Tolkien and Negative Capability

[Galin]

(...) meaning that while it's probably safe to assume that an external ambiguity is unintended, the reverse isn't necessarily true: e.g. the two versions of The Elessar constitute an internal ambiguity in so far as they're presented as conflicting traditions within the secondary world, but does that mean the ambiguity is therefore intended? In other words, did the Prof leave the story ambiguous because he wanted it that way, or was he experimenting with two different stories on the spot and using the translator conceit to camouflage his own indecision?

OK, but regardless of that question, The Elessar presents a multi-version (internal) tale within the legendarium. If Tolkien isn't sure which story he likes, to me this approach is intended in any case, as JRRT can't be confused about the nature of the text he has produced, and can't not have considered the measure of ambiguity it introduces with respect to Secondary World building.

(The final note which has two Elessars and Celebrimbor as the smith of both seems to indicate the latter - apparently he had made up his mind [for the moment at least], therefore no more need for having two differing traditions.)

Tolkien appears to have later revised a detail concerning Galadriel in the 'Elessar-proper', and if done later than the end-note, this could indicate he might be 'back' to the first notion, or perhaps that he never really left, and that the end note only seems to be more certain because it's a very abbreviated summation.

In other words, Tolkien's note here might indicate that the Elessar text 'proper' was written so because he couldn't make up his mind at the point it was written... or it might just as easily represent Tolkien tossing out Enerdhil for Celebrimbor, and the seeming certainty of the fate of the first Elessar might be due to the brief nature of the note.

But *sticks out his neck* how much does it really matter? It obviously does a lot if you're trying to construct something like the New and Definitive Silmarillion (and if I'm not mistaken, both of you are among our Translators from the Elvish, aren't you?), coming as close as possible to what a final authoritative text might have looked like if the Prof had ever got around to publishing it himself. But otherwise?

I'm not one of the Translators from the Elvish, actually

Generally speaking, lack of distinction might gived a skewed picture of Tolkien as a World Builder. For example, I wonder how many websites out there present Tolkien's history of Galadriel and Celeborn as a jumbled set of contradictory texts, making no distinction between published and 'private', letter or essay, or even a hard to read note versus a finished and polished piece. If memory serves, sometimes all the distinction one reads is: 'in another version...'

If we are essentially sifting through drafts we are bound to find contradictions, and I say let's keep that in mind (seems only fair to Tolkien as an imaginative World-builder), and not further muddle the picture. To me, treating the Amroth contradictions as equivalent to what Tolkien was doing with the Elessar-stone (again no matter his motive to do it, he was fully aware of how it would play as part of the legendarium) is helping to muddle the picture a bit.

Not that it's a big deal necessarily... but it also gives me something to post

(and this all disregarding the fact that The Elessar itself is a rough draft text! but that's another matter)

[Findegil]

To me, treating the Amroth contradictions as equivalent to what Tolkien was doing with the Elessar-stone (again no matter his motive to do it, he was fully aware of how it would play as part of the legendarium) is helping to muddle the picture a bit.

That was not what I intended, for sure. I only wanted to add some additional piont of view. (Which is, if looked closer, exactly what is 'muddling the picture'. But aren't discussion exactly for that?)

It obviously does a lot if you're trying to construct something like the New and Definitive Silmarillion (and if I'm not mistaken, both of you are among our Translators from the Elvish, aren't you?), coming as close as possible to what a final authoritative text might have looked like if the Prof had ever got around to publishing it himself. But otherwise?

I am one of the 'Translators' as you liked to call it, even so there was near to no activity in the last 2 years. But anyway working in this project is rather a result of then a reason for thinking as I do.

To sum it up, I've discovered that, as a reader of Tolkien, I find the process of his subcreation at least as fascinating as the result, and looking at all the various transmutations of the Legendarium from BoLT to Myths Transformed, I'm rather more interested in observing his mind and imagination at work, seeing him trying out and rejecting different names and stories as he struggled to 'find out what really happened' (as he'd no doubt have put it) than I am in 'finding out what really happened' myself, ...

Well, thanks God, poeple are diffrent. For me it is just the other way around. I am more interetsed in finding out 'what really happend'. That said it is of course interisting to see the author strugle at that task, but the result or intended and unitended uncertainties are far more fazinating for me. This does not neccessarly mean that I try to find out what were Tolkiens last ideas of any given issue in Middle-Earth. There can be and certainly are often enough quite diffrent creteria that decide what is seems for me to be the most reasonable picture of Middle-Earth.

If I use Qenta Noldorinwa to answer questions about the Elder Days I will (no doubt) be 'corrected' about certain 'facts' all over the web, in any forum I choose to do this -- such facts as were clearly enough rejected in the 1950s and 1960s, although no version of Quenta Silmarillion was ever published by the creator of Middle-earth. Can I simply respond: though unintended by Tolkien, Qenta Noldorinwa can represent a variation of the Silmarillion tale, and can carry just as much weight as 1950s (and post 1950s) unpublished texts.

If you would put done reasons why you place more weight on the Qenta Noldorinwa then on the later texts, you would at least have some good discussions about these reasons, that's sure. E.g. if I consider a unique text from the Legendarium that was written contemproary with the Qenta Noldorinwa, it would be a very good idea to put the most weight on that text an consider earlier and later texts only in sofare as they show the development.
But of course you are right, there would be in each Forum imagianable one guy how would take out his blunderbuse and fire the rubish on you that he has grabed here and there. And he will be bold enough to call the result that he hope might kill your argument 'cannon'. But we both know that the harm he would do, would not be more then the one Giles did to the Giant. And as Giles did find out the cane of worms that is opened by fireing that blunderbuse might be wroth.
Or would you shriek back from a 'cannon'-discussion?

Respectfuly
Findegil

[Galin]

Well, in my theoretical there isn't any real reason besides the approach, that is: characterizing Qenta Noldorinwa as not an old, abandoned version of later Quenta Silmarillion texts (where they overlap at least), but as an internal variation of 'another' Quenta Silmarillion -- in other words, of the same nature as the Drowning of Anadune compared to AK.

And from that characterization alone, I then argue a different family tree existed, for example, because 'now' I have two internal competing texts. That's the analogy to the Amroth matter that made me jump in here in the first place: unintended uncertainty? yes unintended, and thus external.



But, for example, I can (and have) used DA in round versus flat world discussions, because DA is not an older abandoned version of AK, but a variation of the same tale within the legendarium.


If I characterize QN as internal, I think that is going to be the first target of the blunderbuss... and how would you suggest one ignore that theoretical sting?