Quote:
Originally Posted by blantyr
Anyway, I'm far more a fan of TH and LotR than the First and Second Age writings. I have an emotional and perhaps irrational dislike for the academic perspective that holds the First and Second Age stuff as canon, as cleanly trumping interpretation of the Third Age stuff. As the strict Old Testament God of laws and judgement morphed into the more loving and forgiving God of the New, I see Tolkien's divinities as learning, growing and changing too.
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When Tolkien made his son Christopher his literary executor, he was implicit in his wish to have 1st and 2nd Age material published; as a matter of fact, it was certainly Tolkien's hope that
The Silmarillion, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, would be published in his lifetime. Unfortunately, based on the vagueries of the publishing business, a sequel for
The Hobbit (ie.,
The Lord of the Rings) overrode Tolkien's ardent wishes that his earlier histories be brought to light.
Therefore, your wish to adjudicate a separation of canonicity regarding such material is a matter of personal taste and not one necessarily held by most of the posters here, or of the majority of Tolkien scholars, for that matter. The ties that bind the new and the old were clearly necessary to Tolkien, who was vehement that the publishers include so much of his ancient history in the appendices of LoTR. In addition, references to the Ring of Barahir, Morgoth, Eärendil, Varda (Elbereth Gilthoniel), Gondolin, etc., make it clear that Tolkien purposefully set about to have the Third Age merely another epoch in a grander, more ancient tale of Middle-earth.