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Originally Posted by davem
The style/language associated with M-e is Tolkien's own, & in a strange way the tales, for me have to be told in that style, using that language. The style is an essential part of the tale being told. Hence my sudden feeling of 'NO!!!'
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Hmmmm...and which actual Tolkienic style would you
deign to be acceptable? The archaic and solemn idiom of the Sil and CoH, or the more modern modes of speech presented in LotR? Would you even consider the lighter, fairytale quality of The Hobbit, or eschew it as non-canonical (even though without the success of the Hobbit, we should never have heard of the good Professor)? You are putting a succeeding author(s) in a position to fail by forcing them to mimic a famous and well-regarded author, rather than allow the new author the courtesy of offering their own style in describing whichever piece of Middle-earth lore they are endeavoring to expound. To me, it sounds like you would spend most of your time critiquing the author's mode of speech and literary style, rather than the actual story presented.
Certainly, there are morals and general cosmological and chronological principles that would be sacrosanct; Middle-earth is, after all, an ethical universe. But there are other voices in Middle-earth, not merely the Hobbits who compiled the Redbook of Westmarch. For instance, would the tone and manner of a Middle-earth piece be different if it were offered by, say, an Easterling bard who heard of the great defeat of his countrymen during the War of the Ring, but from second-hand accounts of returning warriors? Assuredly, the tone would be solemn, but would it necessarily mirror the cadences and dialects occuring in Tolkien's presentation of Western Middle-earth civilization?