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Dread Horseman
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Re: Many Many Balrogs
Aha! This is just a point I've been meaning to post on for days. First let me say that I, too, have found this discussion to be quite fascinating! Now on to my point:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> I think we need to step back from the Fall of Gondolin project
a little and think again about the Principles, and what this
little exercise has told us about them.<hr></blockquote>This exercise has served as a fine exhibit for the opinion I was trying (rather unsuccessfully) to articulate in the
Principles of Editing The Silmarillion thread. During those discussions, jallanite supposed that what I was advocating was...<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> ...a fully fan-fictionalized expansion of the summarized material, including, for example, full details of Eärendil's voyage and the War of Wrath.<hr></blockquote>I didn't bother to contradict him then because I didn't have a good concrete example of a principle that I was arguing in the abstract.
But here's a fine example! As a bystander, I'd favor something along the lines of jallanite's experimental revision -- especially when the alternative is losing the details of the expanded version altogether. Not a completely fan-fictionalized version, but one that reconciles conflicting texts even though it may have to push the envelope of so-called scholarly editing to do so.
One can easily see how trying to follow very austere and strictly scholarly principles of editing could lead to a version that is much the same as the published Sil -- whole detailed sections of the legends thrown out on principle in favor of summaries, because including the detailed texts would require a little creative revision.
Frankly, shooting for a goal of producing a document that would pass CRT's muster seems like an impractical (and even undesirable) goal for a list of reasons too long to mention. (When I heard that he keeps a wild boar in his garden to discourage over-zealous fans, I didn't think much of it -- until I saw
Hannibal!)
Anyway, my humble two cents, as always, to be considered or discarded as you please.
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Edited by: <A HREF=http://www.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_profile&u=00000005>Mister Underhill</A> at: 9/12/01 9:31:06 am