Tolkien and the Canon

Is J.R.R. Tolkien a canonical writer? This depends, of course, on how we define canonical status -- or indeed who we acknowledge as our arbiter of canonicity. I will begin by noting the whiff of sanctimony in the very idea of a "canon." The idea of a "canon" is, in itself, originally a term derived from religion: as the Christian religion underwent a centuries-long process of defining its own orthodoxy, extant Christian writings were arranged into a canon by religious authorities, separating the essential sacred texts from the inessential. It was these same religious authorities who, in the process of debating which works to include and which to exclude, chose to include the four canonical Gospels that can be found today in any copy of the New Testament, but who did not include the non-canonical or "apocryphal" gospel of Thomas, let alone the gospel of Judas,...
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