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Originally Posted by cellurdur
In one of his earlier letters he mentions the problem with 'translations'. As studious as Elfwine was there was bound to be mistakes.
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Which letter please? I need some context here.
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(...) With his desire to write a more 'accurate' cosmology of Arda, seems to have come with it a desire to write a more 'accurate' history. Once you begin to translate the truth about the Two Trees it is inevitable, that you will begin to write about the 'truth' of Feanor.
The use of the Mannish myths seems to be a way of keeping the older stories, which in my opinion were more beautiful.
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But that means that the 'truth' of the Two Trees is now questionable as a Mannish myth.
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The essays he writes such as Glorfindel, where he reasons and comes to a conclusion about who Glorfindel was and why he was sent back; look to me like someone trying to find the 'true story.'
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Well, but I don't see how this, or a few examples, necessarily supports the great shift in thinking that you appear to be referencing.
It seems to me that there are always going to be arguable examples of Tolkien working out what he wants to present as 'true' in the sense of 'it exists in the legendarium', but the general scenario -- from older to later as far as
The Silmarillion goes -- appears to be a move away from directness of transmission so that
the story of the Two Trees can be preserved...
... not the absolute truth that that's how the Sun and Moon really came to be, however.
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Now in the case of Finwe's sons, I think originally there is a case that the translations were not completely accurate. Not only was their author bias in the case of Rumil, but there was also 'mistranslation' by the official translator, which led to more mistakes. These 'mistakes' were deliberately left in.
Later as I have said previously Tolkien seemed to move away from this position and wanted a more definitive story most of the time, but certainly not all the time.
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You see, here you refer to the 'bias' of Rumil, but I brought that up only as a sheer possibility when we had two variant traditions written at the same time [early 1950s], and within the scenario of the later transmission too, since that allows for more error.
What texts are you talking about with 'originally' here? According to this...
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The lates 50s when he started making significant edits and the revisions to Quenta Silmarillion is when I noticed a change.
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... I assume it is before the late 1950s.
Maybe I'm confused at this point, but you seem to be saying that Tolkien moved away from 'mistranslation' about the time he began to recharacterize the Silmarillion as largely Mannish, which to my mind allows for more mistranslation and variation that within the Elfwine scenario, Elfwine himself receiving the tales direct from Eressean speakers and putting them into Old English...
... to Tolkien's doorstep I guess.
Still generally speaking.