Mithadan,
Given your comment that Tolkien never finished the tale of Tuor,
pace Unfinished Tales, I would then assume that Michael Martinez is correct in this statement about The Silm:
Quote:
"The Fall of Gondolin" is important to The Silmarillion. There is no doubt about that. But "The Fall of Gondolin" is not a part of The Silmarillion . "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin" was literarlly written by Christopher Tolkien. Sure, he tried to follow his father's writings, but what he calls editorial compression is, in fact, writing. Christopher Tolkien had to sit down and compose his own version of the tale, which already existed in at least four different versions (as "The Fall of Gondolin" from The Book of Lost Tales , as sections in "Quenta Noldorinwa" and "Quenta Silmarillion" from the 1930s, and in the fragment "Of Tuor and his coming to Gondolin").
The Silmarillion is a book, composed or compiled by Christopher Tolkien. "The Silmarillion" is a story which J.R.R. Tolkien began working on about 1930. The story became the book, but the book is not the story.
|
NB I have copied this from the link which Mhoram provided on the thread "A funny thing happened on the way to the Canon", the link being:
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/47861/63343)
I assume then that an answer to my question about the very different narrative pacing in the tales of Turin and of Tuor is that the later represents CT's style, not JRR's style.
So, my next question is, Is there any text or set of sources which separates CT's work from JRRT's work? The Silm project here, as I understand it, attempts to integrate all of JRRT's drafts into a definitive or authoritative text. My question goes in the other direction. How can I find the original fragments of The Silm before CT created his palimpsest?
Bethberry