‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Aiwendil]

Fordim wrote:

I mean, there is no way to prove finally that the Ring is not an allegory for the Atomic Bomb, but few people hold to that interpretation any more because majority opinion has swung against it.

We must be very careful with definitions. What does it mean to say that "the Ring is an allegory for the atomic bomb?" If "allegory" means what it usually means, then the claim is equivalent to "when Tolkien wrote 'Ring' he meant, instead of or in addition to the fictional Ring, the atomic bomb." And we know that this claim is false for the simple reason that Tolkien said it was false. Short of claiming that he was lying, we cannot entertain the possibility that "the Ring is an allegory for the atomic bomb" is true. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a majority of people disagreeing with the claim.

But you see, that particular point depends upon the specific meaning of the word "allegory" - a word that by definition has to do with the author's intent. We ought not to be surprised that when we ask a question about the author's intent, our answer will depend critically upon the author's intent! Nor can we then infer that all matters of interpretation and "canon" depend critically on the author's intent. The inference is invalid because the case from which we would infer is peculiar.

davem wrote:

The Foreword to the second edition is self contradictory in a way - he claims there is no allegory, & the reader is free to apply the story in any way they please, then he immediately refutes what was probably the most obvious 'application' for readers at that time, that to WW2, by showing that anyone who did apply it in that way would be completely ignorant.

I don't see a contradiction here. He does not say that the reader is free to interpret the story in any way he or she chooses. He does say that there is no allegory. But "no allegory" does not mean that all interpretations by all readers are valid. Again, allegory has a very specific meaning. When he says that there is no allegory, he means that this is not the kind of book that is merely code for a message; it's not the kind of book where when he writes X,Y,Z he means A,B,C; it's not the kind of book that is, primarily or exclusively, about World War II or about atomic power or about anything other than the story itself.

That certainly does not leave us with the total freedom of the reader. The reader can indeed "apply" the story to real life, but there is no assurance that every application will be valid. And of course a reader still cannot "interpret" the book in a way that is directly contradicted by the text itself.

As you say, "lustful" relationships cannot be "canon"; they contradict a statement in one of the texts. Nor can Aragorn be considered to act in self-interest, because that contradicts a whole complex system of statements in the texts.

What I think is all too often forgotten in this debate, which has in large part come down to Author vs. Reader, is the Text itself. There are severe problems with saying either that the author is the final arbiter of interpretation, or that the reader is. I say that it is in the text that whatever truths there are about interpretation must lie. This view does everything it ought to do - it eliminates the problem that we can never really know the precise contents of the author's mind, but it does not make "interpretations" that are simply incorrect valid.

HerenIstarion:

You describe well the two opposing assumptions concerning morality. But, as Fordim points out, we must either talk about the real world or about Middle-earth; we cannot mix and match freely.

In Middle-earth there is no question. Option 1 is simply right and option 2 is simply wrong. This is because the texts can only be read consistently with option 1 as an assumption, not with option 2. That has nothing to do with the validity of either assumption in the real world - as I recall (and I may be wrong; it was a while ago) The Saucepan Man's original point related to the real world.