Canon: what ARE we babbling about?

[davem]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

Nor, davem, have you suceeded in convincing us that Mood and Tone define the legendarium. I would say that most who have contributed so far, feel that Mood and Tone are *not* the defining factors in the Legendarium.

I didn't say they were the 'defining factors'.

So, I would ask two questins. How does davem's argument open up the Legendarium to a greater understanding? What does it add so we can appreciate the mythology better? And, second, how does this approach help us understand TH better? Does it break the thing in the analysis?

One, it hopefully leads us to look at the Legendarium as a work of Art & think about how & why it affects us. I'd refer others to the 'Children' section of 'On Fairy Stories' for why TH is out of place. I've tried to explain why I think TH doesn't 'fit', rather than just state baldly 'It doesn't fit!' & leave it at that.

Two, I'd say the main thing that prevents us understanding TH is our seeing it as being merely 'in the service' of LotR, rather than as a story in its own right. Read as 'merely' the prequel to LotR is bound to show it up poorly. If it was seperated out, & classed alongside Tolkien's other non-Legendarium writings (Smith, Niggle, Giles, Roverandom, Mr Bliss, Father Christmas Letters), we would more easily 'understand' what Tolkien was doing & what he wanted to give us.

Well, TH gave the world hobbits. And one hobbit in particular plays rather a special role in the Legendarium as explained in LotR. There might be some differences of degree between TH hobbits and LotR hobbits, but I don't think there is a difference in kind.

There is a dragon in Roverandom which is the same 'in kind' as Smaug - not a good reson on its own to include R in the Legendarium. What I'm saying (ad infinitum, I know!) is that TH should be seen as a seperate story which draws on the Legendarium, not as an integral part of it. The parts of TH which are relevant to the Legendarium are incorporated into LotR, therefore TH is not necessary to the Legendarium & as I said before I don't want to destroy all copies of TH or anything - I'm just questioning whether it should be included in the Legendarium, let alone considered a 'primary text'.