Hmm, well we have this from CJRT for example, in HME itself...
Quote:
'The Silmarillion', again in the widest sense, is very evidently a literary entity of a singular nature. I would say it can only be defined in terms of its history; and that history is with this book largely completed (...). It is indeed the only 'completion' possible, because it was always 'in progress'; the published work is not in any way a completion, but a construction devised out of the existing materials.'
'Those materials are now made available, save only in a few details and in the matter of Túrin just mentioned; and with them a criticism of the 'constructed' Silmarillion becomes possible. I shall not enter into that question; although it will be apparent in this book that there are aspects of the work that I view with regret.'
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Christopher Tolkien, The War of the Jewels
Of course, then there is the interpretation of that much
