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davem · 05-22-2005, 05:09 AM

I'm glad some one has brought this up as I think its an important aspect of the legendarium & one which has not really been dealt with.

It affects the story in many ways. First, it possibly accounts, as LMP has said, for the variations in style we find not just in LotR but in The Sil as well. Much (if not all) of this was deliberate on Tolkien's part & was there for a reason. The Legendarium isn't simply a history - it also has a history of transmission. We begin with the original events which are told by the witnesses & participants. Thesed accounts are then written down, both in prose & verse. The prose accounts may be either annalistic, literal or romanticised to a greater or lesser degree. Once they are written down they are copied by various hands over various periods ( Flieger points out that Findegil is 'the third generation copyist of a second generation manuscript copy of a first generation primary manuscript'). There are differing, sometimes competing, accounts from different perspectives, written for different reasons - I've read one essay which posits that the reason the sons of Feanor are shown in such a negative light in the Sil is that the texts that make it up come in large part from Bilbo's 'Translations from the Elvish' which he composed in Rivendell from books & accounts available to him there. Now, if we take into account the relationship of Elrond to the Feanoreans maybe we can speculate that the records & histories available there may not have been entirely free from bias!

So, we have these records, which have come down to 'Tolkien' in the form of a copy of the Red Book, which he translates into modern English & makes available to modern readers. How many removes are we currently at from the original events, how much bias - in the form of choices made over which texts to copy & which to reject, how many scribal errors, have crept in?

What Tolkien has done is provide a historical chain of connection from the original events to the copy of LotR that we hold in our hands, yet we can never know what actually happened, because all we have is a translation of copies of copies of copies of selected manuscript versions of tales re-told numerous times over millenia of the original events &, as we know, Tales have a tendency to 'grow in the telling'.

The other interesting thing about this conceit for me is that it makes Tolkien into a character in his own legendarium - he is the final link in the chain of storytellers, last in the long line of scribes who translate & pass on the stories of the past. So, we have JRR Tolkien the author writing a fictional account of the history of the world whish includes the character of 'JRR Tolkien' who came into possession of an ancient manuscript, translated it into English & sent it off to Allen & Unwin. Again, Flieger points out that the runes around the original cover of The Hobbit that Tolkien painted read: 'THE HOBBIT OR THERE AND BACK AGAIN BEING THE RECORD OF A YEARS JOURNEY MADE BY BILBO BAGGINS OF HOBBITON COMPILED FROM HIS MEMOIRS BY JRR TOLKIEN AND PUBLISHED BY GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD.'

The question is why he did this. Flieger in Interrupted Music goes into some depth to show that Tolkien was actually attempting to follow the process by which real world mythologies have come down to us, & shows that Tolkien was attempting not simply to create a mythology to stand alongside others, but a history, both internal & external, for it, which could do the same.

It seems that for Tolkien history & mythology at some point, in some way, met & blended. If his mythology was to stand alongside those others it would have to have an origin & history of transmission down to the present day & the book we hold in our hands must have a connection to the earliest manuscripts. More importantly though, the events of the mythic past must be shown to connect to the present via real history - but that's straying into the territory he explored in Lost Road & Notion Club Papers.

Anyway, I hope I haven't strayed too far off topic here, as the original question was about specific examples of this conceit...

05-22-2005, 05:09 AM	#2
davem Illustrious Ulair Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties Posts: 4,240	I'm glad some one has brought this up as I think its an important aspect of the legendarium & one which has not really been dealt with. It affects the story in many ways. First, it possibly accounts, as LMP has said, for the variations in style we find not just in LotR but in The Sil as well. Much (if not all) of this was deliberate on Tolkien's part & was there for a reason. The Legendarium isn't simply a history - it also has a history of transmission. We begin with the original events which are told by the witnesses & participants. Thesed accounts are then written down, both in prose & verse. The prose accounts may be either annalistic, literal or romanticised to a greater or lesser degree. Once they are written down they are copied by various hands over various periods ( Flieger points out that Findegil is 'the third generation copyist of a second generation manuscript copy of a first generation primary manuscript'). There are differing, sometimes competing, accounts from different perspectives, written for different reasons - I've read one essay which posits that the reason the sons of Feanor are shown in such a negative light in the Sil is that the texts that make it up come in large part from Bilbo's 'Translations from the Elvish' which he composed in Rivendell from books & accounts available to him there. Now, if we take into account the relationship of Elrond to the Feanoreans maybe we can speculate that the records & histories available there may not have been entirely free from bias! So, we have these records, which have come down to 'Tolkien' in the form of a copy of the Red Book, which he translates into modern English & makes available to modern readers. How many removes are we currently at from the original events, how much bias - in the form of choices made over which texts to copy & which to reject, how many scribal errors, have crept in? What Tolkien has done is provide a historical chain of connection from the original events to the copy of LotR that we hold in our hands, yet we can never know what actually happened, because all we have is a translation of copies of copies of copies of selected manuscript versions of tales re-told numerous times over millenia of the original events &, as we know, Tales have a tendency to 'grow in the telling'. The other interesting thing about this conceit for me is that it makes Tolkien into a character in his own legendarium - he is the final link in the chain of storytellers, last in the long line of scribes who translate & pass on the stories of the past. So, we have JRR Tolkien the author writing a fictional account of the history of the world whish includes the character of 'JRR Tolkien' who came into possession of an ancient manuscript, translated it into English & sent it off to Allen & Unwin. Again, Flieger points out that the runes around the original cover of The Hobbit that Tolkien painted read: 'THE HOBBIT OR THERE AND BACK AGAIN BEING THE RECORD OF A YEARS JOURNEY MADE BY BILBO BAGGINS OF HOBBITON COMPILED FROM HIS MEMOIRS BY JRR TOLKIEN AND PUBLISHED BY GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD.' The question is why he did this. Flieger in Interrupted Music goes into some depth to show that Tolkien was actually attempting to follow the process by which real world mythologies have come down to us, & shows that Tolkien was attempting not simply to create a mythology to stand alongside others, but a history, both internal & external, for it, which could do the same. It seems that for Tolkien history & mythology at some point, in some way, met & blended. If his mythology was to stand alongside those others it would have to have an origin & history of transmission down to the present day & the book we hold in our hands must have a connection to the earliest manuscripts. More importantly though, the events of the mythic past must be shown to connect to the present via real history - but that's straying into the territory he explored in Lost Road & Notion Club Papers. Anyway, I hope I haven't strayed too far off topic here, as the original question was about specific examples of this conceit... __________________ “Everything was an object. If you killed a dwarf you could use it as a weapon – it was no different to other large heavy objects."