‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

(And while I make that claim, perhaps I should ask Mr. Hedgethistle why he has conjoined author and text in his dichotomy. To me, the text is separate from the author--and, indeed it is the text which "holds supremacy", for both author and reader, although that text is an ephemeral thing.)

Bless you Bêthberry! You have asked the magic question that has finally unlocked for me the nagging thoughts that led to my initiating this thread in the first place. Yes, 999 times out of a thousand I would agree (and defend with great vitriol and vigour) the absolute ‘divorce’ of author from text necessitated by the centrality of the text (you note, I do not go so far as do Foucault and Barthes – and, I rather suspect, yourself?). But Tolkien is that one in a thousand insofar as his texts exist in a context that is of the author’s (sub)creation, thus forcing me ‘back’ to the author, even as I wish to retain my absolute freedom as a reader.

For example: when I’m reading a novel by Evelyn Waugh, I do not have to make any reference to Waugh “directly” to be aware of the context in which he wrote the novel (that is, to be aware of his intent) – it’s Catholic, middle-class and conservative. The referential context is one that exists outside the text and surrounds me, the author and it. When I’m reading a work by Tolkien, however, I do have to make a “direct” reference to Tolkien to be aware of the context in which he wrote the work, insofar as he (sub)created that context (Middle-Earth: and not the ‘facts’ of that realm, but the moral truths and vision).

The reference to Catholicism occasioned by a Waugh novel is not like the reference to Middle-Earth, insofar as I can accept/reject/question the Catholic context of Waugh’s novel any way I want (that is, accept/reject/question Catholicism). I am not bound to understand Waugh’s novels as a Catholic if I do not hold Catholic beliefs – I only have to be able to understand the novels like a Catholic (should I choose to). But with Tolkien, I don’t think I have that freedom, insofar as his vision of Middle-Earth includes, let’s call it “Eruism” (a terrible word, but please nobody take me to task for it too much). I cannot accept/reject/question this context without accepting/rejecting/questioning the whole fabric of the subcreated world. I can accept/reject/question the Catholicism that lies ‘behind’ the “Eruism” with the same freedom as in the Waugh novel, but that interpretive ‘layer’ of “Eruism” is always there and unquestionable. Middle-Earth has certain moral and interpretive rules, established by the author and embedded in the text, that I must accept – and these rules are of a kind and nature that simply do not exist outside subcreated worlds of fantasy. The “context” of LotR is not one that envelopes me, the text and the author equally.

And thus it is that one case in a thousand, where I am forced to resist the divorce of author and text – even as I want and need to.

Darn you Tolkien!