Behind the cut (for length) lies a fairly lengthy excerpt from Letter #244 in the collection of letters by Tolkien which I'll be using in part in a recent project or two (I have one on-going on women in Tolkien, another on Faramir). Reading this one, especially, it struck me that some fans of the book who haven't read the letters (and I know many of you have--and if you haven't, many of you would enjoy them) might be interested by what he says.

Official Academic Disclaimer: As an English teacher, I teach that author intentionality is a fallacy (that is, taking a writer's words and claiming them to be the only/best/strongest argument for meaning or intention is an error in literary analysis). (You only have to read JRRT or any other collected letters--which are always SELECTED from a larger body of work, I think--to see the contradictions.) The idea that a writer always has a clear intention and convey that single intention to every reader--no. Huh-huh.

That said, lit types read letters a lot. You just have to avoid falling into the fallacy of single/authorial intentionality. So we can use stuff like this and well analyze/talk about it. And it can be rilly rilly fun! (I'll be doing a presentation on Eowyn with a title from the letter next year, heh.)

In fact, my overall argument is contrarian--it's possible to argue that JRRT did not intended Eowyn to be read as a feminist figure or role model for women (very possible), or specifically intended her not to be (in an early draft, he was gonna kill her off)--but that never stopped me and some readers from reading her that way (*BOO fallacy* **YAY reader response!**) *grins*

( Letter #244 )