So in the fanfiction world, “muses” are apparently frowned upon. Authors who have convos with the characters in their authornotes are scorned, people who imagine the characters talking to them or whatever are considered stupid and delusional, and I remember someone once saying “authors with REAL TALENT just make themselves write, only second-rate writers use ‘muses’” (something along those lines).

I admittedly use the term muse a lot in describing my creative process. I even coined the phrase (that I sometimes see on icons that I didn’t design) that “Muses are imaginary friends for grown-ups” after learning that, yes, people look at you sideways when you start talking about your imaginary friends. When you talk about your muses, though, that tends to clarify imaginary activity as having a creative and not social intent. Some people even look vaguely impressed!

Once again, I find the sliver of fandom that I occupy, albeit peripherally, these days, to be at odds with “fandom at large.” But then, I don’t think that the part of Tolkien fandom where I play even uses the term muse in the sense that sarajayechan and commenters discuss in her post. Certainly, I’ve never heard of “soul-bonding” or communing with muses on astral planes. I’ve never even seen an author carry on a conversation with a character in her or his author’s notes.

Instead, I find that I and people with whom I associate tend to use the term muse in different ways.

• It becomes a shorthand for discussing the creative process during which one connects deeply enough to a character to write that character convincingly. I find the idea that “authors with REAL TALENT just make themselves write” to be hogwash. I was nattering under friend-lock on my journal last week about character writers versus plot writers. This sounds like it comes from the plot writers to me. Just as it is easier or harder to connect with certain people, it is easier or harder to connect to certain characters, in my experience. For example, I relate to Fëanor, with his creative compulsions and sense of injustice in the world, more easily than I do to Fingolfin, who is accepting of the Valar and life in Valinor in a way that I can’t imagine myself being. I can write out the explanation that I just did when discussing how Fingolfin’s PoV chapters in AMC are weaker than Fëanor’s. Or I can just say that I have a Fëanor muse but haven’t found a Fingolfin muse yet. Viola. I think most people in the communities I frequent would understand that this refers to a difficulty connecting to Fingolfin’s character, not that I haven’t started setting an extra place for him at supper.
• The term muse can be used playfully, sometimes to deflect criticism. “My Maglor muse wasn’t happy that you made him flee from battle!” sounds less confrontational than, “I think it’s OOC to have Maglor flee from battle,” which opens up the whole can of worms about canon and interpretation and all that that we’ve been over a thousand times before. I’ve certainly seen the term used in this way.
• It can be used just plain ol’ playfully. I might say, for example, that one day, Pengolodh just let himself in the front door, plopped down next to me, and started dictating “Illuminations.” I don’t actually mean that I imagined the front door opening or even that I imagine an Elven loremaster in the chair next to me (which is perpetually piled too high with books to occupy anyway). It’s just a lighter way to express the sudden out-of-the-blue whallop of inspiration that can feel like getting hit by one of those Shire freight trains: One day, you’re not in the least bit interested in writing a particular character, and the next, you suddenly think s/he is the most interesting character in the world.

Some people have brought up in the comments on sarajayechan’s post that muses are a way for writers to deflect responsibility for their own creativity … or lack thereof. Inspiration and creativity can feel magical, like they come unprovoked out of the ether and recede again just as quickly. My own experiences suggest that my creativity, at least, has a strong neurochemical basis … but it still feels magical, and attributing inspiration or lack thereof to something outside oneself becomes a handy way to explain the inexplicable or (in my case) avoid hard truths like, “I’m not writing because I’m dysthymic or stressed out.” Instead, I’m not writing because Maedhros isn’t back from his Caribbean cruise yet.

So what are your experiences with muses? Do you use the term? What does it mean to you? Have you encountered fans or writers who believe that they actually connect with muses? Have you seen disparagement, in fandom or otherwise, of the term muse? Do you think it’s a cop-out, a shorthand, or something else entirely?

As part of my between-semesters study, I am reading secondary sources about JRRT’s world. It is easy, at times, in fandom (actually, in life), to place myself within an echo chamber of likeminded folks who share many of the same opinions and ideas that I do. Most of my closest fandom friends self-identify as “canon heretics” (as, by the title of this weble, I clearly do as well); if any of them advocate for strict canonical interpretation, they do it outside of my hearing. Yet slapping each other high fives gets old after a while, so I committed part of my break between semesters to reading those secondary sources that have earned acclaim and respect and, presumably, have ideas that are more “mainstream” than mine.

Top of the list, of course, was The Road to Middle-earth by Tom Shippey. Shippey is considered by many as the Tolkien scholar, and part of his appeal comes from the fact that he, too, is a philologist and even held some of the same academic posts as JRRT. If anyone can illuminate what it means to create a universe and write multiple books from a “philological perspective,” then presumably it would be Shippey.

One of Shippey’s theories regarding the construction of Middle-earth concerns “asterisk reality,” which is termed after the philological convention of using an asterisk to identify words that didn’t come from a source but were constructed based on the philologist’s knowledge of and extrapolation from other words and conventions in the language. Shippey maintains that it is this “asterisk reality”–the unknown that lies between two known points–that so enthralled JRRT. He saw stories in words: how they evolved and changed over time in response to happenings in the larger world. The “asterisk reality” attempts to glean those events from language and that–not the ever-popular “playground theory”–explains how JRRT began with a language and evolved a history for Middle-earth.

Perhaps the best-known example of this comes from the Shibboleth of Fëanor, published as an essay in the tenth volume of the History of Middle-earth series, Morgoth’s Ring. JRRT wished to explain how the Noldor came to replace the thorn (Þ) with the s sound. Before this, he had never conceived of the notion of friction between the sons of Finwë, but in explaining how the s began to be used, he delved the history of the House of Finwë and the tensions surrounding the replacement of one of the sounds used in Míriel Þerindë’s name, tension that became outright animosity between the two eldest princes and, eventually, the conflict between Fëanor and Fingolfin that underlies the entire history of the Noldor and without which it is impossible to imagine The Silmarillion. Between the thorn and the s lay this “asterisk reality” and the construction of a story from philological inquiry.

Now asterisk reality might sound familiar. You have known facts at Point A and Point Z and, between them, an infinite body of unknowns. Known Points A and Z might infer what lies between but it’s certainly nothing near to fact. So we start on a path from A and stop when our feet land upon Z. Shippey’s asterisk reality describes creating a story using philology, but it also describes what we know as “fan fiction” and, more specific than that, “gapfillers.”

So we are, essentially, practitioners of asterisk reality. The discussion of “canon” as it relates to Tolkien-inspired fiction also concerns this asterisk reality, perhaps even more so than the “facts” that bracket it. We all know that Maedhros was hung by his wrist from Thangorodrim; canon debates tend to center on how long he hung there and how he was kept alive and whether it’s possible that Fingon rescued him because they were lovers and not just cousins and friends. But all of these things are asterisk realities, so–however sound our conjecture and the evidence upon which it is based–a single definitive solution is impossible.

In The Road to Middle-earth, Shippey discusses JRRT’s work with early manuscripts in an attempt to demonstrate the existence of an “unconquered” (i.e., not French-influenced) version of the English language in the 12^th century. JRRT’s conclusions about the land in which such works were created and the scribes that penned them involved, at times, “a streak of wishful thinking,” in Shippey’s words. “The ghosts would be gentleman, scholars, Englishmen too. Tolkien felt at home with them,” Shippey writes before going on to say, “This sentiment may have been misguided: if we really had the ‘lays’ on which Beowulf was based, we might not think much of them, and if we had to deal with the scribes of Ancrene Wisse, we might find them difficult people” (pg. 41).

The notion of “canon,” as defined by the community in which we write, often seems to impose a sterility upon the texts with which we work. Canon is made up of facts, and if it cannot be appended with a clear citation, then it is not “canon.” To allow conjecture to flourish too much by combining “facts” from the text is acceptable to some, but it is not canon, and the prevailing attitude in the Tolkien-writing community is that such liberties demand explanation from the author (usually in the form of volumes of author’s notes), lest her or his conjectures be mistaken as uninformed and treated as such. But add a dose of the author’s “wishful thinking” and, suddenly, we’ve veered over the line for many people. One of the more memorable comments that I’ve ever received accused me of writing Another Man’s Cage for my own pleasure. Well, yes, as an author, shouldn’t I find pleasure in what I am writing? It is a story, a piece of fiction, not an instruction manual for a newfangled doohickey; if you remove my emotions, as the author, from the story, then what is left? “Canon,” I suppose, which amounts to a bare retelling of The Silmarillion or, in the case of AMC, not much at all. Yet I sometimes feel that this is what some Tolkien-writers feel is adherence to canon, with the expectation of apologies from authors who let too much of themselves show in how they work off of bare texts. They haven’t remained “clinical” enough. They’ve erred. They are often accused of allowing their own nefarious whims trump the “intent” that informed what JRRT placed upon the page. To some, this even amounts to insult against the author whose works we all admire, in one way or another.

Yet, as Shippey demonstrated in the quoted passage above, the very author whose intent we are supposed to descry was himself working in a field that not only relied heavily on hypothesis based on small and seemingly unrelated textual “facts” but allowed his own “wishful thinking” to touch upon the conclusions of his work. So, when I am fulfilling his great dream of having other hands and minds complete his stories, then I am supposed to believe that he would have wished me never to allow myself and my own “wishful thinking” to enter into that task? What, then, I would ask, is the purpose of what we do? Surely, the end result does not take us much beyond what JRRT himself accomplished in his lifetime, and I have a hard time believing that his “intent” ever included a wish for his work to stagnate so.

In describing what inspired Tolkien, both as an author and as a philologist, Shippey writes, “One sees that the thing which attracted Tolkien most was darkness: the blank spaces, much bigger than most people realise, on the literary and historical map …” (38). When I first read that line, I couldn’t help but to think that most of the fans I know who write stories based on JRRT’s books would use very similar words to describe why they do what they do. It is not so much the stories on the page as the unwritten spaces between them; the sense of a deep history behind each character and event, hinted at by JRRT and palpable to us, his readers and fans, that compel us to live part of our lives in Middle-earth. In constructing our stories to bridge the gap between fact, between canon, we rely on informed conjecture, yes, but also a healthy dose of our own wishful thinking, much as JRRT himself has done.

A lot of times, when people talk about allegory and Tolkien, I suspect they are talking about something different from how I see allegory and probably how Tolkien saw it too. To be fair, even the experts have a hard time agreeing on what constitutes an allegory. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, an allegory is “The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.” According to the Norton Anthology of English Literature (volume 1, 8^th edition), allegory is

saying one thing … and meaning another. … Allegories may be momentary aspects of a work, as in metaphor (”John is a lion”), or, through extended metaphor, may constitute the basis of a narrative, as in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; the second meaning is the dominant one.

“But there it is!” I can hear my detractors cry. “Right there in Norton! ‘Allegories may be momentary aspects of a work.’ Surely, even she won’t argue with Norton!”

And they’re right; I won’t. I know when I am bested in experience and knowledge. But it’s a non-issue: Momentary aspects of a work aren’t what I am questioning here. When someone says that The Lord of the Rings is a Christian allegory or an allegory to World War II, she or he does not mean that The Lord of the Rings contains metaphors. This is simply ridiculous. Nearly all creative works contain metaphors yet all creative works, as a whole, are not allegories. Tolkien’s famous line from The Fellowship of the Ring–”The dragon passed like an express train”–may be a metaphor, or a “momentary allegory,” if you will, but it does not make Fellowship as a whole an allegory about mid-20^th century advancements in transportation.

No, when people talk about Tolkien’s stories acting as allegories–and when Tolkien denies this–they are talking about the second definition Norton gives: “extended metaphor … the basis of a narrative.” They are alleging that Tolkien’s stories as a whole have either Christian or historical parallels and act as extended metaphors to express them. This is what I am debating.

Yet, in the discussion of Tolkien and allegory, I frequently see people making points that hit rather off the mark from this definition of allegory. Many times, they bring up valid points in defending Tolkien’s works as allegories … except that the points they bring up have nothing to do with allegory!

First, allegory is not the same thing as theme. “Frodo’s quest to destroy the Ring may be read as an allegory about the struggle between good and evil,” I read recently. Not at all. One of the major themes of all of Tolkien’s works is, of course, the struggle of good versus evil (and, ultimately, the triumph of good), but Frodo’s quest to destroy the Ring is hardly a metaphor for that. No, it is a direct example of how forces of good and evil work in Tolkien’s world, much in the same way that dropping an apple isn’t an allegory for gravity but a demonstration of it.

Much like the point I made about “momentary allegory,” all creative works have a theme. That does not make all creative works into allegories.

Perhaps more importantly, though, and the more challenging distinction: inspiration is not allegory. Tolkien was a Christian and a veteran of World War I. It takes a Tolkien ignoramus indeed to assert that 1) Tolkien’s religious beliefs didn’t influence the construction of his world and 2) his brutal portrayal of war can’t be explained at least in part by his combat experiences. But neither is the question here.

In Letter 142 to Robert Murray, Tolkien writes, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” But does this mean that it is an allegory? No. It means that the morals and values the work glorifies are in keeping with the Christian–and particularly the Catholic–faith. The actions of characters like Frodo champion sacrifice and forgiveness, both tenets of mainstream Christianity. His villains and antiheroes alike are often brought low by their wrath, pride, and envy, sins against which Christians are cautioned in Christian teachings.

Or, to put it differently, we do not see Tolkien advocating for values not prescribed by Christian teachings. We don’t see him making an argument that satisfaction of one’s lusts is acceptable and that it is really the influence of our culture that causes jealousy and pressures us to accept monogamy. We don’t see him arguing that brilliant, strong-willed characters like Sauron and Fëanor should be allowed to pursue their studies to whatever ends they take and that, ultimately, the pursuit of knowledge and understanding is itself virtuous. No, the lessons one takes from Tolkien’s stories fit nicely within what Tolkien believed as a Christian. If it would have been controversial to bring up in church, it isn’t in his stories.

Later, in the same letter to Robert Murray, Tolkien writes, “For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know.” In other words, it is the depth of his belief in the Christian faith that led him to create a story glorfying its ideals and values without conscious realization. The lack of realization alone disqualifies allegory. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Oops, I’ve created a metaphor!” … at least not on the grand scale necessary to maintain an allegory across a whole work.

Through this, though, I would like to reemphasize a point that I made in Tolkien, Allegory, and the Maddening Perseverance of Denial that came up in the comments there as well. I am not denying you your right to read Tolkien’s works as an allegory if this explanation makes sense of those works for you. Nor am I saying that an interpretation of Tolkien’s writings as allegory is wrong. I don’t believe that there is any “right” or “wrong” interpretation where literature is concerned, even if that interpretation is in direct conflict with what the author says she or he intended. What I do debate is the idea that Tolkien intended his works to serve as an allegory and reader insistence that his denial of this fact is deliberate deception on his part.

Next time, I’ll debunk some popular Tolkien “allegories.” One of my theories regarding Tolkien and allegory is that what appears to a reader not well-versed in his canon to be a clear allegory often has a better explanation in Tolkien’s own canon or Legendarium. In the meantime, if you have any ideas for allegories to debunk, feel free to suggest them in a comment.