Thread: 600,000?
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Old 11-22-2022, 10:48 AM   #9
Mithadan
Spirit of Mist
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
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This question, Tolkien's suggestions in his letters to Unwin and Waldman that the Silmarillion and LoTR would be of roughly equal length has been nagging at me. I suppose that the succinct question would be what did Tolkien in the immediate time after he had "completed" LoTR (but not the appendices in their entirety), the roughly 1950-52 time-frame, expect that the Silmarillion would look like? Some might think that JRRT intended a "cover-to-cover" expansion of The Silmarillion along the lines of how the First Age stories found in Unfinished Tales were written. Most believe that the "Three Great Tales" (Beren, Hurin-Turin and Gondolin-Earendil) would be inserted into the Silmarillion framework or added at the end.

The answer may come from Christopher Tolkien in a piece that I, at best, skimmed over when I first read it. When Children of Hurin came out, I was a bit weary of CT's commentary and analyses of his father's drafts and focused, instead, upon the narrative. I was less interested in what was done when or why than simply enjoying the writing. In the introduction to CoH, CT refers to a 1951 letter that he says explained JRRT's intentions, both well before 1951 and, apparently, thereafter. Quoting the letter, in part, CT states that JRRT's intention was to include the expanded versions of the Three Great Tales within the framework of the Silmarillion as it generally had been written. I say generally because even at that time Tolkien was revising the Silmarillion itself, while, during the 1950-52 period, also working on the Three Great Tales.

The 1951 letter was to Waldman and is found in Letters of Tolkien at 131. This letter is a marvel. It is lengthy and not only summarizes the Silmarillion and the Akallabeth, but also states how they fit together with LoTR. Relevant here, the letter states that when he began the Silmarillion: "I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd."

While he calls this intention "absurd," this is precisely what he intended. The letter goes on to distinguish between the mythological portions of the Silmarillion, to be presented in short form as legendary, and portions "less mythical, and more like stories and romances, Men are interwoven." The letter also seems to discuss what he envisioned as four Great Tales to be presented in fullness, not the Three Great Tales we typically refer to. These are the Story of Beren and Luthien the Elfmaiden, the Children of Hurin, the Fall of Gondolin, and "the tale, or tales, of Earendil the Wanderer." To this would be added two Second Age tales, The Rings of Power and the Downfall of Numenor.

I have read the 1951 Waldman letter many times in the past but had focused upon what information it conveyed regarding the "lore" rather than what it said about the drafting of the stories. However, this seems to show why Tolkien, setting aside the practical impossibility of publishing them at the same time, represented that LoTR and the Silmarillion would be of roughly equal length.
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