Transmission theory: what the heck was Tolkien thinking?

[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

But wait- that letter was written in 1965, at the same time the Revised Edition of the LR was being prepared. And what did T do in that revision? Why, he doubled down on the Bilbo-transmission theory, making it more explicit than the 1st Ed. had been that the Silmarillion was Mr Baggins' "Translations From the Elvish"- seemingly a complete contradiction of the Numenorean-legend theory.

Who can read this riddle?

I don't see why the two ideas are necessarily contradictory. Numenorean material ends up in Middle-earth, where it can ultimately be translated by Bilbo Baggins in Rivendell. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil was published in 1962, which already included the author-published (cough "canonical") reference:

"These two pieces [poems 6 and 16], therefore, are only re-handlings of Southern matter, though this may have reached Bilbo by way of Rivendell. No. 14 also depends upon the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Numenorean, concerning the heroic days of the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Numenorean tale of Turin and Mim the Dwarf."

JRRT, Adventures of Tom Bombadil

I suppose that if we had to come up with a fan-ficcy ret-con, we could run with the idea of "Arnor library preserved in Rivendell" and go further by positing that the Elves don't write "history" the way Men and Hobbits conceive it, being as they are immortals with perfect memory recall.* Elvish writings about their past would lean towards poems giving abstracted impressions of tales already well-known to the audience, rather like Bilbo's own Lay of Earendil.

Yes, the Eldar wrote history (their type anyway) despite that their lore could be stored in "the vast houses of their minds". For anyone interested, see The Shibboleth of Feanor and author's note 24 about the making of Exilic books.

Therefore Bilbo would instead have turned to the recognizably "historical" works written by the Dunedain-- which would still have to be "Translations From the Elvish" since Arnor's scholars presumably wrote in Sindarin.

*The only problem with that is the in-universe attribution of the Annals to Rumil and Pengolodh. Of course, that authorship would have to disappear under the "Numenorean transmission" theory anyway.

I'm not sure why the authorship must vanish however. For the revised internal history of AAM* [Morgoth's Ring] Tolkien even notes that Rumil made the Annals of Aman in the Elder days, and that they were held in memory by the Exiles, and that those parts which "we" learned were thus set down in Numenor before the Shadow fell upon it.

Still, one would have to assume Bilbo never let Elrond or Glorfindel proofread it!

If they read the material, I would rather expect them to expect that Bilbo Baggins not change the ancient historic or poetic material in the archives, even if parts of it are "incorrect" about some points... no more than a modern translator would need to correct passages from Classical works, if they contained some thing or things modern minds knew to be false, or arguably misleading. Bilbo was attempting to translate materials, not correct them, as Elrond or Glorfindel would recognize, I think.

And by translating certain works as accurately as possible, various points of view could be represented too. Any more purely Western Elvish texts or oral traditions would (or could), for example, contradict certain ideas found in more Mannish texts, and even some of the Numenorean accounts could contain references to what the "wise of Numenor" said about some matter or idea, even if only a scribble in a margin somewhere. In the older conception with Elfwine, Tolkien has Elfwine note that the Tale of Hurin's children was written by a man, but in the Sindarin tongue; and Elfwine writes...

"I have not added to Dirhaval's tale, nor omitted from it anything that he told; neither have I changed the order of the history. But on matters that seemed of interest, or that were dark with the passing of the years, I have made notes, whether within the tale or upon its margins, according to such lore as I found in Eressea."

JRRT, Elfwine and Dirhaval, The War of The Jewels

Why can't something similar be said of Bilbo, altering for example, Eressea to Rivendell? But the stories remain, if not "sacred" at least as pieces of art as well as history. They are not to be corrected by Bilbo, arguably especially as some have already become altered and confused as they passed through Mannish hands and mines before landing on Elrond's bookshelves.

And in my opinion we have to give JRRT some room here, as (very generally speaking), he hadn't even finished the tales themselves, much less their internal histories down through Numenor and east over Sea.

[Galin]

Galin said: They are not to be corrected by Bilbo, arguably especially as some have already become altered and confused as they passed through Mannish hands and mines before landing on Elrond's bookshelves.

Mines or minds... whatever

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Galin

But the stories remain, if not "sacred" at least as pieces of art as well as history. They are not to be corrected by Bilbo, arguably especially as some have already become altered and confused as they passed through Mannish hands and mines before landing on Elrond's bookshelves.

Yes I don't feel that there's any problem with Bilbo translating Númenórean legends, or with such legends being kept by Elves who would have known better. After all, they are presumably works of art in their own right regardless of "scientific accuracy", to be appreciated as such, and the Elves/Bilbo may well have seen them that way, as relics of a lost culture rather than vital historical records in serious need of updating.

For all we know, Bilbo knew, either of his own accord or from his conversations with the Elves, that they were poeticised/mythologised versions of what "really" happened, but didn't care, because that wasn't why he was interested in them.

I actually find this reflective of the interesting dichotomy that I feel exists between the more "satisfactorily realistic" reformed creation story, in which the Sun exists before the Trees, and the more "poetically pleasing" earlier one in which the Trees exist before the Sun. Perhaps both can be appreciated for different reasons.

I suppose the question is: did Professor Tolkien give up on the "true" account of creation and very early history because it would have been too hard or because the reformed version lacked the beauty of the original?

Christopher Tolkien wonders if "the old structure was too comprehensive, too interlocked in all its parts, indeed its roots too deep, to withstand such a devastating surgery", but admits that he has "no evidence on the question one way or the other".

I must admit that a more "scientifically minded" side of me has always struggled a bit with imagining a period of history in which the Earth was thriving with creatures (including Elves) and yet the Sun didn't exist and the world was perpetual starlit night-time. On the other hand, the Trees are such a powerful image, and I feel that they lose some of that if the Sun existed first. I feel the same way about the round Earth vs the flat Earth. The Ban of the Valar is somehow less striking when it feels like they also needed to tell the Númenóreans that they weren't allowed to just sail up the other side either.

[Galin]

Well put Zigur. And my theory is as follows...

"It is remarkable that he never at this time seems to have felt that what he said in this present note provided a resolution of the problem he believed to exist." [referring to Tolkien's...]

"What we have in the Silmarillion, etc. are traditions... handed on by Men in Numenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor); but already far back -- from the first association of the Dunedain and Elf-friends with the Eldar of Beleriand -- blended and confused with their own Mannnish myths and cosmic ieas."

Christopher Tolkien, JRR Tolkien, Myths Transformed, Text I, Morgoth's Ring

This provides the solution, and I underlined "at this time" because we do have later references from JRRT where he characterizes the Silmarillion as a largely Mannish affair; in other words, I would say he recognized the solution a bit later.

I think Tolkien gave up on the Myths Transformed texts in the sense that he did not need a new Quenta Silmarillion to replace the older one. The beauty of the old concepts could be retained, and other texts or accounts, or even marginal notes by the Wise, could serve to hint at the "truer" nature of things. Texts like the Awakening of the Quendi, for example, being more purely Elvish in authorship, could reveal (as it does) that though the Elves awoke under the stars, they awoke at night, and the Sun already existed before they awoke... to contrast with the Mannish account where Men awaken with the Sun, and the Two Trees get mixed into their version.

I have posted before that I think JRRT "ratified" the Mannish version of the fall of Numenor, called The Drowning of Anadune (DA), which includes that the Western Elves taught that the world is round before the fall of Numenor. The Drowning of Anadune (Mannish tradition) is, I think, meant to stand next to Akallabeth (mixed tradition) in the legendarium as a whole, although I don't think a second version of Quenta Silmarillion was in the works, or necessary.

In my opinion the Myths Transformed texts or notes began as a path to replacement, but whether they were abandoned due to being too invasive, or due to losing beautiful or powerful ideas (or both reasons combined), or some other reason, I think Tolkien ultimately decided (or realized) that he had found the solution anyway -- re-characterizing Quenta Silmarillion as largely Mannish. Add the Numenorean transmission, which garbles things on their long path to Elrond's vaults, some of which then is translated faithfully, Elvish into Westron, by, of all people, a Hobbit from the Shire... though it seems fitting enough given the role of certain hobbits in the fall of Sauron.

The original transmission also explained how we got the legends into Modern English through Elfwine's Old English (adding Tolkien-as-translator's expertise in Old English). The later idea with Bilbo gets us to Westron, although there are some ways that could explain how we got from Westron to Modern English as well.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I don't know if it was quite the case that Tolkien had overtly rejected the ideas he was considering in the Myths Transformed texts, so much as he was ambivalent. He had already, in the late 40s, gone to a round world model and back; and, like us, his modern Science Mind was aware that the Earth is round and orbits a Sun that is at least as old, but his Literature Mind was also aware that his cosmological myth is utterly beautiful if utterly "unscientific."

The whole idea would of course be hard to sustain if followed through completely: the Science Mind knows that the Evening Star is an uninhabitable earth-sized planet millions of miles away, not a guy in a boat with shiny jewel, but it ain't nearly as good a myth.

Besides, how "scientific" is a world with dragons, invisibility rings and giant glowing trees?

[gondowe]

We don´t know what Tolkien could have devised as the "Real transmission theory", but with the data we have the transmission posted by me above is the more plausible theory with its weaks, in my opinion.
In other way, a text like the Awakening of the Quendi never was though, in my opinion again, as a "real history tale" within the Mythology. It was said that it was "Actually written (in style and simple notions) to be a surviving elvish fairy-tale or child's tale, mingled with counting-lore" .
Of course this is indepently of the fact that Elves knew the "Truth" and Men don't.
Greetings

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Well, yes, IF one assumes that Tolkien was interested in synthesizing two (or three) alternate theories, rather than just picking one and chucking the rest.

I find it interesting that well after both the Myths Transformed essays and the publication of the LR, he was still writing pieces in which Pengolodh was relating lore to Aelfwine- the old Lost Tales-era transmission theory which can't be shoehorned into either of the others without a hydraulic jack!

So at various times he had 4 (or 3-1/2) theories, as follows:

1) 5th century Angle Eriol discovers the Lonely Isle (the future Great Britain) and learns the Elves' history, and witnesses its end. Recorded in "Golden Book of Tavrobel," presumably somehow preserved at Warwick. Essentially "true."

1a) 10th century Anglo-Saxon Aelfwine discovers the Lonely Isle (not Britain) and learns the Elves' history from (Rumil and) Pengolodh. Recorded in Old English, which Tolkien the OE scholar "discovered" and "translated." Essentially "true."

2) Bilbo Baggins translates history from writings in Quenya/Sindarin kept at Rivendell, records them in the mutivolume Red Book, copied in the "Thain's Book" in Gondor, ultimately "discovered" and "translated" by Tolkien the"Westron scholar" along with the earlier parts of the Red Book. Source materials in Elrond's library, and recollections of the Wise, essentially "true."

3) Numenoreans/Dunedain write down "history" which at least in its earlier parts is mingled with Mannish myths and garbles the actual facts as known to the Eldar. Transmission uncertain, but presumably similar to (2). Considerable parts not "true."

There are some real difficulties trying to reconcile any of these, like "solving" a jigsaw puzzle by hammering together pieces that don't actually fit with each other.

[Galin]

WCH wrote: I don't know if it was quite the case that Tolkien had overtly rejected the ideas he was considering in the Myths Transformed texts, so much as he was ambivalent.

Agreed upon the ideas (I don't know either), but he appears to have abandoned the texts themselves anyway (and the reference to the Dome of Varda in the Later Quenta Silmarillion is interesting, in any case).

gondowe wrote: In other way, a text like the Awakening of the Quendi never was though, in my opinion again, as a "real history tale" within the Mythology. It was said that it was "Actually written (in style and simple notions) to be a surviving elvish fairy-tale or child's tale, mingled with counting-lore".

Yes, an Elvish fairy tale; and that, I think, is the beauty of it.

Tolkien not only doesn't begin the text with an obvious statement about the sun already existing, but the source itself is arguably questionable as a "historical" source -- but then again, what does the Sun existing before the Elves awaken have to do with "counting lore", or the way in which the First Elves find each other? "It seems my father had resolved (at least for the purposes of this fairy tale) the problem of the name "Star-folk" of the Elves in a beautifully simple way: the first Elves awoke in the late night of unclouded stars, and the stars were their earliest memory." Christopher Tolkien, War of the Jewels

"At least for the purposes of the fairy tale" is noted, but the information is still there for any reader to find and wonder about, especially given the new characterization of Quenta Silmarillion, along with (as I believe) another example like DA, which challenges the Mannish idea of the shape of the World. Within this Elvish text we read that the Quendi awoke in the early twilight before dawn, for example, which would not be a controversial description from the Western Elvish perspective, and offers a nice pathway for a variant interpretation regarding the Sun.

WCH wrote: I find it interesting that well after both the Myths Transformed essays and the publication of the LR, he was still writing pieces in which Pengolodh was relating lore to Aelfwine- the old Lost Tales-era transmission theory which can't be shoehorned into either of the others without a hydraulic jack!

After The Lord of the Rings was published (first edition) yes, but what Elfwine related texts were written well after the Myths Transformed material?

[snip of two older transmission ideas] (...) 2) Bilbo Baggins translates history from writings in Quenya/Sindarin kept at Rivendell, records them in the mutivolume Red Book, copied in the "Thain's Book" in Gondor, ultimately "discovered" and "translated" by Tolkien the"Westron scholar" along with the earlier parts of the Red Book. Source materials in Elrond's library, and recollections of the Wise, essentially "true."

But at this stage we don't really know about what is essentially true with respect to each and every text, do we? Not from an internal perspective at least, I would say. And with respect to the first edition Lord of the Rings, do we really know for sure if a Quenta Silmarillion text was necessarily involved specifically, in Bilbo's material?

3) Numenoreans/Dunedain write down "history" which at least in its earlier parts is mingled with Mannish myths and garbles the actual facts as known to the Eldar. Transmission uncertain, but presumably similar to (2). Considerable parts not "true."

There are some real difficulties trying to reconcile any of these, like "solving" a jigsaw puzzle by hammering together pieces that don't actually fit with each other.

But what's the specific difficulty with the notion: Bilbo Baggins translates certain texts that have come down from the First Age, passed through Numenor, Arnor and Gondor, and ended up in Rivendell. Looking at things externally doesn't necessarily create inconsistencies internally.

Between the first and second editions, in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, it seems we can have lore reaching Rivendell from the South, and we have the Numenorean tale of Turin and Mim. And in the second edition, Tolkien adds references to suggest that Bilbo's translations from the Elvish (language) include First Age material. Compare to the First Edition, Appendix A:

"Thus the Red Book contained many annals, genealogies, and traditions of the realms of the South and the North, derived through Bilbo from the books of lore in Rivendell; or through Frodo and Peregrin from the King himself, and from the records of Gondor that he opened to them: such as The Book of the Kings, The Book of the Stewards, and the Akallabeth (that is, The Downfall of Numenor). From Gimli..."

It's not until the second, revised edition that Tolkien notes (in addition to adding the Note on the Shire Records as well): "The ancient legends of the First Age, in which Bilbo's chief interest lay, are very briefly referred to, since they concern the ancestry of Elrond and the Numenorean kings and chieftains." Appendix A

I'm still not sure what the real difficulties are regarding reconciling Bilbo with the Numenorean transmission.