The Translator Conceit

[littlemanpoet]

Oh heck, I might as well start this one too.....

In at least one other thread it has been discussed how Tolkien employed a "conceit" of himself as translator of a very old work. Davem has summarized this well:

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien has set up in the foreword the conceit of LotR being a translation of the Red Book. It is a work with two main narrators - Frodo & Sam, but we are also told that the accounts have been 'supplemented by the learning of the wise'. We are also informed that the book from which Tolkien 'translated' the story was not the original book but a copy. He even includes an aside by Findegil the King's copyist. What we seem to have then, is a version of the original work, which has been 'supplemented' through various copies & finally translated by an Oxford Don in the 1940's.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss how this conceit works in various parts of LotR.

One example might be the variations in style in LotR. Whereas the style of language used in FotR is often "business-like" Hobbitish talk, in RotK the dialogue is quite "high flown". Could this be due to Tolkien having translated from Sam's Red Book of Westmarch for the Shire while having translated from, say, Findegil's words from Minas Tirith for the Battle of the Pelennor fields?

Are there other examples you've run across that could be discussed?

[davem]

I'm glad some one has brought this up as I think its an important aspect of the legendarium & one which has not really been dealt with.

It affects the story in many ways. First, it possibly accounts, as LMP has said, for the variations in style we find not just in LotR but in The Sil as well. Much (if not all) of this was deliberate on Tolkien's part & was there for a reason. The Legendarium isn't simply a history - it also has a history of transmission. We begin with the original events which are told by the witnesses & participants. Thesed accounts are then written down, both in prose & verse. The prose accounts may be either annalistic, literal or romanticised to a greater or lesser degree. Once they are written down they are copied by various hands over various periods ( Flieger points out that Findegil is 'the third generation copyist of a second generation manuscript copy of a first generation primary manuscript'). There are differing, sometimes competing, accounts from different perspectives, written for different reasons - I've read one essay which posits that the reason the sons of Feanor are shown in such a negative light in the Sil is that the texts that make it up come in large part from Bilbo's 'Translations from the Elvish' which he composed in Rivendell from books & accounts available to him there. Now, if we take into account the relationship of Elrond to the Feanoreans maybe we can speculate that the records & histories available there may not have been entirely free from bias!

So, we have these records, which have come down to 'Tolkien' in the form of a copy of the Red Book, which he translates into modern English & makes available to modern readers. How many removes are we currently at from the original events, how much bias - in the form of choices made over which texts to copy & which to reject, how many scribal errors, have crept in?

What Tolkien has done is provide a historical chain of connection from the original events to the copy of LotR that we hold in our hands, yet we can never know what actually happened, because all we have is a translation of copies of copies of copies of selected manuscript versions of tales re-told numerous times over millenia of the original events &, as we know, Tales have a tendency to 'grow in the telling'.

The other interesting thing about this conceit for me is that it makes Tolkien into a character in his own legendarium - he is the final link in the chain of storytellers, last in the long line of scribes who translate & pass on the stories of the past. So, we have JRR Tolkien the author writing a fictional account of the history of the world whish includes the character of 'JRR Tolkien' who came into possession of an ancient manuscript, translated it into English & sent it off to Allen & Unwin. Again, Flieger points out that the runes around the original cover of The Hobbit that Tolkien painted read: 'THE HOBBIT OR THERE AND BACK AGAIN BEING THE RECORD OF A YEARS JOURNEY MADE BY BILBO BAGGINS OF HOBBITON COMPILED FROM HIS MEMOIRS BY JRR TOLKIEN AND PUBLISHED BY GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD.'

The question is why he did this. Flieger in Interrupted Music goes into some depth to show that Tolkien was actually attempting to follow the process by which real world mythologies have come down to us, & shows that Tolkien was attempting not simply to create a mythology to stand alongside others, but a history, both internal & external, for it, which could do the same.

It seems that for Tolkien history & mythology at some point, in some way, met & blended. If his mythology was to stand alongside those others it would have to have an origin & history of transmission down to the present day & the book we hold in our hands must have a connection to the earliest manuscripts. More importantly though, the events of the mythic past must be shown to connect to the present via real history - but that's straying into the territory he explored in Lost Road & Notion Club Papers.

Anyway, I hope I haven't strayed too far off topic here, as the original question was about specific examples of this conceit...

[Celuien]

A great topic.

Drat, I've been beaten to the point about telling/retelling being the mechanism whereby history is passed down (that's what happens when I leave to do my housecleaning ), but it's been put in far better words than I could find.

One of the other ways that the conceit works is to allow the interjection of explanations into the text. The translator can tell us that Elves and Hobbits referred to the sun as "She" or direct us to information about Hobbit calendars when Frodo sings his song in the Prancing Pony. By appearing in the text, the translator merges with the narrator, which as davem has pointed out, makes Tolkien one of the characters/retellers of the history. This also gives "permission" for the explanations to appear in a more extensive manner than footnotes. For example, the explanatory role of the narrator appears in the beginning of The Hobbit when an illustration of what hobbits are (or were) appears. It can't come from the memoir itself since it is told from the same time frame as the reader, so it has to be a separate commentary from the modern translator. I think that there is an argument for something similar in the "Shelob's Lair" chapter of The Two Towers:

There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form, even such as once of old had lived in the Land of the Elves in the West that is now under the Sea, such as Beren fought in the Mountains of Terror in Doriath, and so came to Lúthien upon the green sward amid the hemlocks in the moonlight long ago. How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come. But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Dúath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood. But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world.

This is not only a sudden change in tone, but also information which none of the characters has at the time, so I think there is a case to be made for this passage arising from the narrator/translator's explanatory role. Here, the narrator/translator can act as a guide to give us more insight into the approaching situation.

Then there are the anachronisms that sneak into the story. Sam's "Lor' help me" has been pointed out already, but there's another glaring example in "A Long Expected Party":

The dragon passed like an express train, turned a somersault, and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion.

While there could have been a rapid delivery service for large amounts of perishable goods to be sent from one end of the Shire to the other, with the well-known hobbit dislike of complicated machinery, the only possible explanation for the appearance of express trains in a hobbit's account of the late Third Age is a modern translator/narrator. Fortunately, the narrator conceit now gives the reader a way to escape the otherwise entirely inconsistent simile.

[Saurreg]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

The purpose of this thread is to discuss how this conceit works in various parts of LotR.

One example might be the variations in style in LotR. Whereas the style of language used in FotR is often "business-like" Hobbitish talk, in RotK the dialogue is quite "high flown". Could this be due to Tolkien having translated from Sam's Red Book of Westmarch for the Shire while having translated from, say, Findegil's words from Minas Tirith for the Battle of the Pelennor fields?

Are there other examples you've run across that could be discussed?

If the conceit in question here is the translation of two "historical" recordings into an English volume, I feel that the usage of a third-person narrative cancels out the effect.

Let us look at the redbook - compiled by Frodo and Sam. Would the both of them had written their journals in third-person narrative? I find it quite odd. I have read memoirs and real-life historical texts written by personnels who participated in the events that occured. They were all written either in first-person narrative or described in terms of chronological events and presented with a summary of the actions/deeds of contemporaries who played a part in them also.

I am not that familar with the idea of the second historic source - the manuscript from Gondor. But if it was written by a military scribe; a historian. It would have been written in a concised form without much spoken dialogue among key characters. I have in mind the works of old Greco-Roman historians like Appian, Curtius and Plutarch in mind. They simply presented their work in an informative (need to know basis), telling, chronological order with emphasis on the main events and omitting trivial happens that were either unimportant or lost with time.

If the conceit was a direct translation then LoTR should have read like contemporary literature that are real translations of old works - informative, orderly, with little sensationalism and impersonalization.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Saureg

I am not that familar with the idea of the second historic source - the manuscript from Gondor. But if it was written by a military scribe; a historian. It would have been written in a concised form without much spoken dialogue among key characters. I have in mind the works of old Greco-Roman historians like Appian, Curtius and Plutarch in mind. They simply presented their work in an informative (need to know basis), telling, chronological order with emphasis on the main events and omitting trivial happens that were either unimportant or lost with time.

Findegil is mentioned in the Prologue to LotR & it gets more interesting when we read the passage. It begins:

The original Red Book has not been preserved, but many copies were made, especially of the first volume, for the use of the descendants of the children of Master Samwise. The most important copy, however, has a different history. It was kept at Great Smials, but it was written in Gondor, probably at the request of the great-grandson of Peregrin, and completed in S.R. 1592 (F.A. 172). Its southern scribe appended this note: Findegil, King's Writer, finished this work in IV 172. It is an exact copy in all details of the Thain's Book in Minas Tirith. That book was a copy, made at the request of King Elessar, of the Red Book of
the Periannath, and was brought to him by the Thain Peregrin when he retired to Gondor in IV 64.

So, Findegil produced an 'exact copy in all details' of the Thain's book. Seems we have a translation by Prof Tolkien of a copy of the original Red Book written by Bilbo/Frodo/Sam....but the passage continues:

The Thain's book was thus the first copy made of the Red Book and contained much that was later omitted or lost. In Minas Tirith it received much annotation, and many corrections, especially of names, words, and quotations in the Elvish languages;

So, its not an 'exact' copy, as Findegil states - its been amended & corrected by other hands. We further see that there are sections of the text which were written by another author & included in the Findegil copy - Barahir, grandson of Faramir:

and there was added to it an abbreviated version of those parts of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen which lie outside the account of the War. The full tale is stated to have been written by Barahir, grandson of the Steward Faramir, some time after the passing of the king.

Tolkien (the fictional translator) seems even to be aware of other copies which also exist, because he makes a comparison between the one he's used & others. He even states that Findegil's copy is better than the others - or at least more important:

But the chief importance of Findegil's copy is that it alone contains the whole of Bilbo's 'Translations from the Elvish'. These three volumes were found to be a work of great skill and learning in which, between 1403 and 1418, he had used all the sources available to him in Rivendell, both living and written. But since they were little used by Frodo, being almost entirely concerned with the Elder Days, no more is said of them here.

So, there were other copies of the Red Book which didn't contain Bilbo's 'Translations from the Elvish' - or not the whole of them. What we seem to have is a translation of one version of the Red Book, & we cannot know how different the other copies were - for instance, were the 'annotations & corrections' uniform across all copies, or were there different annotations & corrections in different copies.

What all this does is actually to move us further & further away from the original events, & makes any demand for 'consistency' of style, even of detail, less & less likely to be satisfied.

Edit: Of course, we don't know whether 'Tolkien' had access to Findegil's original copy - very unlikely given the length of time which seperates the beginning of the
Fourth Age from the early 20th century. In fact, its likely that what 'Tolkien' did have was a copy of a copy of a copy (ad almost infinitum given that timescale) which included Findegil's note as part of the text. How many 'annotations & corrections' had crept in since Findegil's original copy is anybody's guess...

[Saurreg]

Great information Davem. I thank you for your diligence.

So the conceit is that the LoTR was a direct translation of a copy of the original red book - one that has been abridged, amended, edited and updated through the edges. No?

In this case, would the copy not deviate more from the original works in terms of sensation and theme, ending up being more impersonal than before? If that is the case the close, direct third-person narration of the book would unfortunately cancel out the intended effect of the conceit even more.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Saurreg

In this case, would the copy not deviate more from the original works in terms of sensation and theme, ending up being more impersonal than before?

Well, its difficult to say how much the version we have has 'deviated' from the original, because we don't have the original to compare it to. What we have is a work at the end of a very long line of copies & translations.

We might also want to ask how much 'Tolkien the translator' (ie the character within the secondary world version of the primary world) was like Professor Tolkien himself - can we assume he was as skilled & consciencious, or even as talented, as his real world alter ego?

[Saurreg]

Well that is a fair question.

You mentioned a valid point - the difference between Tolkien the literary "translator" and Tolkien the real life writer. I must admit that this has never crossed my mind before. Seperating Tolkien the fictitious from real-life, interesting.

[Bêthberry]

This is simply a side note to the topic here and has little to do directly with the scribal conceit in LotR. But it was pure chance that I came across this article yesterday, likely at the same time littlemanpoet set up this thread. I offer it mainly out of curiosity and to demonstrate that Tolkien's own academic work still is discussed.

What did I find? I found a scholarly article examining Tolkien's scribal practice in editing a manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Reeve's Tale" (from The Cantebury Tales). I cannot copy the entire article here, but I will quote some passages. What I omit is mainly the nitty gritty of the argument concerning ME philology, morphology, and specific differences in dialect between Southern/London dialect and Northern dialects.

I cannot verify the accuracy of what the author claims about Tolkien because Tolkien's article is not available online. However, before I bore you with tedious quotations, here are the two relevant references. Perhaps our own active scholars Fordim Hedgethistle and Squatter of Amon Rûh can dig up Tolkien's article and quote it for us if people are curious.

First, Tolkien's article: J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve’s Tale’, Transactions of the Philological Society (1934), 1-70.

Second, the contemporary article: S.C.P. Horobin, "JRR Tolkien As A Philologist: A Reconsideration of the Northernisms in Chaucer's 'Reeve's Tale'", English Studies vol 82, no. 2 (April 2001), 97-105.

Okay, here goes with the comments on what were Tolkien's habits/thoughts/assumptions about scribal practice and what contemporary thought is. I omit the footnotes, which is what the numbers at the end of some sentences refer to.

In his analysis of the portrayal of Northern dialect in the Reeve’s Tale Tolkien
assumed that Chaucer was aiming at complete consistency in his representation
of Northern dialect features.1 Tolkien’s article presented Chaucer as a philologist
and argued that his ‘linguistic joke’ could therefore only be truly appreciated
by philologists.2 In the critical text appended to the article Tolkien
attempted to reconstruct a Chaucerian original which was ‘very purely and correctly
Northern’ (16); a text free from the ‘mongrel blends’ and ‘corruptions’ introduced
by scribal copyists with no formal philological training.
However since Tolkien’s article was published a great deal of work has been
done on the text of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which serves to cast doubt on
many of Tolkien’s assumptions and conclusions. The vast editorial enterprise
carried out by J.M. Manly and E. Rickert based upon a complete collation of
all the extant manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, concluded that the Hengwrt
manuscript [Hg] preserved a very accurate text, close to the author’s original.3
Furthermore Manly and Rickert claimed that the Ellesmere manuscript [El],
which formed the basis of F.N. Robinson’s edition of 19334 and Tolkien’s critical
text of 1934, had been subjected to a degree of editorial sophistication. Following
Manly and Rickert’s work a number of their assumptions and their
methodology have been called into question, although their belief in the importance
of the Hg manuscript has been accepted by many textual scholars. The
strongest supporter of the Hg manuscript is N.F. Blake whose argument that
Hg represents the text closest to that of Chaucer’s lost holograph led him to use
Hg as the basis of his 1980 edition of the Canterbury Tales.5 Recent stemmatic
analysis of the manuscripts of the Wife of Bath’s Prologue using sophisticated
computer collation software by The Canterbury Tales Project has further served
to assert the primacy of the Hg manuscript.6
In addition to the important textual work that has been carried out since
Tolkien’s 1934 article, we now know much more about scribal practice. Rather
than viewing scribal copies as corruptions of an accurate authorial exemplar, recent
studies have treated these copies as contemporary critical responses to an
author’s language and text. Study of ‘bad texts’ has revealed the significance of
such documents as evidence of ‘the ways in which such texts were read and understood
by their early audiences, to establish an authentic contemporary, or
near contemporary, commentary’.7 In an important article which examines
scribal copies of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, B.A. Windeatt demonstrates
how scribes ‘can offer us the earliest line-by-line literary criticism of Chaucer’s
poetry, a reaction to what in the poet’s text makes it distinctive and remarkable
in its own time’.8
Furthermore the traditional view, as expressed by Tolkien in his classic article
on ‘AB’ language, that the language of a ME text is a product of its textual
history has also been refuted by ME dialectologists.9 Recent approaches to ME
dialectology have demonstrated that scribes in the late ME period regularly
‘translated’ the language of their exemplar into a single consistent variety of
ME.
Thus rather than viewing the language of a ME manuscript as a confused
blend of archetypal and scribal forms, it is now possible to consider such texts
as evidence for a single consistent dialect of ME. In addition it seems that a consideration
of the treatment of the Northernisms by later copyists may offer insights
into how scribes responded to Chaucer’s use of dialect, and how these
responses were affected by the dynamic processes of textual transmission and
linguistic change.

. . . . .

This study has shown that in general scribes did recognise the integrity of the
Northern dialect features to the text of the Reeve’s Tale, and preserved these in
most occurrences. Certain scribes, especially that of Gg, effected a wholesale
translation of these forms, replacing them with current Southern equivalents.
Other scribes responded to Chaucer’s use of dialect by increasing the Northern
flavour of the text. This is particularly apparent in the work of the Dd scribe
who made a number of changes to increase the number of Northern features
within the text. Many scribes attempted to make the representation more consistent
by regularising the text, while a number added Northern features not
found at all in the Hg manuscript. Other scribes did not understand certain
Northern forms and replaced them with words of a similar appearance, or
words which seemed to fit the general context. Study of Chaucer’s representation
of Northern dialect in the Reeve’s Tale suggests that Tolkien’s assumption
that inconsistencies were due to the ‘negligence and rape’ of Chaucer’s earliest
scribes is unlikely, especially given the general accuracy of the Hg manuscript,
and the widespread preservation of many of the Northern dialect features
across the manuscript tradition. It seems more likely that Chaucer was concerned
with imposing a flavour of the Northern dialect on the students’ speech
rather than achieving absolute philological accuracy or consistency.26 Chaucer’s
representation of dialect was no doubt further constrained by the nature of his
Southern, courtly audience, who would perhaps have had difficulties comprehending
the more extreme provincialisms of Northern speech.27
A further complicating factor in Chaucer’s representation and the scribal
preservation of Northern forms concerns the dynamic nature of the London
language during this period. During the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries
London English was being heavily influenced by Midland dialects following
waves of immigration into the capital.28 Therefore it may be that the
Tolkien assumed that scribes did not get Chaucer’s joke and thus translated
the Northern forms into Southern equivalents.30 The appearance of Northern
forms in later manuscripts was thus explained as the chance survival of authorial
spellings. However analysis of the treatment of Northernisms by the earliest
copyists shows that these scribes preserved many of these features, despite
the pressures of dialect translation and linguistic change. Indeed certain instances
show these scribes attempting to increase the dialectal flavour of the text
by adding extra Northern features or increasing the consistency. There are also
a large number of examples of scribes replacing Northern features for equivalent
Southern forms. These processes can tell us much about the status of certain
linguistic features during this period of dynamic language change, and the
ways in which scribes understood Chaucer’s use of dialect.

I wonder, if we examine the elvish languages in LotR, can we find evidence of scribal change/emendations or do the passages quoted reflect the 'correct' form of the languages which Tolkien created? That is, did he extend the scribal conceit to the elvish languages or just to the regular English narrative?

EDIT: Here are the footnotes which refer to the joke Tolkien was talking about:

2) ‘For the joke of this dialogue is (and was) primarily a linguistic joke, and is, indeed, now one
at which only a philologist can laugh sincerely’

and:

30 ‘Nonetheless, it has been held, and may still be, that this idea was variously improved or enlarged
upon by individual copyists … it is hardly credible that each of these scrivains (and
their predecessors) should at odd moments have had the fancy to improve his attempt’ (12).

[littlemanpoet]

I. As far as I can tell, this is a huge topic and can have many branches bearing equally worthy fruit, so don't fear taking this thread "off topic" on my account. There were multiple expressions of desire for having such a thread, so since nobody else started it, I did. I like starting topics, can you tell?

II. As Shippey says on one of the LotR DVD's, "[Tolkien] wasn't kicking a dead horse, he had a Darby winner!" A couple of points under that:

1. This thread reveals better than most that Tolkien did far more than create or re-invent the science-fiction/fantasy genre. He has written a completely different kind of fictional work. It's not a novel, and I dare say it's not really a romantic epic either, though Tolkien named it so. It's story cast as feigned history more persuasively than anyone had ever done, or may ever do.

2. Here are common readers discussing (to the best of our ability) what, until Tolkien's time, had been strictly the domain of philological and linguistic scholars. I find that to be an amazing development in itself.

III. I found the quotation on the Chaucer study to be absolutely fascinating, both in terms of what it revealed about the process of translation, and for how it may inform Tolkien's work on LotR.

I just noticed that I'm about to cross-post with Bêthberry, so I'll end this here and see what else is new....

EDIT: As for Tolkien doing self parody, I dare say it would be more likely to be found in Farmer Giles of Ham.

The comment about the dragon coming in like an express train certainly seems anachronistic! It's a wonder it didn't stand out to me this latest reading! It puts me in mind of an attempt I made in a certain rpg at these Downs to account for the fact that I was using an anachronism in my own description; to wit:

"You're not excusing yourself from me,' Falco yelled at Eodwine's receding back as he hopped off his chair and gave chase, his pipe puffing smoke so that, if there had been any in that time and place, those who looked on would have said the hobbit looked like a little steam engine. But there weren't any such things in that time and place, so nobody thought it; but it looked like it anyway.

Had I noticed that Tolkien had given me precedent, I wouldn't have attempted this flawed gem, as it were!

[davem]

Just a quick note. We have a couple of known excisions from the original Red Book - The Quest of Erebor in UT & the Epilogue to LotR in HoMe 12. So once again we see that the Translator has not given us everything he has in the volume published as LotR. The Epilogue is especially interesting in this context as (remaining within the secondary world conceit, remember) it exists in two very different forms. I wonder what a comparison of the two would tell us about the way the translator worked - if he can translate the same original document in two such different ways?

Anyone interested in Tolkien's approach to this issue of the way texts are transmitted & altered over time, especially in the case of manuscript books & translation (remeber some parts of the text were originally Elvish, translated into Adunaic, then Westron (then possibly Anglo-saxon) then into modern English) should get hold of Flieger's Interrupted Music.

[Lalwendë]

For myself, the conceit is one that is not strictly necessary to understanding Tolkien's work. The tales stand alone by themselves, and the fact that the conceit exists simply adds another dimension to them as being 'real' as opposed to being simply a story; the conceit is another helping hand as it were into the idea that this secondary world actually did exist. You could say, the conceit even helps us to acheive that sense of enchantment.

So if the conceit is not always necessary, then why did Tolkien use it? I've a few possible reasons:

To help us achieve that sense of enchantment. We are entering an entire world. LotR goes beyond simple story as it is so complex and has so many levels. As it is the life work of one man he has poured so many ideas into this that it in effect does exist on its own. To add in the idea that it is a discovered or translated work gives it the added air of authenticity, that we are indeed stepping into a document of a place which existed.

In addition to the above, Tolkien added layers of meaning by creating real etymologies for the languages he created. For such developments in language to occur, there has to be a history, a time frame for them to happen within. The notion of the texts being translated allows for this, and it also adds depth to the conceit.

Other works based upon mythologies are themselves created from translations, for example the Arthurian stories have been created from a whole range of older translated texts. As non-linguists most of us woud read texts such as the Eddas in translation. And Tolkien himself was a translator. So for him to use this conceit would be a quite natural act. Fully aware of the possibilities and consequences involved in translating myth, it must have seemed an interesting notion to have this concept as part of his own myth making.

There is also the incredibly convenient fact that if we know the work we are reading to be a translation, then we might be more prepared to allow for any inconsistencies! If a work is produced from a line of other texts, then like rumours, tales can change in the telling and re-telling. In something as complex as the work he was creating inconsistencies would be inevitable (and I'm always surprised there are not more), and the conceit of translated myth would allow for this!

This final possibility is rather a cynical one, I admit, so it is possible that this is more a convenient consequence of his using the conceit. I'm not sure Tolkien wished to exercise self parody, but at times he clearly does wish to intrude upon the story as there are instances where the text considers authorial issues and the nature of myth and story is discussed by characters. Having the conceit of a translation as part of his structure allows him to do this without it appearing that it is his voice we are hearing (even though in our logical mind, we know that it is him), and without such musings being intrusive. By way of contrast to the way Tolkien inserted his authorial voice, John Fowles did this in a deliberately intrusive manner in the French Lieutenant's Woman, building up a novel filled with historical detail only to bring it all crashing down.

So, I say that the conceit is not strictly neccesary to our understanding and appreciation of the text. If we are discussing what happened to X or why Y did what she or he did, then we do not always need to utilise the conceit in our arguments as the material is laid out for us and we have only to find it for ourselves (which is interesting as are we then acting as translators ourselves?). But, if we totally disregard the conceit then we are missing out on something important to the text, as it acts as a cement which holds together much of the detail, and clearly adds to the sense of enchantment.

[HerenIstarion]

I'm going to indulge in self-plagiarism, but can not stand the temptation of directing you to this piece of fun (Canonicity 79)

[littlemanpoet]

Good thoughts, Lalwendë. Quite the redaction, H-I!

I'd like to consider an alternate question: what things may not be reasons for the conceit?

I'd like to suggest a few answers.

First, I hope we don't just blithely accept the notion that the conceit completely wipes out any consideration of style inconsistencies. Whereas style variation may be an interesting aspect of the conceit, by no means does it wipe the slate clean in terms of the author's responsibilities regarding anachronism and style. My opinion as to what style is too high flown or not, is not the issue here. Rather, the conceit is not some kind of stain remover, if you take my meaning.

Second, I have my doubts that Tolkien pushed the conceit as far as some of us may be tempted to. Sure, it's there, but reading the Letters, I do not see Tolkien saying that it was a matter of translation from text G or E or whatever; rather, he defends his use of style, poetry, what have you, from an authorial ownership point of view.

So though the conceit may be there, I'd like to see us look at particular texts or contexts and evaluate the conceit's viability in terms of them. Otherewise, we're just thinking about angels and pinpoints in our ivory tower. Let's dig into the text, my friends.

Lalwendë's point is well to remember: one need not bother with the conceit at all to enjoy the book, or even become enchanted by it.

[littlemanpoet]

I just opened RotK to a random page and found myself staring at the already debated text,

Then one of the knights took the king's banner afrom the hand of Guthláf the banner-bearer who lay dead, and he lifted it up. Slowly Théoden opened his eyes. Seeing the banner he made a sign that it should be given to Éomer.

'Hail, King of the Mark!' he said. 'Ride not to victory! Bid Éowyn farewell!' And so he died, and knew not that Éowyn lay near him. And those who stood by wept, crying: 'Théoden King! Théoden King!'

But Éomer said to them:

Mourn not overmuch! Mighty was the fallen,
meet was his ending. When his mound is raised,
women then shall weep. War now calls us!

Yet he himself wept as he spoke. 'Let his knights remain here,' he said, 'and bear his body in honour from the field, lest the battle ride over it! Yea, and all these other of the king's men that lie here.' And he looked at the slain, recalling their names. Then suddenly he beheld his sister Éowyn as she lay, and he knew her. He stood a moment as a man who is pierced in the midst of a cry by an arrow through the heart; and then his face went deathly white, and a cold fury rose in him, so that all speech failed him for a while. A fey mood took him.

Éowyn, Éowyn!' he cried at last. 'Éowyn, how come you here? What madness or devilry is this? Death, death, death! Death take us all!'

Does the Translator Conceit function in this text and/or context? How? What does it achieve if it does function here? What does it not achieve?

[davem]

Originally Posted by LMP

Does the Translator Conceit function in this text and/or context? How? What does it achieve if it does function here? What does it not achieve?

It may prevent the spell being broken if that sudden burst of poesy seems out of place. Yet this is exactly the kind of thing we find in epic romance. Obviously if we read LotR as a novel it might not seem logical that Eomer should be capable of doing this at that moment. At the same time its possible to argue (as I have) that it is a traditional verse of the kind he's probably been hearing for a good few days & would therefore have been in his mind.

Also, knowing what we do of 'Tolkien the translator', we would have to say that its the kind of high flown style he tends towards given half a chance! There's also the possibility that one or more of the previous translators/redactors had the same tendency.

Another way we can account for the way this episode is presented is to consider who was actually participating in the event described. They were all Rohirrim (apart from Merry, who may or may not have been fully compos mentis at the time - & even if he was, by the time he came to give his account to Frodo he was a knight of the Mark). What we have is an account of a profoundly significant episode in Rohirric history told as they would have told it themselves. In other words, LotR is not reportage, it is a collection of personal histories, from different perspectives - which may account for the way the 'villains' are portrayed.

Of course, the Translator(s, compilers, redactors) conceit does provide Tolkien with a 'Get out of Jail free' card, but the value of that shouldn't be underestimated from our point of view as readers - it increases the chance that the spell will not be broken for us, & that we will have the chance (so rare in these days) of experiencing enchantment. But it does more than that - it provides us with a link to the 'actual' events. Because LotR, & the Legendarium as a whole, is presented in this way the illusion is created that the text we have is, at many removes, an account of 'what really happened'- even if not in exactly the way we read it - the details of speech & exactly who did what to whom may be open to question but something very like it did occur, once upon a time. Maybe its been romanticised, but perhaps that's the reason it survived to be passed down to us. As the Faerie Queen says to Smith: 'Better a little doll, maybe, than no memory of Faery at all'...

The Legendarium is a remnant of what was - the only remnant we have, & the fact that it may not be exactly what it claims to be(I'd refer you back to Findegil's statement), actually adds to the poignancy & enhances the sense of loss & yearning, because in the end LotR is less about 'facts' & more about meaning - specifically what the 'facts' meant to those who experienced them & to those who passed them on to us.

[drigel]

nice posts here

The conceit can both be acknowlaged and forgiven. Here in one instance (or one author's lifetime), is an accumulation of an entire Legendarium of ME derived from versions of translations that include annotations, corrections, and different culture's perspectives. this all adds to the enchanment, mystery and poignancy of the work. This does provide the author with a Get Out of Jail Free card, but again, his pen is the vehicle where we go in one instance from here and now, to once upon a time.... but is it once upon a time according to Findegil via Bilbo? Aelfwine? What would other translations look like?

There IMO is also (whether intended by the author or not) a taste of the oral history dimention throughout the work. Granted, the ultimate source was a transcription of the spoken word and living memory of an undying elf, one can easily see how a tale soon after the first transcription could be embellished, romantisized, even made fancifull (The Hobbit, anyone?). Since nothing in ME (pointedly after the rings destruction) exists in a vacume, I can also see some of the oral histoy tradition perhaps influencing the body of work, as this would be the standard documentation of history between the end of the FA and, say, 2-3 thousand years ago.

Imagine the Silm entirely in chant/verse. Or LOTR in sing-song. tra la la lally indeed...

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

"Mourn not overmuch" is pure Old English verse form, in both rhythm and allieration. These lines from Éomer do not belong to Tolkien's subcreation;

I can see what you mean here, but the Rohirrim weren't Anglo-Saxons, nor did they speak in Old English. Following the conceit, Tolkien the translator chose to use Anglo-Saxon language & culture to 'translate' the language & culture of the Rohirrim. This 'translation' goes perhaps farther than what we're used to, because it is not only words which are being translated from an unknown to a known language, but whole 'historical' cultures are also.

Now, this will tempt some readers to bring in their knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons - in fact some may find it difficult not to do just that. I remember one article that showed that the history of the Rohirrim in Middle earth could be related pretty closely to the history & migrations of the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons. Maybe Tolkien (one or other or both of them) intended these connections to be made, or maybe he was simply using the closest recognisable culture he knew of to make the Rohirric culture accessible. Whichever, I can't help wondering if it was a mistake on his part, because while it may be intended to give a sense of depth to the story it ties in the primary world a little too closely with the secondary.

Yet, I'm reminded of the lines 'Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate'. This is the dilemma any translator will face - if the 'translation' of another ancient, & very alien culture is too literal we may not be able to make the emotional connection necessary to be moved by it - if it is too familiar, we will not feel ourselves in another world, but rather feel as if we are reading an allegory of this one. I suspect one could argue till the cows come home over the pros & cons of linking the ancient culture of the Rohirrim too closely in to the Anglo-Saxon.

Of course, its not the only case, & the translator goes even farther in other 'translations' - do we really believe the Shire was culturally & technologically so similar to Edwardian England? Did they really have clocks & umbrellas, or something sort of like that? Maybe they had nothing like those things at all, but the translator, having decided to represent the Shire by Edwardian England, just went ahead & put those things in their holes.

Which makes me wonder how literal or how free the translation is...

Edit: I was just thinking about the 'Tolkien the writer' vs 'Tolkien the tranlator' question, & it seems that Tolkien the writer developed this idea. if we read the original introduction (from the first edition of LotR - as provided by Squatter in the Foreword thread:

This tale, which has grown almost to be a history of the great War of the Ring, is drawn for the most part from the memoirs of the renowned Hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo, as they are preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch. This chief monument to Hobbit-lore is so called because it was compiled, repeatedly copied, and enlarged and handed down in the family of the Fairbairns of Westmarch, descended from that Master Samwise of whom this tale has much to say.
I have supplemented the account of the Red Book, in places, with information derived from the surviving records of Gondor, notably the Book of the Kings; but in general, though I have omitted much, I have in this tale adhered more closely to the actual words and narrative of my original than in the previous selection from the Red Book, The Hobbit. That was drawn from the early chapters, composed originally by Bilbo himself. If 'composed' is a just word. Bilbo was not assidious, nor an orderly narrator, and his account is involved and discursive, and sometimes confused: faults that still appear in the Red Book, since the copiers were pious and careful, and altered very little.
The tale has been put into its present form in response to the many requests that I have received for further information about the history of the Third Age, and about Hobbits in particular. But since my children and others of their age, who first heard of the finding of the Ring, have grown older with the years, this book speaks more plainly of those darker things which lurked only on the borders of the earlier tale, but which have troubled Middle-earth in all its history. It is, in fact, not a book written for children at all; though many children will, of course, be interested in it, or parts of it, as they still are in the histories and legends of other times (especially in those not specially written for them).
I dedicate this book to all admirers of Bilbo, but especially to my sons and daughter, and to my friends the Inklings. To the Inklings, because they have already listened to it with a patience, and indeed with an interest, that almost leads me to suspect that they have hobbit-blood in their venerable ancestry. To my sons and my daughter for the same reason, and also because they have all helped me in the labours of composition. If 'composition' is a just word, and these pages do not deserve all that I have said about Bilbo's work.

For if the labour has been long (more than fourteen years), it has been neither orderly nor continuous. But I have not had Bilbo's leisure. Indeed much of that time has contained for me no leisure at all, and more than once for a whole year the dust has gathered on my unfinished pages. I only say this to explain to those who have waited for the book why they have had to wait so long. I have no reason to complain. I am surprised and delighted to find from numerous letters that so many people, both in England and across the Water, share my interest in this almost forgotten history; but it is not yet universally recognized as an important branch of study. It has indeed no obvious practical use, and those who go in for it can hardly expect to be assisted.
Much information, necessary and unnecessary, will be found in the Prologue. To complete it some maps are given, including one of the Shire that has been approved as reasonably correct by those Hobbits that still concern themselves with ancient history. At the end of the third volume will be found some abridged family-trees, which show how the Hobbits mentioned were related to one another, and what their ages were at the time when the story opens. There is an index of names and strange words with some explanations. And for those who like such lore in an appendix some brief account is given of the languages, alphabets and calendars that were used in the West-lands in the Third Age of Middle-earth. Those who do not need such information, or who do not wish for it, may neglect these pages; and the strange names that they meet they may, of course, pronounce as they like. Care has been given to their transcription from the original alphabets and some notes are offered on the intentions of the spelling adopted* But not all are interested in such matters, and many who are not may still find the account of those great and valiant deeds worth the reading. It was in that hope that I began the work of translating and selecting the stories of the Red Book, part of which are now presented to Men of a later Age, one almost as darkling and ominous as was the Third Age that ended with the great years 1418 and 1419 of the Shire long ago.

Reading this it would seem the writer & the translator are one & the same person. Only with the Second Edition do we get a clear division with, as I said, the SE Foreword written by Tolkien the writer & the Prologue by Tolkien the translator.

I wonder if there is any significance in this, whether Tolkien the writer felt it was necessary to emphasise the difference, & if so, why?

[littlemanpoet]

This does provide the author with a Get Out of Jail Free card...

NO.

Please let's not do Tolkien the disservice of bypassing a real issue with an easy excuse. The main purpose of the Translator Conceit cannot be a license to trespass against good style. One of the reasons for evaluation is to determine (to the best of our ability) if the Conceit does more than merely excuse stylistics.

Originally Posted by davem

Of course, its not the only case, & the translator goes even farther in other 'translations' - do we really believe the Shire was culturally & technologically so similar to Edwardian England? Did they really have clocks & umbrellas, or something sort of like that? Maybe they had nothing like those things at all, but the translator, having decided to represent the Shire by Edwardian England, just went ahead & put those things in their holes.

I'm glad you mentioned this, because in my latest scan of chapter one, it struck me how much it is a story told by a 20th century author rather than having any feel of a translation based on very old documents ... unless we want to suppose that the translator was also an incredibly gifted story teller, so as to take the history and provide creative dialogue that could not reasonably have been part of the original text.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Does the Translator Conceit function in this text and/or context? How? What does it achieve if it does function here? What does it not achieve?

Since I first raised the issue that this passage was one of the places that broke the enchantment for me, I'll take a stab at this. But first I want to consider more why this passage broke the enchantment.

The events are harrowing and thrilling. Aragorn has marched off to the Paths of the Dead. We have just seen Éowyn (and Merry) dispatch the WitchKing. Yet the King of the Mark has fallen; Théodan has gone to his forebearers. Yet ere he dies, he names his heir, Éomer. Now we have the new king speaking to his people, an invocation to the dead as well as a reminder that now is not the time to mourn. I have already suggested that I wish more time had been spent developing Éomer's character at this point, to prepare us for his elevation into the heroic mold of eld and enable us emotionally to see this change. Perhaps all it would have needed would have been, "Remember, Remember" and then clearly some statement that, out of this momentous occasion when he puts on the kingship, Éomer reminds his people of stirring words from old song. (Compare the difference between these lines of verse and Éomer's dialogue immediately following--there is the response 'in character'.) But something else is at work here.

"Mourn not overmuch" is pure Old English verse form, in both rhythm and allieration. These lines from Éomer do not belong to Tolkien's subcreation; they are not like the elvish languages he created for Middle earth and they are not like the other verses. They take me out of the secondary world and put me right back in the primary world, for this is Old English verse, not an approximation.

Thus, it isn't a sub-created form at all, but a specific language form of the primary world. I suppose readers who don't know this take the primary world Old English as Rohirric. But here are the word forms of The Battle of Maldon and of Beowulf, and here, the primary and secondary worlds are the same.

Perhaps this is a small place where the fantasy collides with the purported history? Earlier, in "The Muster of Rohan", Tolkien used an approximation of OE verse form in "From the dark Dunharrow in the dim morning" but there we are given the verse as a legend retold:

On down the grey road they went beside the Snowbourn rushing on its stones; through the hamlets of Underharrow and Upbourn, where many sad faces of women looked out from dark doors; and so without horn or harp or music of men's voices the great ride into the East began with which the songs of Rohan were busy for many long lives of men thereafter.

What follows is the Dunharrow verse. And immediately following the verse, we are given the narrator's 'historical revision' of those lines:

It was indeed in the deeping gloom that the king came to Edoras, although it was then by noon by the hour.

A narrator's comment about the accuracy of song and legend!

So, was Tolkien here (in the invocation on the death of Théoden) deliberately attempting to conflate the subcreated world with the primary world so we could see that this is the early history of his people? I wonder why he might do that here. It seems a tall order given the events we have just 'witnessed'. And, anyway, we have previously been told that such verse was song created after the fact.

So, I am left with two reasons why the passage broke the enchantment for me: it was an awkward movement for the character, a rough patch where the previously used elements of fictional characterisation come face to face with heroic voice from Old English. (Heroic lines in OE verse are usually created after wards, not in the heat of battle, although they are given in the heat of battle.) Here, in these lines, the Rohirrim = Anglo Saxon. The applicability is destroyed.

I can't for the life of me figure out which editor/translator/narrator would want to do that.

EDIT: whoops! cross posted with davem