The Canon

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Of course, what may have been in Tolkien's mind as much as anything was simply that published matter couldn't be changed, at least not easily (neither the Hobbit revisions nor the LR second edition were exactly planned), at least as much as reflecting the completely fictional "underlying truth."

OTOH, T loved to play Patience (Solitaire), and I think part of the "game" to him was working around the constraints of the cards as dealt, even though he had dealt them himself.

---------------

NB: I agree that a younger, more flexible Tolkien could have saved Beoran ros, simply by positing that Gondorian Sindarin was a "medieval" rather than a "classical" Sindarin, which like Latin in the ME had absorbed some vernacular loan-words. Ros' acceptance into Dunedainic Sindarin would have been all the more easy given that every Numenorean knew the name of their founding King. T of all people knew that living languages are never static!

[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Of course, what may have been in Tolkien's mind as much as anything was simply that published matter couldn't be changed, at least not easily (neither the Hobbit revisions nor the LR second edition were exactly planned), at least as much as reflecting the completely fictional "underlying truth."

Agreed. And as I would put it, when doing this Tolkien is essentially drawing the line between canon (what he himself had published for a readership at large) and everything else. And even when he decides to alter what Frodo said to Gildor (second edition) he is still aware of this line in the sand, and of course why it exists [and in WPP he again tries to come up with an internal explanation for Frodo's "mistake"].

OTOH, T loved to play Patience (Solitaire), and I think part of the "game" to him was working around the constraints of the cards as dealt, even though he had dealt them himself.

Agreed again, as I think the matter of Glorfindel shows -- not only could Tolkien have simply changed the name of the Gondolinic character, but at one point he acts like he needs to stick to the "fact" that Gondolin was mostly populated by Noldorin folk, which itself was the older and seemingly "rejected" idea in any case, given that he had later added plenty of Sindar into the Gondolin mix! Memory glitch in my opinion, but it goes to the point I think. Although even in the late text, if "most" of the Gondolin Elves were Noldorin -- say if Tolkien was actually going back to the old idea here, which I doubt -- most still isn't all in any case.

And maybe it's the back of the same hand, as the matter of Glorfindel shows -- when Tolkien realizes he "cannot" make the Rivendellic Glorfindel one of the Sindar due to what was published.


And agreed for a third time about ros. I'm not sure why even an older Tolkien didn't try the path of loan word here... though I say this with the reservation that: I am no linguist, and he... well, he is JRR Tolkien!

If loan-word does work, perhaps Tolkien didn't think about the matter for very long, for whatever reason.

Edit: actually I think the old idea about Gondolin was that its folk were all Gnomes/Noldorin... ah my pedantry, even I'm not safe from it!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Yes, the original story was that Gondolin wasn't founded until after the Nirnaeth by Turgon's regiment fleeing the battle,* all of them of course Gnomes. The new story arose pretty 'late'- IIRC not until the Grey Annals ca. 1951-2 - where Gondolin had been founded long before by Turgon's mixed-race people from Nevrast.

That however runs into the problem of language- why would the people of Nevrast not have followed the rest of Beleriand in speaking Sindarin save the Noldor among themselves? Probably because in the GA as written the old linguistic system was in place, where the language we know as "Sindarin" was still "Noldorin." (It's really sort of a wonder to me that Tolkien covered his tracks in the Lord of the Rings so well that nobody even suspected that a Great Linguistic Shift had occurred between its writing and its publication)

----------------------

*So where did the women and kids come from?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Okay- how would you class the "canonicity" of this very interesting excerpt from a 1965 letter.... not by Tolkien, but by his secretary apparently in consultation with him:

Is there going to be another book? Professor Tolkien is hoping to complete for publication another work, called the Silmarillion, an account of the history and mythology of the First and Second Ages and the early part of the Third Age as it has come down through the Numenoreans, but he is kept from it by other matters....

[Just incidentally, the secretary was the future Mrs. Christopher Tolkien, and the typewriter the same one CT would use for many years including his early letters to me]

[Galin]

If you're asking me WCH...

... to me it wouldn't be canon even had Tolkien himself written it. Which doesn't mean I don't believe Tolkien did not intend to finish and publish his Silmarillion however (interesting line "as it has come down through the Numenoreans" by the way, considering the date).

"Canon" for me is an internal affair, a guide for Middle-earth the subcreation. Tolkien himself wrote that Ambarussa perished in the fires of Losgar for instance (as I know you know). I believe JRRT intended to make this true within his world, and so my personal Silmarillion includes this as a "real" event...

... does yours? Does Christopher Tolkien's imagined personal Silmarillion include the early death of this Elf? Maybe, maybe not. It's not canon, and despite that it seems very much to me that Tolkien desired this new revision, I can't know it with the same confidence that I know Aragorn is the son of a man named Arathorn, or that Felagund became Finrod Felagund in the second edition... the line is still there, but if Tolkien himself had published the early death of Ambarussa, I'm thinking the readership at large (includes folks not born yet) would hold this as true, it wouldn't only be true according to my personal Silmarillion (or possibly other people's too), due to the weights and measures that I (or some) accord to writings outside canon.

Maybe it's my choice of nomenclature. I use "unpublished" texts (including parts of letters) to expand my personal Middle-earth, I just consider them with the same line drawn in the sand that I believe Tolkien drew, or that Tolkien should draw due to the art of subcreation: already published work comes first -- it's really the only "canon" JRRT needs to mind I think, both when he is trying to be consistent, and when he purposely introduces an inconsistency (or even gives into a niggle).

It's quite interesting when Tolkien plays the game you raised, treating still private texts as if they are already in print, and "known", but for myself I doubt that if a given scenario proved unworkable for some reason, Tolkien would not bend to putting story above a concern that he knows he has constructed as a "must consideration" of sorts.

There's an art to being inconsistent too (not that you said otherwise), and this type of inconsistency is not the mere act of revision when working toward a final version of something.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Of course, the publication trench-line meas that there is virtually no canonical "fact" regarding the Elder Days at all, beyond the fragments in the LR Appendices. individuals named Hurin and Turin existed and were apparently mighty warriors, but we know nothing about them; and there was never any such person as Fingolfin or Maedhros!

---------------------

I think that that is a very interesting letter (unfortunately only the last half-sheet was preserved by the recipient); not just for the "Numenorean transmission" line but also because its mention of the Second and Third Ages indicates that Akallabeth and Of the Rings of Power were by this time clearly intended for inclusion in the book T planned to publish.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Of course, the publication trench-line meas that there is virtually no canonical "fact" regarding the Elder Days at all, beyond the fragments in the LR Appendices. individuals named Hurin and Turin existed and were apparently mighty warriors, but we know nothing about them; and there was never any such person as Fingolfin or Maedhros!

Yes, but of course that doesn't mean we all can't expand our visions of Middle-earth by employing the posthumously published texts. This canon line is not a barrier to imagining (and engaging with) and discussing the First Age. It might seem dismissive to say there was "never any such person" as Maedhros, but despite that there is no canonical version of this character and his deeds, all of our personal Silmarillions surely include him (or if not, why not), and there is little reason [so far that I'm aware of] to believe that Meadhros was going to become a very different character from what we see both in the constructed Silmarillion, and in the actual extant texts Tolkien left behind (from which the Silmarillion was constructed).

And so we discuss the life and character of Maedhros as if he is as attested and as canonical as Frodo Baggins. And who wants a Middle-earth without Maedhros? Not me. The distinction need not erase him from our imaginative Middle-earths, but "canon" would have helped me engage with the Maedros tale if his story or character had been drowned under a pile of posthumously published, confusing material.

It remains merely possible that Tolkien could have altered Maedhros' character and his actions, even drastically, but that's injecting the "possible factor" without reasonable grounds [unless someone has some]. I can however, reasonably (in my opinion) argue that there was no character in Middle-earth with a name Maedhros that meant "Pale-glitter", and because Tolkien had never attested the name in any published work, he was free to niggle with its form and meaning, which he did.

I think that that is a very interesting letter (unfortunately only the last half-sheet was preserved by the recipient); not just for the "Numenorean transmission" line but also because its mention of the Second and Third Ages indicates that Akallabeth and Of the Rings of Power were by this time clearly intended for inclusion in the book T planned to publish.

No argument here. I also argue that (I think) Tolkien intended to publish The Drowning of Anadune, which contains purposed confusions and contradictions in it when compared to Akallabeth. I can't prove that he would have for sure, nor can I prove that the "final" form as we have it in HOME was going to be the final form. I've little doubt that JRRT desired the works you note to be published, but such general statements need not mean "in the form they currently exist"... and even if that was Tolkien's meaning, we are still in a grey area, if in the admittedly not very compelling arena of merely stamping "not authorized" on something -- not that it matters much in various cases (in one context or sense, anyway) -- I mean the fact that something was posthumously published is probably going to lurk in the back of people's minds in an all-agreed-upon sense... until one stumbles across points of arguable contradiction or confusion.

For example, if I post that Galadriel was referred to as a queen of Lothlorien according to OTROP, can I post this as a fact due to this section of the letter you raised? If I did, I'll bet someone would point out that JRRT himself never published OTROP in any case (in other words, someone would call its canonicity into question), likely adding that we don't know that the form that we have today was fully revised in an updated context, and so ready for print, and that the "no queen" statements found in Unfinished Tales post-date this (and I think, the Zimmerman Letter too)...

... but if I post that Gimli called Galadriel a queen in The Lord of the Rings, I doubt folks would attack the canonicity of the source. So if Tolkien's "latest" (but never published by him) statements are to become a fact of the internal world, one has to say that maybe Gimli's statement is merely his opinion, and that he is wrong or at least arguably uninformed about how Galadriel sees her role in Lothlorien. Then again, why can't Gimli be correct? Robert Foster calls Galadriel a Queen in his Guide to Middle-earth, both the original and revised versions. There is the matter of canon, and there is how much one is willing to weight canon against other texts when constructing the world of Middle-earth beyond what the author himself published.


You also brought up the Hurin/Turin tale; and again, as I know you know, Christopher Tolkien explained: "It was my father's intention ultimately to transform Sador, the old serving-man in Hurin's house in Dor-lomin, into a Drug." [Christopher Tolkien, note 8, The Druedain, Unfinished Tales] We don't have that version, of course. We don't have any canonical source for a detailed version of the Turin tale -- again, that doesn't mean that Hurin and Turin don't exist in (I assume) all our personal Silmarillions, but it does illustrate that what wasn't already in print is quite open to Tolkien's changing tastes and imagination.

Interestingly, Robert Foster's early (pre-constructed Silmarillion) Guide to Middle-earth notes that the hero of the First Age Turin seems to have killed a Dragon, and to have become a king, based on ATB.