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Old 11-26-2016, 04:41 AM   #18
gondowe
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Galin View Post
This seems to be something you find problematic -- but I don't anyway, and it appears (so far) that at least one other person in this thread doesn't either. Translating ancient materials is one thing, "correcting" them another, the latter being not only unnecessary, but given the arguably "gravity" of the ancientry (and artistry) Bilbo is dealing with, he might be expected not to alter things.

If someone handed you an ancient Greek document to translate, for example, and you knew (or were told) that five things in it were factually inaccurate, would you alter these references? That's very arguably not your job, and likewise not Bilbo's. And even then, it's not like the Hobbit need leave out evidences of the Elvish perspective if the fuller legendarium includes (as I think it would) accurately translated texts that are more Elvish in nature -- more accurately describing the world from a Western Elvish perspective even in the Mannish The Drowning of Anadune, again in which the Western Elves teach the Numenoreans that the world is round (before the fall).

I don't see why you find this problematic. Granted the following example isn't perfect for obvious reasons, but art restoration isn't about correcting the background of the Mona Lisa, for instance, simply because it might be problematic in some (arguable) way. And there's nothing in print (that I recall) that blocks a pathway to keeping Bilbo, despite the re-characterization of the Silmarilliom -- which again, allows those who are minded to find the "old" cosmology problematic (if beautiful), a path to accept it as art if not utter truth in all respects.
I agree. Itīs the same again. We have a "subcreated" world, and we have to assume that as subcreated it has the same rules that the "created" at least in the way Tolkien devised and explained in his essays.
We know that the world was not, to say, a piece of one god or derived from the semen of another one, even that one god create the world in six days and the seventh rested.
But we keep on reading these myths "Translated": Greeks, Nordic, Egyptian, Jude-Christian etc, because they are beautiful.

But we are moving in the speculation. And as I say before in other parts of this forum we can complicate our thoughts as far as we want. It could be easier.

Perhaps Glorfindel didn't want to talk about the First Age. Perhaps even Bilbo never asked Elrond about the creation. He only was interested in dramatic, epic tales. Perhaps....

Greetings
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