Radagstly posted:
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Tolkien clearly wanted to reach a point where he could publish "The Silmarillion" in his lifetime, but did not. What he did publish is "The Hobbit," "The Lord of the Rings" and a couple of other small pieces set in Middle Earth. Whatever he agreed was ready to publish was canon. Everything else is just notes. Sorry, but as interesting as they are, as complete as they seem to be to us fans, they simply aren't done yet.
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But what he left is what is known about his exlporations into the archetypal realm, even into the realm of Faeire [see the BoLT I - the three versions of the Kortirion poem] to many whether or not he polished every rock in M-E hardly matters - what does is, what can be coherently glimpsed and integrated into the undisputed pre-1972 canon.
Also he left specific instructions for CJRT to publish the Silm. Knowing it would not be purely 'his' and that he left CJRT in deep muck with the last chapters...nonetheless he seemed to have implicit trust.
Regardless of any details - what I am really trying to say is that the one can approach [or not! ;-)] this a few ways:
1*Concern over others people' canon thoughts; see Translations from the Elvish for one - maybe the most elaborate version [
http://forum.barrowdowns.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16
2*your own private canon which will grow and shift as you read the posthumous publications.
3*Rejection of everything posthumous as 'maybe'.
Personally I see absolutely no reason to consider the Osanwe Kenta
[http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=1214&highlight=osanwe+kenta] or Laws and Customs among the Eldar anything but Canonical [despite - indeed - and I will close with this, when I read them, if they take me to M-E, then for me they are canonical, small details aside.
Is this a scholarly view - no for an attempt at that we have the Translations forum. But it is exactly how I, for one experience it.