‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Bêthberry]

posted by davem
This is what we miss - the chain of story - when we ignore the role of the storyteller, which was central to Tolkien's mythology - all the 'texts' are retellings & redactions - they are all accounts of events told by storytellers - 'living shapes that move from mind to mind', not simply the events themselves, but the events being told & retold.

Oh, I have never said that the role of storyteller in the tales should be ignored. Far from it. Look at how Chaucer plays with the personae of tellers of tales in Canterbury Tales. Medieval literature is full of this fascinating multiplicity of perspectives, a multiplicty which became increasingly restricted as we developed concepts of "Author" and the standard Nineteenth century omnisicient narrator.

But this is a far, far jump from the kind of investigation into Authorial Intention which you have been positing in the past, to my mind.