Questions About Arda Reconstructed

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I should, perhaps, clarify that there's a fair amount of evidence for what JRRT intended the Silmarillion to look like, but too many people are willing to make sweeping claims for a 'true' version and that can lead down unedifying cul-de-sacs. At best, and for purely personal interest, you could put together a Silmarillion, but it it would be presumptuous to call it definitive. Even CRT wasn't completely satisfied with his treatment, having grown up with the stories and having had many opportunities to discuss them with their author. That's the reason to exercise caution.

Having said that, I'm very much in agreement with Huinesoron on the general structure intended by JRRT. It's a shame that the verse treatments are incomplete and from an earlier stage of revision, but it seems fairly clear that they were intended as self-contained compositions. The structure of the annals would break up a narrative, and the various essays and philosophical considerations are more commentaries on the Silmarillion than part of the thing itself.

In the end, though, I think it best to appreciate each work on its own merits. I find it entertaining to imagine them as fragmentary pieces from the same culture, embodying divergent traditions and forms.

[Galin]

For myself, I think Tolkien's long poetic versions were to be part of Bilbo's three volume Translations from the Elvish, or at least The Children of Hurin and Beren and Luthien poems, two different kinds of poetry.


And, well, lots of other stuff

Also, I think (and if I recall correctly, this might echo Christopher Tolkien's opinion) that the Annals were merging in style and relative fullness with QS, and so a new Tale of Years, including the First Age, was going to step in there.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galin

For myself, I think Tolkien's long poetic versions were to be part of Bilbo's three volume Translations from the Elvish, or at least The Children of Hurin and Beren and Luthien poems, two different kinds of poetry.

This actually makes a lot of sense, because Bilbo, much like Tolkien, was a poet. They both resort to poetry at the drop of a hat, so if you gave Bilbo a choice between translating the Quenta Silmarillion or the Lay of Leithian, there's no way he'd even hesitate in choosing the latter.

This also helps explain the sheer size of the Translations: Leithian would have come to at least 6000 lines in its later, expanded form (probably much more); at 30 lines to the page that's a good 200 pages right there, whereas the Quenta version of the story probably wouldn't pass 20.

A wonderful companion to Arda Reconstructed would be an in-universe book on what exactly made up the Red Book, but I'm not sure it could ever account for the fact that The Hobbit + LotR made up only 1/4 of the original length...

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Warning: Neither Arda Reconstructed nor "Airryn" can be taken literally, because both operate on the false premise that the texts published in HME represent the totality of JRRT's manuscripts, and particularly make the mistake of assuming that the texts as published in HME represent their final state: in general, CT published the original state of each, and only included such emendations as he considered significant. In other words, assigning a particular phrase to "CT editorial change" simply because it isn't found in HME is an unwarranted assumption.

CT rejected AR, largely on that basis, ands pointed out that no such "brick-by-brick" analysis is possible without reference to his own private "History of the Silmarillion," an enormous tome which tracks every single variant reading and name in his father's manuscripts. (To my knowledge, nobody but Christopher has ever read it).