Chapter VI offers a final overview of the main themes addressed in the book and integrates them into a cohesive, overarching framework. In the first part, I discuss the meta-literary implications of Gandalf’s fall as described in Chapter V and illustrate Tolkien’s concern for what can be properly described as a ‘death of the author’ – to use the concept of Roland Barthes. This is clarified through an extensive discussion of Tolkien’s meta-literary short story Leaf by Niggle, in which one can trace all main features of the ‘sub-creative death’. The second part explores other important elements of Tolkien’s ‘theory’, focusing on the meta-literary significance of Gandalf’s return, and introducing a related concept that I call ‘the resurrection of the author’. This concept is explored through a discussion of five ‘gifts’ bestowed to Niggle’s tree in the eponymous story by the Divine Voices (completion, realisation, ramification, harmony, and prophecy), which conjure up a vision of divine enhancement of human literature, with fascinating eschatological implications.

Authors are commonly thought to have a privileged position when it comes to the interpretation of their texts. Since treaties are consensual instruments, it is not surprising that the parties have a say in the interpretation of their treaties. At the same time, treaties cannot escape what is the fate of every text: the possibility to read a text in the absence of its author is structurally inscribed in it. This chapter examines the ways in which the parties can influence treaty interpretation in various phases of the life of the treaties. It also accounts for the diminishing state authority in the modern practice of treaty interpretation.