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11-11-2012, 02:56 PM | #1 |
Haunting Spirit
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 72
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Full length stories
Is there any indication that Tolkien would've, if he had had the time or longevity, brought some of the other stories and legends in The Silmarilion to a more complete state? I mean the way he worked on The Children of Hurin until that work was complete and in a novel format? More a finished story rather than a summary or brief history of one?
Also, are there any tales which are almost close to completion or are in a state complete enough to publish as full stories (like CoH), but have not been edited/released due to CRRT's old age and the amount of time such a project would need? If the entire saga of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings makes up but a few pages in The Silmarillion. being written in much the same "history" sort of style as that work is, I imagine you could fill an entire library with books if Tolkien had had the time to bring all of the legends and tales in The Silmarillion to a full length, fully fleshed out state. |
11-11-2012, 07:25 PM | #2 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
Posts: 479
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Apparently almost 100% of J. R. R. Tolkien’s posthumous works on Middle-earth have been published in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Children of Húrin, and in the 12-volume HoME series. Linguistic material is still being published in the publications Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar (see http://www.elvish.org/).
I have never heard of any unpublished Tolkien material related to Middle-earth that is close to being a completed story. Indeed I have never heard of any unpublished Tolkien material related to Middle-earth at all, save for purely linguistic material being published in Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwa, which is probably not what you are talking about. The last three volumes of the HoME series contain a number of almost-complete or complete items that mostly fit in with The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the published Silmarillion. Morgoth’s Ring (HoME 10):
Last edited by jallanite; 11-11-2012 at 11:20 PM. |
11-11-2012, 09:30 PM | #3 | |
Late Istar
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
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Quote:
In the revised version of the Quenta Silmarillion that he wrote in the 1950s (LQ), for example, there is a tendency toward a longer-form narrative than in the previous versions. Unfortunately, the substantive new work on LQ breaks off just after the Darkening of Valinor. A similar thing happened in the 'Annals of Aman' and particularly the 'Grey Annals'. The predecessors of these annals, written in the 1930s, were brief chronological outlines of events (somewhat like the 'Tale of Years' in LotR), but in the new version they slide into a more narrative mode. In fact, much of what became 'The Children of Hurin' derived from the Grey Annals. But naturally, the Grey Annals aren't complete either; they taper off soon after the death of Turin. At least at one time, Tolkien seems to have considered writing full versions of all the later Silmarillion tales - essentially from Beren & Luthien onward. In some notes that date from the 1950s, he mentions a hypothetical work called the Atanatarion, the 'Legendarium of the Fathers of Men', which would include the 'three great tales': the Narn Beren ion Barahir, the Narn i Chin Hurin, and the Narn e Dant Gondolin ar Orthad en El - that is, the 'Tale of Beren son of Barahir', the 'Tale of the Children of Hurin', and 'The Tale of the Fall of Gondolin and the Rise of the Star'. In the note, he proposed making these tales appendices to the Silmarillion. In another place he refers to a hypothetical tale called 'Sigil Elu-naeth', or 'Necklace of the Woe of Thingol'. In fact, one can make the case that he started writing each of these - or at least, in each case, there's something that could have served as the longer form of the tale if it had been completed. - The post-LotR revision of the 'Lay of Leithien' could have served as the 'Narn Beren ion Barahir', but it tapers off around when Beren arrives in Doriath. - The 'Narn i Chin Hurin' was in fact almost completed, and, with minimal touching up, a complete version was published as The Children of Hurin. - The vivid narrative called 'The Wanderings of Hurin' was apparently intended to lead into the 'Sigil Elu-naeth', but it breaks off before Hurin goes to Nargothrond. - The text given in Unfinished Tales under the name 'Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin' was actually intended to be a full-length 'Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin', but it breaks off just as Tuor reaches the city. Last edited by Aiwendil; 04-12-2014 at 11:04 AM. |
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