Oversight, or changing conceptions?

[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Except he didn't. My Second Edition has "Finrod," bold as brass. The correction to "Finarfin" was posthumous, in 1976 (originally only the UK edition; the change wasn't made to the H-M until the Anderson revision in 1987,* and in the Ballantine never).

Yikes. I've had it my head for years that Tolkien changed it for the revised edition! Although Christopher Tolkien writes [Unfinished Tales, note 20, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn] . . .


"Before the revised edition of The Lord of the Rings was published in 1966 my father changed Finrod to Finarfin, while his son Felagund, previously called Inglor Felagund, became Finrod Felagund. Two passages in the Appendices B and F were accordingly emended for the revised edition -- It is noteworthy that Orodreth . . ."

. . . according to Hammond and Scull, as you say, the change wasn't seen in print until after Tolkien's passing.

As for the names being "Sindarin"- why shouldn't they have been? Tolkien was very consistent in all the First Age texts in using what were originally Noldorin name-forms, and came up with a nifty ret-con for why the same forms (now "Sindarin") were used in later histories.

In Words, Phrases and Passages (PE17) Tolkien notes that Finrod should not have a Sindarin name because he stayed in Aman. And in Tolkien's "ultimate" conception of the name Finarfin, it's characterized as a Sindarization of Finwe Arafinwe in any case, and JRRT explains why, even though he remained in Aman.

Or as I might be soon writing: as Finrod stayed in Aman

And there we have a decent example of things being changed out from under the published text of the LR in the background, and the LR being altered to suit.

Well, is what we have here an authorized alteration?

And by that I don't mean -- is this change evidenced in posthumously published accounts -- I mean does the choice to alter already published text here come from JRRT himself (but the change didn't, for whatever reason, end up in the revised edition until after Tolkien's passing)?

And if it's not authorized, how does this stand alongside Christopher Tolkien's choice to "alter" (or at least leave out) the detail of Celegorm's golden hair due to what is said in the Appendices -- if I recall correctly, CJRT notes that this decision was based on a statement in Appendix F with respect to the dark-haired Eldar/Noldor?

Another one would be the omentielmo/vo alteration.

Here it seems that Tolkien couldn't help himself tinkering with an element of his languages, and gave in to stepping on already published text . . . and invented an internal reason for it.

He's treating author-published text differently than his private texts, as well he should in my opinion. All the Quenya pronouns hidden away in Tolkien's desk drawer can be altered without a thought of creating "inconsistency" . . . except if one is published, and later Tolkien changes his mind about that one.

The primary vehicles of Tolkien's creative thought regarding the Elder Days were always Quenta Silmarillion and the Annals, and the occasional allusion in the LR merely the moon's reflection of the sun's light.

Again, this seems to be a matter of detail.

I think it's worth drawing distinctions between works that were definite revisions or wholesale replacements of earlier works, that is, the earlier works were definitively rejected; . . .

I agree. I do this, and draw other distinctions you mention too.

a handful of later writings actually marked "official and final;"

What works are these? I don't recall the wording here.

In any event, in Unfinished Tales Christopher Tolkien points to the fact that Galadriel's actions could still be "transformed radically" for example, "since the Silmarillion had not been published" -- and we could echo this for so very many ideas that had not been published.

And flipping this coin, what other distinction would Tolkien himself be very naturally aware of? The one that stopped him from claiming ros was a Beorian word, or led Christopher Tolkien to give his opinion that Celebrimbor would have remained a Feanorean. Publication of course. CJRT also wrote (my emphasis here):

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"It may be suggested that whereas my father set great store by consistency at all points with The Lord of the Rings and the Appendices, so little concerning the First Age had appeared in print that he was under far less constraint. I am inclined to think, however, that the primary explanation of these differences lies rather in his writing largely from memory. The histories of the First Age would always remain in a somewhat fluid state so long as they were not fixed in a published state; and he certainly did not have all the relevant manuscripts clearly arranged and set out before him."

Foreword, The Peoples of Middle-Earth
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Ursula Le Guin did some fancy dancing with Earthsea, for example. But she herself published the later books of course, leaving no question as to whether she truly wanted to shine such a new light on Earthsea.