The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - General discussion about the verse material

Findegil · 03-17-2005, 04:36 AM

I personaly see the greater difficulty with the verse material in the course of the Narn.

But first lets look at the Lay of Leithain: If you look at the numbers of changes I provided it will be seen that in the Lay of Leithian I found about one passage that needed a change each 80 to 100 lines. And the points of trouble tend to gahter to gether in some "hot-spots". Thus we have long passages of the Lay were we need allmost no change at all. Of course there are also troublesome passages such as the encounter of Felagund and his company with Sauron, were a good deal of changes is needed. But I still think we can handle it. Our dealings with the shorter poems stears for me rather the hope that these changes can be done.
That the point were the Lay of Leithian breaks of would be a hard break in our narrative was clear from the start. And this can not be avioded by a rewriting of the verse material to prose. We can only avoid that if we would leave out any details given in the Lay. But that would contardict our overall goal. In addition a conversation of the whole Lay of Leithian into prose would in my view be much more difficult than to incooperate the necessary changes into the verse, and the result could be much more awakeward then a imperfect line here and there in such a long poem. I think further that we should not mix prose and verse more than necessary. This means in the case of the Lay of Leithian, that I would try to provide the whole story up to Carcharoth biting of Berens hand in verse form.
So I am for Aiwendils option 1. in that case.

Now lets take the Lay of the Children of Húrin: The numbers provided in my first post are much more dramatic here: We have about 1 change each 10 lines. The problem is in addition that the Lay is hopelessly outdated, so that in relation to the lenght of the passages much more changes for storyline reasons are necessary. What makes the situation even worth is the alliteration. Words or rather syllables that are part of the alliteration can not be changed easilly.
In my view Aiwendils option 1. is impossible here. What could be done in that way would be my option x, were all intrusions of prose that are necessary are reformed to verse. But that seemed even more difficult to me than editing the verses.
Thus in the case of the Lay of the Childern of Húrin it might be necessary to rewrite the verses to a prose text. We can consider this even for some parts only. At least that would allow us to avoid jumping from verse to prose and back too often. But I think that the starting point of such a work would be a version were we include the verse material and make the necessary changes. With that done we can see if the changes can be done within the verses or if we have to rewrite them to prose.

I think it would be good, to have that version of the Narn from Maedhros with my additions in the private forum soon, because it could be the starting point mentioned above. I will try to bring that out the next few day. I am working on the list of general changes right now, which is the final work for the privat-forum-version. What this version will provide is a kind of a maximum input from the Lay. Each addition is of course discussable if it is worth the efford. But it will at least give some idea of what we are discuss about. When I can follow up with a version for the public forum is not so clear. As the number of changes is great, to produce a version that covers them all but does not give the full text is much work and will take some time. In addition I would like to include some comments to the public version, which I left out in the private-version.

Respectfully
Findegil

03-17-2005, 04:36 AM	#5
Findegil King's Writer Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,694	I personaly see the greater difficulty with the verse material in the course of the Narn. But first lets look at the Lay of Leithain: If you look at the numbers of changes I provided it will be seen that in the Lay of Leithian I found about one passage that needed a change each 80 to 100 lines. And the points of trouble tend to gahter to gether in some "hot-spots". Thus we have long passages of the Lay were we need allmost no change at all. Of course there are also troublesome passages such as the encounter of Felagund and his company with Sauron, were a good deal of changes is needed. But I still think we can handle it. Our dealings with the shorter poems stears for me rather the hope that these changes can be done. That the point were the Lay of Leithian breaks of would be a hard break in our narrative was clear from the start. And this can not be avioded by a rewriting of the verse material to prose. We can only avoid that if we would leave out any details given in the Lay. But that would contardict our overall goal. In addition a conversation of the whole Lay of Leithian into prose would in my view be much more difficult than to incooperate the necessary changes into the verse, and the result could be much more awakeward then a imperfect line here and there in such a long poem. I think further that we should not mix prose and verse more than necessary. This means in the case of the Lay of Leithian, that I would try to provide the whole story up to Carcharoth biting of Berens hand in verse form. So I am for Aiwendils option 1. in that case. Now lets take the Lay of the Children of Húrin: The numbers provided in my first post are much more dramatic here: We have about 1 change each 10 lines. The problem is in addition that the Lay is hopelessly outdated, so that in relation to the lenght of the passages much more changes for storyline reasons are necessary. What makes the situation even worth is the alliteration. Words or rather syllables that are part of the alliteration can not be changed easilly. In my view Aiwendils option 1. is impossible here. What could be done in that way would be my option x, were all intrusions of prose that are necessary are reformed to verse. But that seemed even more difficult to me than editing the verses. Thus in the case of the Lay of the Childern of Húrin it might be necessary to rewrite the verses to a prose text. We can consider this even for some parts only. At least that would allow us to avoid jumping from verse to prose and back too often. But I think that the starting point of such a work would be a version were we include the verse material and make the necessary changes. With that done we can see if the changes can be done within the verses or if we have to rewrite them to prose. I think it would be good, to have that version of the Narn from Maedhros with my additions in the private forum soon, because it could be the starting point mentioned above. I will try to bring that out the next few day. I am working on the list of general changes right now, which is the final work for the privat-forum-version. What this version will provide is a kind of a maximum input from the Lay. Each addition is of course discussable if it is worth the efford. But it will at least give some idea of what we are discuss about. When I can follow up with a version for the public forum is not so clear. As the number of changes is great, to produce a version that covers them all but does not give the full text is much work and will take some time. In addition I would like to include some comments to the public version, which I left out in the private-version. Respectfully Findegil