Authorial Control and World Building

[Marwhini]

The dangers of Post-Modernism abound. And I tend to be immediately suspect of anyone who cites Foucault.

There is a reason Tolkien placed such a heavy emphasis upon words:

They have specific meanings.

And there is a reason that "Author" and "Authority" have the same roots.

Suggesting that the Author, or the designated heir of a work, has the last word on that work, even if they are dead. Although being dead does present problems for unanswered questions, it does leave the answered questions as rather fixed.

With that in mind, there is a difference between the works of an author (an "authority" on their work/creation) who says "Things are X, Y, and Z, in this world.", and the works of an author who says "I just laid out the framework, and every reader brings something different to the work in question."

Of course these two poles are rarely absolutes, but there are authors who lie very much closer to one pole than the other.

And it very much seems that Tolkien lies very much closer to the former pole than the latter. As the context of his work forbids some interpretations (Frodo and Aragorn as Sub-Saharan Africans, or Mandarin Chinese, just as a couple of examples we can easily rule out), and it fairly closely constrains it to certain types of imagery and cultures within our world, whether allegorically, or simply as Archetypes (something Tolkien was himself unaware of, but that is irrelevant as to whether he was affected by them, just as his being unaware of how Gravity functions makes him no less affected by it).

But there remains still rather a lot of "wiggle" room for interpretation of his works.

MB