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Originally Posted by davem
We might also want to ask how much 'Tolkien the translator' (ie the character within the secondary world version of the primary world) was like Professor Tolkien himself - can we assume he was as skilled & consciencious, or even as talented, as his real world alter ego?
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Originally Posted by Saurreg
Well that is a fair question.
You mentioned a valid point - the difference between Tolkien the literary "translator" and Tolkien the real life writer. I must admit that this has never crossed my mind before. Seperating Tolkien the fictitious from real-life, interesting.
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Well, it had crossed my mind, although my purpose in posting that bit about Tolkien the scholar's own pursuits was a tad different (more on that in a bit).
Tolkien would have had a very prominent model of an author who for laughsingly wrote himself into his text: none other than Geoffrey Chaucer himself, who creates Chaucer the Pilgrim as one of the characters in
The Cantebury Tales. The Host asks Chaucer the Pilgrim to tell the next story, and he does. "The Tale of Sir Topas" is a parody of Middle English romances, but it is also a witty self-parody of the author himself. What does the tale concern? *insert big grin here* An honourable knight has decided to take an elf queen as wife. However, his attempt to enter the fairy kingdom is thwarted by a three-headed giant called Sir Oliphant. It is told in rhyme scheme, too. Some call it a bit repetitive. The tale is told so badly that the Host interrupts and tells Chaucer the Pilgrim to end it quickly.
Would Tolkien, a man with a quick wit and a great sense of humour, if his Letters are any indication, have wanted to present himself as a sort of parody, a storyteller less able than his real self? I guess that is for us to discuss. I seem to recall that in his Letters he says that the his work was written "in his life's blood", which does not in itself suggest a strong degree of distance, which parody or humour most often implies. Nor, in fact, does this analogue in Chaucer suggest that Tolkien would have parodied himself in the purported narrator of LotR.
Anyhow, not that it relates to Tolkien at all, but simply because of the humour involved in discussing an author's persona, I offer this link to a discussion of Chaucer the Pilgrim. I would have linked the story instead, but either my net skills or the Net possibilites dim....
A Middle English scholar talks about author's persona
To be honest, my point in posting that article about Tolkien's scribal intent was cautionary. In our discussions of Tolkien's narrator, it might be best to consider what were the ideas historically available to the historical Tolkien. I wouldn't expect that we could argue a perspective of the scribal emendations that would reflect modern interpretations that were unavailable to Tolkien himself. Of course, we could, I suppose, argue that some kind of imaginative foretelling went on and Tolkien imagined a historical meaning of scribal effects that logically were not available to him at his time. (Oh, my, does this sound like Steiner's idea about Shakespeare and 'yellow'?--ref to another discussion).
Seriously, I think if we present interpretations based upon this model of the translator's conceit, we need to consider if Tolkien would willingly parody himself as author (or demonstrate a less competent author), and, second, if modern understandings of scribal transmission reflect a possibility in Tolkien's thought. I'm not sure we can say that the idea of a scribe revising/emendating/editing to shape the story to his audience was a concept available to Tolkien the scholar. Tolkien the writer might, however, be a different kettle of fish.
EDIT: cross posting with Celuien.