piece of art is to study it as a manifestation of the author, then surely one of the most valuable things one can do is to study the author.
But if one's goal is something different - say, "mere" enjoyment, then the value of studying the author will not be the same. To someone like me who is interested in studying the text itself - as a text, rather than as a manifestation of or message from the author - it is less valuable (though still valuable) to study the author.
I think the nature of the "disagreement" is exemplified by what Davem wrote in the previous post:
Quote:
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Ok, we must if we wish to understand what the author meant.
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This is exactly the point.
If we wish to understand what the author meant, then studying the author is important. But that's not what we all wish.
I think that the whole disagreement about how to define the term "canon" arises merely from the fact that we each have a different objective in mind. If your objective is that of the authorial manifestation, then naturally you'll want to define "canon" in terms of authorial intentions, since that's the concept that's of interest to you. If your objective is to study the texts themselves, you might rather define "canon" purely in terms of the texts. There's no "correct" definition - it's merely a matter of different conventions.
That leaves us with the question of whether one objective is "better" than the others. And I'm afraid I can't see any way of arguing this for any of them - why should it be intrinsically "better" to study one thing than to study another?
Edit: Cross-post with The Saucepan Man, who has essentially said exactly the same thing I did but in about a tenth as many words. I think I'll go practice tempering my verbosity.