‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

You'd understand any 'meaning' you 'found' theat was not Tolkien's intended meaning, because that would be what you had brought to it from your own experience.

No, the meaning that I draw from it is my experience. It is, of course, influenced by my own (past) experience and by Tolkien's intended meaning (to the extent apparent), and no doubt by many other factors.

Originally Posted by davem

To think I should have lived to see a Lawyer be so dismissive of 'semantics'

Dismissive? Surely not, given that it has formed the basis of the difference between us for the last two pages or so. I just thought that the time had come to let on.

Originally Posted by davem

I wasn't referring to the 'message', because, as Tolkien said in the Foreword:

Quote:
As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. (my emphasis)

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien had a very clear idea of the 'meaning' or 'message' he wanted to communicate.