‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Aiwendil]

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:

Ok, we must if we wish to understand what the author meant.

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.

[davem]

Aiwendil's points are well made - as per - but unfortunately kill this whole thread dead

This has been one of my favourite ever threads, because we've been arguing over something that, lets be honest, doesn't actually matter a damn. But we've been forced to construct & defend positions against the most determined opposition - in my case against some of the smartest people on these boards, & I think we've learned a lot about each other in the process.

We've also, I think, learned a lot about the nature of art & what it means to different people.

I still hold to the view that all art is a 'conversation' between two individual, 'living' minds - because the art was the product of a living mind when it came into being, & feel that this is an idea Tolkien gave a lot of weight to - both the Lost Road & Notion Club Papers are about this very thing - individuals alive at one point in time communicating with other individuals in 'their' past or future. The idea of a work of art as a a 'static', fixed thing, set down without any intentional meaning (or any intentional meaning which we should take into account) seems strange to me, & I can't understand it, or relate to it in any way. The Art for me is a 'packet' of meaning - deliberate & intentional, an attempt by the artist to communicate across time & space. Tolkien, as I said, is both the creator of Middle earth, & a character within it - the last of the Elf-friends, the final link in the chain connecting us to Faerie, & that chain is a 'living process' because its links are (within the secondary world) living minds.

Does everyone accept that? That 'Tolkien' is a character within his Legendarium, as much as Eriol/Aelfwine, that he has written himself into the story? Can we discuss the 'character' of the 'translator' Tolkien & the part he plays in the story? And is this Translator Tolkien the same as or different from the Oxford Professor? Yet did Tolkien himself think of himself as both creator & creation? And if he did, how many experiences did they share? Translator Tolkien owned a copy of the Red Book, which Professor Tolkien didn't (?).

The point of that speculation is simply to show that Tolkien didn't see himself as being entirely 'outside' the Legendarium, so how can we?

[HerenIstarion]

Aiwendil's points are well made - as per - but unfortunately kill this whole thread dead

I suppose we can revive it at later point.

This has been one of my favourite ever threads, because we've been arguing over something that, lets be honest, doesn't actually matter a damn. But we've been forced to construct & defend positions against the most determined opposition - in my case against some of the smartest people on these boards, & I think we've learned a lot about each other in the process.

Can't help agreeing . Same the reason for revival at some later point.

davem, if you ever show up in the Know Yer Mates, or a Member Above Ye (shameless advertising, I know) thread, make sure I'm online so I can post after you. The approximate description will be:

...davem is yet unbeaten in debate. Even if opponents would not agree and would not be persuaded, they flee his persistence in defence of his position in most prolix discourses the Internet Era may yet boast of...

But, if seriously, I must thank you and Fordim, for you two act like catalysts for the rest of us, making us think, write and debate after all years of 'being around', thus refuting malisious gossips that there is not much left, honestly . Special thanks to Aiwendil, the brilliant performer of the 'cold shower' role, which is of vivid importance, since we could talk each other to death in our 'debate heat' but for his posts, full of common sense and logic.

yours truly,

[Bêthberry]

HerenIstarion posted


...davem is yet unbeaten in debate. Even if opponents would not agree and would not be persuaded, they flee his persistence in defence of his position in most prolix discourses the Internet Era may yet boast of...

My goodness, my dear HI whatever gave you the idea that because I have not posted in the last several hours, I have withdrawn from the discussion?

[Aiwendil]

So I'm like a cold shower. I like that - it works well as an epithet: Aiwendil the Cold Shower.

I just thought I should add (in case it wasn't obvious) that this has been one of my favorite threads ever as well. Perhaps this is because it incorporated so many slightly different debates, and ranged over such a wide array of topics. Most were things that had been discussed before in other contexts, but here it seemed to me we were engaged in a real synthesis of those discussions - even if one that is ultimately futile.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

but here it seemed to me we were engaged in a real synthesis of those discussions - even if one that is ultimately futile.

Well, I think futile is maybe too strong a word - it depends what we wanted to achieve. If anything this has been one of the most productive threads on the Downs.

(though I can see how you, Bethberry & SpM would feel you were 'fighting the long defeat' )

[Bêthberry]

Well now, how can I come here with something light-hearted and elegiac when I wish to clarify a few points davem made on the previous page? I feel like I have walked into one of those long good-byes, where everyone knows it is over and yet they linger just a little bit longer and one person is rather foolishly carrying on as if it weren't over. Be that as it may, I do wish to offer some observations.

davem posted
Its just I find the alternative position too close to 'deconstructionism' - which has always screamed Emperor's New Clothes!!! to me. Simply, I hold to the position that we are obliged, in so far as that is possible to give prime importance & weight to the author's views. I see the art as a manifestation of the artist's will & desire, & as his or her attempt to communicate an experience of the trancendent. As far as Middle earth is concerned the author is 'God'.

I suppose some of my statement hav
e sounded close to deconstruction. Yet my osition does not derive from those hep-cat French radicals with their fans and followers but from a more traditional scholar, the polymath George Steiner, particularly his book After Babel. Steiner has never evoked a hit parade yet he has been to my mind a faithful voice for the humanities in a century of barbarism and mockery. It is to him I owe my idea that interpretation involves a kind of translating over or through time, a life-giving performance which overcomes the barriet between source and receptor. He once called the lectures he famously delivered in Geneva for over thirty years as the closest he has come to a kind of secular Pentecost. It is that sense of the partaking of the ineffable and the transcendent which is included in this idea that the reader, any reader, must be, to use the French word, an interprèt.

davem again!
SpM I'm saying, as far as possible we must empty our minds, listen to that author as carefully as possible, take in what he/she has to say to the best of our ability, understand as far as we can theirwhole message, what they want to communicate to us, & then make a judgement on it, 'infect' it with our own baggage, etc. We must begin from a position that the author is smarter than we are & has something important to teach us (& whether you, or Aiwendil or Bethberry realise it, that's the position I adopt in regard to your posts on this thread )

I don't understand why the reader must become a tabula rasa for this to happen. What is there in this confrontation with the Artist which demands that we must prostrate ourselves and empty our minds, to be filled newly with his ideas? This is no model of communication to me but a totalitarian takeover. Why, if you are valuing the human identity in your reading so much, must readers deny themselves and wipe out their identity?

guess who!

But surely the other person's 'voice' is the only thing worth concentrating on in the conversation, as its the only new thing, the only unknown , so the only thing worth paying attention to - all the other things you mention may be present, but they are obstacles, & should be (as far as possible) transcended, & only accepted as impediments to communication.

How will we know the uniqueness of this other voice if we forget the language we know? Rather than being obstacles, those features of language which I named function in a dynamic process to give contrast, identity, chiaroscuro to the new ideas. It is through the difference that I can begin to perceive the new meaning.

davem still

I still hold to the view that all art is a 'conversation' between two individual, 'living' minds - because the art was the product of a living mind when it came into being, & feel that this is an idea Tolkien gave a lot of weight to - both the Lost Road & Notion Club Papers are about this very thing - individuals alive at one point in time communicating with other individuals in 'their' past or future. The idea of a work of art as a a 'static', fixed thing, set down without any intentional meaning (or any intentional meaning which we should take into account) seems strange to me, & I can't understand it, or relate to it in any way. The Art for me is a 'packet' of meaning - deliberate & intentional, an attempt by the artist to communicate across time & space.

Perhaps it all comes down to where we place this sense of the static. You accord to the Artist a complete control of intention and will. I am more hesitant about the nature of artistic creation, othe artist's mind to know completely what goes on in the cauldron of writing. As I quoted elsewhere today, Steiner said "The heart can be manifold, even self-contradictory." For that reason, it is not that I deny intentional meaning, but rather see it as always and ever being limited by the human condition of babel, the confusion of tongues. You seem to want to include the Artist in the Art. He is there, along with many other personas, but to think that he would be knowable or discernable with absolute certainty is I think as difficult as to know intimately the minds of all those around us. When we can so easily misunderstand the living, how much greater is our possible confusion over the dead?

Thus, for me, this place where interpretation occurs, the reader as [i]interprète[i], is the space between the text and the reader--not either one in a hierarchy over the other, but in equilibrium. It is not a static , carved in stone commandement, but the process of making meaning, and it works both ways. It is not an imposition of the reader's solipcism or egotism upon the text (althought it can be that, and when such happens, such interpretations do not stand the test of time), but a dialogue out of which new meaning occurs. And sometimes the new meanings will include the possibility of things which the Artist did not intend or realise but was held there in the text, in plenitude, waiting for fulfillment. And that fulfillment is ever-ongoing, ever-not yet completed.

So, all in all, I think I agree with Aiwendil that we are differing over matters of definition rather than substance.