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Originally Posted by Bb
Dragons existed before Tolkien started to write. Hobbits did not. They are a wholly new 'species' in the perilous realm and as such the story which first presents them surely belongs with what else Tolkien does with them.
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Why
surely? Its not 'sure' at all. That's what I've been arguing. It is
lazy though....
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Um. Maybe this is just messing around with semantics, but the Legendarium is not itself a work of Art. The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, the writings of HoMe are the works of Art. The Legendarium itself is something which readers compile from all those works.
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No, Tolkien used the term Legendarium to refer to his mythology as a whole. He tried to fit TH into it. I'm arguing that was a mistake & that he never managed to successfully do it. The Legendarium is his Middle earth mythology as a whole.
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And I have never had a problem respecting TH as a story or work of art in comparison to LotR just because it is silly and childish and lacks the high moral tone of LotR or the tragedy of The Silm.
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Me neither - I just don't believe that, even though it is a work of art in
comparison to LotR, it should be part of the Legendarium. And I have to say that your opinion of TH as 'silly and childish' is exactly in line with Flieger's position - though not with mine. It contains things (which I've detailed) which are 'silly & childish'
when seen in the context of the Legendarium but not when it is seen as a work of art
in its own right. As I said TH suffers by
comparison when it is included in the Legendarium.
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Originally Posted by Lalwende
And to separate it into the bracket of other texts such as Smith etc. would be to denigrate it.
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I don't agree - Smith & Niggle are profoundly beautiful works. I don't see how including TH with them 'denigrates' it at all.
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And as I've already said, there is a lot of magic in The Hobbit and though the strictly necessary information may be found elsewhere, it would be a very sorry (and orcish) state of affairs if we reduced judging what is of value to that level.
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And as I've already said, I agree there is a lot of magic in TH. I'm not attempting to 'reduce its value' merely questioning whether it belongs in the Legendarium.