Tolkien Translations

[Guinevere]

@Akhtene and Elven-Maiden: about the special charm of reading in a foreign language: you and I are in the best company! When browsing in Tolkien's letters I just came across this statement (from letter #142):

"Also being a philologist, getting a large part of any aesthetic pleasure that I am capable of from the FORM of words (and especially from the FRESH association of word-form with word-sense), I have always best enjoyed things in a foreign language, or one so remote as to feel like it (such as Anglo-Saxon)."

Still, I believe that to read a book in the original language will always be superior to any translation, and especially so with Tolkien, who was such a master of words!

In his works I feel that often information can be drawn not only from what is said but from HOW it is said.

[ January 28, 2003: Message edited by: Guinevere ]