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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
So you're saying that Tolkien created the Translator Conceit - as something among Men - as a direct result of what he saw as contradictions within his mythology?
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I do not intend to answer for davem, but I'm more than willing to share my own opinion. I do believe that may have been one of the reasons, but probably, one of the
later reasons (when major contradictions of round/flat earth, solar system/tree-centered system etc started to surface) at that. As it was originally applied (and maybe intended too), 'TC' just served as one of the means of 'credibility' (or, to use more 'clever' word much loved around these here 'high-brow' discussions - 'verisimilitude'
), i.e., to assist same old 'suspension of disbelief'. I very much share Tolkien's dissapointment with authors weaving really good fantasies only to
flick the reader on the nose in the end telling him that all of the story was 'only a dream'. 'Documentariness', declared in the very beginning of the book, is intended to help reader 'trust' the author (I, at least, felt something along the following lines:
good, this is translation, that is, all of these really happened, this guy won't take me in and than tell me it was just a little girl's dream in the end)