lost in the lost tales
 

help me!! i need to do a book critique for the lost tales, and i am lost! if you find any themes, motifs, character thingies, and stuff like that, it would be very helpful!!! thank you all!

Here you go:
http://forodrim.letsrock.nu/daeron/md_hm.html

Ohhhh!! thank you sooooo much!! anyone else?
[img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

A thorough reading of the Lost Tales ought to furnish their themes, not to mention a good read all in the name of work. By and large they detail the earliest conception of the myths that became the Silmarillion, at this initial stage still intended as a new mythology for England. Some of the descriptions are the most complete that Tolkien ever gave, as with the account of the fall of Gondolin. Each tale has its own theme, as with any mythology, so it's difficult to give a short explanation of what it's all about, but an examination of the key legends would probably be the best approach for a short report, perhaps with a brief examination of the issue of Eriol. This material could be tied in to the poem Kortirion in the Trees to furnish an interesting discussion of the way in which the original conception of the Tales sets up the two main British islands (the current United Kingdom and Ireland) to be two halves of Tol Eressëa, so that certain English towns, such as Warwick, become locations within the legends. The association of the stories in the Lost Tales with England specifically and explicitly is at the very heart of Tolkien's original ambition for his legends, and it's interesting that this theme was abandoned in later writings.

I hope that helps a little.

Excellent offering as always Squatting One.

but I would, especially for the sake of the aforementioned 'critique', alter to something indicating that the original English 'history' theme was in a sense transformed into the Hobbits and the Shire 'representing' England and that the idea still remained in the end of the entire Legendarium that eveolved out of Lost Tales i.e. The Hobbit. LotR and the chaos of wonder that was compressed into 'the Silmarillion' still was seen as a faux pre-history of Northern/Western Europe.


also Anorien if you dig up Aiwendil's PM on the TftE forum he has written a precis of Aelfwine/Eriol that may be of some use to you.

Big project for a short amount of time.

I wish you far more success on your paper than I had on a similar accasion in my last year of HS.

I was trying to write my final report in English on the relationship between Zen and the Elves. I ended up wandering through some as yet unexplored woodlands with my best friend [posting here occasionaly as] Thorondil instead. Funny,I just realized I am in a way I am still working on it [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] though I would replace the Zen as pect with the Saints.