Wings & Ears: Why Bother?

[Child of the 7th Age]

"Sneaky" Fordim ! I think we are revisiting the "Canonicity Thread", only coming in through the back door.....

We can look at this question on two levels. First, Fomendacil made a good point. If Tolkien had ever finished his "final" revisions on the Legendarium, we would at least have a common text to start from. But he did not so we are often left pointing to one interpretation cited in BoLT2 and another conflicting view that appears in Morgoth's Ring. Tolkien evolved over time, and part of our problem is that we are free to pick and chose what particular ideas we will stress in our own mind.

But beyond that is the wider question: how much are we bound by Tolkien's vision (as the author) and how free are we to exercise our own imagination (as the reader). The last time we discussed this, I was driven to literary sites to read essays about the "death of the author"! That is a terrible admission for an historian to make.

I still feel that Tolkien should define the parameters of our discussion. If a new Letter or unpublished essay was discovered, written near the end of Tolkien's life, I would theoretically feel that I should follow along and accept the guidelines the author had written down.

And yet, part of me isn't so sure about that. Let's imagine we're not talking about Elf Ears or Balrog Wings, which frankly have limited meaning for me. Let's take something that touches at the heart of my understanding of the story. What if Tolkien wrote an unpublished epilogue to LotR in which he discusses what happens to Frodo after his arrival in the West? And let's imagine that Tolkien had decided that Frodo would never recover from his wounds, or reach an understanding of his place in the scheme of things. Instead, I am given the poem "Seabell", and told that this was Frodo's final fate: to feel alienated from those about him, to feel unending desire for the Ring, to never go beyond the point he was when he left the Shire.

What a bummer! Whatever I might say about the author logically having the right to guide our judgments, I would not accept that because it goes to the heart of my understanding of the story. I am willing to stand on the shores and not know what happened to Frodo. I am also willing to make up alternate positive scenarios within my head. But I would not be willing to accept a Frodo mired in unremitting despair, even if Tolkien said it was so.

I guess I feel I have invested too much of myself in this tale. There's a piece of me in Middle-earth, and I can't ignore that fact. Such areas of possible disagreement are few and far between: in most situations, I read the text and try to follow closely. But I will admit there is a point where my own imagination would take over and the professor's opinion would be second. I wonder if there is anyone else who feels this way....