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Old 08-19-2016, 11:58 AM   #12
Galin
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 1,031
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithadan View Post
(...) Much of the material presented represents a significant departure from his prior conceptions and simply do not align with the Mythos. By way of examples, his "round earth" version of the history of Middle Earth leaves unexplained whether the tale of the Two Trees can be preserved (placing in doubt the origin and nature of the Silmarils themselves).
As I read these texts, the Trees would still radiate an unsullied light, greater than that of the Sun, ultimately only preserved in the Silmarils.


Quote:
His musings regarding whether the tales can be portrayed as a mannish (read Numenorean) distortion of Elvish legend would have significantly impacted the "believability" of the Mythos, and its presentation as a history.
Well, for those who haven't tracked them down, there are late texts, in general agreement about the character of Quenta Silmarillion as a mostly Mannish affair, outside of Myths Transformed too, and Tolkien had even begun publishing the "Numenorean element" in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

Quote:
"In origin a "nonsense rhyme", it is in the Rivendell version found transformed and applied, somewhat incongruously, to the High-Elvish and Numenorean legends of Erarendil."

"No. 14 also depends upon the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Numenorean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Numenorean tale of Turin and Mim the Dwarf."
I don't see why variations due to perspective, and even a measure of purposed confusion, need be considered a weakness. I find it a strength rather, especially for the Legendarium as a whole. Of course some notions would be cast in doubt, like the "truth" of the Sun's making for example, but this notable shift in authorship and transmission allowed Tolkien to preserve the dramatic impact and beauty of ideas from his older mythology. In my opinion, Tolkien's solution falls in line with his later comments on The Drowning of Anadune (DA)...


Quote:
"Contains very old version (in Adunaic) which is good -- in so far as it is just as much different (in inclusion and omission and emphasis) as would be probable in the supposed case:

A) Mannish tradition
B) Elvish tradition
C) Mixed Dunedanic tradition
"Which is good" despite that DA contains purposed confusions when compared to other traditions, including relating the Western Elves perspective that the World was always round, and an interesting slant concerning the "Straight Road". There's an art to creating a legendarium which includes diverse authorship and perspective, which can lend believability in another sense. I don't think Tolkien was going to provide two traditions of QS, and I don't think he needed to finish a more fully "Elvish" version. To my mind he could pepper QS with touches like the "Dome of Varda", which JRRT did take from Myths Transformed and inject into the Later Quenta Silmarillion proper -- he doesn't really explain the Dome in LQS itself, in detail, why it exists and so on, but it's there. It crept in somehow, from some Elvish source (living or on paper). And an already existing sun, for instance, could be handled in other, more purely Elvish texts, like The Awakening of the Quendi (in which the Sun exists before the Elves awaken), itself a text that might be "challenged" in that it's "only" an Elvish fairy tale filled with counting lore.

This, I think, is part of Tolkien's genius! And in my opinion this is where the legendarium was headed, already hinted at in the author-published ATB, and found in a number of late texts, all in general agreement. Christopher Tolkien wrote:

Quote:
"It is remarkable that he never at this time seems to have felt that what he said in this present note [Myths Transformed, text I] provided a resolution of the problems that he believed to exist."

Christopher Tolkien
Why "remarkable"? Because the answer was seemingly "right there" at this time?

Later, I think, Tolkien did feel it
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