The Translator Conceit

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

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.

Trespass against good style?

I must take affront at that statement, I fear. Tolkien's style here might not be adequately explained within the immediate text, and that may break the enchantment, and perhaps only be explicable by the "translator conceit" (and note that I use the term "might". Since this quibble isn't about the bigger issue, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt).

But "trepass against good style" suggests that Tolkien's style here is in bad taste, or possibly just vulgar. And here I disagree.

The style is not what the issue is here. The issue is that the style does not fit, in the opinions of those who feel that the "translator conceit" is just that, a conceit. As to whether the style is, as your statement would imply, a bad one, is an entirely different issue.

Personally, I find the " 'igh-falutin' speech" to be very enjoyable. Although not really proficient in it, I love reading it, and sprinkling words of it wherever I might in my writing. I believe that there are many others here that feel similarly or the same.

The issue, therefore, is not that the style is "bad", persay, but that it is not fitting, or satisfying in its use.

Now, I will readily admit that you probably didn't intend your statement to be taken the way I have. But I cannot be sure. You are, by own admission, a writer, and a writer ought to know his words. So while I assume that you don't mean what you seem to say, I cannot, as a devotee of such styles, not respond to such a comment. Let us not confuse the argument...