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Old 05-15-2007, 01:08 PM   #21
Findegil
King's Writer
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
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First a general lock on the texts. I give here a part of the Appendix of CoH:
Quote:
From Túrin in Doriath the new text is a good deal changed in relation to that in Unfinished Tales. There is here a range of writing, much of it very rough, concerned with the same narrative elements a different stages of development, and in such a case it is obviously possible to take different views on how the original material should be treated. I have come to think that when I composed the text in Unfinished Tales I allowed myself more editorial freedom than was necessary. In this book I have reconsidered the original manuscripts and reconstituted the text, in many (usually very minor) places restoring the original words, introducing sentences or brief passages that should not have been omitted, correcting a few errors, and making different choices among the original readings.
...
The major lacuna in the narrative as given in Unfinished Tales (p. 104) is filled in the new text on pages 141 to 181, from the end of the section Of Mîm the Dwarf and through The Land of Bow and Helm, The Death of Beleg, Túrin in Nargothrond, and The Fall of Nargothrond.
There is a complex relationship in this part of the 'Túrin saga' between the original manuscripts, the story as it is told in The Silmarillion, the disconnected passages collected in the appendix to the Narn in Unfinished Tales, and the new text in this book. I have supposed that it was my father's general intention, in the fullness of time, when he had archived to his satisfaction the 'great tale' of Túrin, to derive from it a much briefer form of the story in what one may call 'the Silmarillion mode'. But of course this did not happen; and so I undertook, now more than thirty years ago, the strange task of trying to simulate what he did not do: the writing of a 'Silmarillion' version of the latest form of the story, but deriving this from the heterogeneous materials of the 'long version', the Narn. That is Chapter 21 in the published Silmarillion.
Thus the text in this book that fills the long gap in the story in Unfinished Tales is derived from the same original materials as is the corresponding passage in The Silmarillion (pp. 204-15), but they are used for different purpose in each case, and in the new text with a better understanding of the labyrinth of drafts and notes and their sequence. Much in the original manuscripts that was omitted or compressed in The Silmarillion remains available; but where there was nothing to be added the Silmarillion version (as in the tale of the death of Beleg, derived from the Annals of Beleriand that version is simply repeated.
In the result, while I have had to introduce bridging passages here and there in the piecing together of different drafts, there is no element of extraneous 'invention' of any kind, however slight, in the longer text here presented. The text is nonetheless artificial, as it could not be otherwise: the more especially since this great body of manuscripts represents a continual evolution in the actual story. ...
Thus we learn how to handle the different texts: lowest priority is given to the version in the Sil77, then follows the body of the text of the Narn and then the text of CoH, but highest priority is given to the fragments in the appendix to the Narn and GA since there was no external need for any editing of style or for consistency.

In general therefore I followed the in my comparison the text and structure of CoH instead of the [b]Narn[B] or the Sil77. Exceptions of this will be mentioned.

On exception is the use of 'thou' instead of 'you' etc.. In CoH 'you' is used throughout, but in Unfinished Tales it is attested that this is not the case in the original manuscripts. Therefore where ever we have the information that once there was a 'thou' used in a place I kept that.

I have marked all changes that I introduce but I did not give a editing mark with a number to each change because of the great amount of changes. I will also not give here each and every small change of wording, since that would mean giving the text in full which is not appropriate (here).

While reading and preparing the text I found a few possible addition from earlier sources that we missed as yet. They will also be given in the following posts.

Respectfully
Findegil
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