Silmarillion

brunians at brunians.org · 07 Jul 2010, 20:49 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: brunians at brunians.org (brunians at brunians.org)
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 16:49:24 -0400
Subject: (urth) Silmarillion
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This is only one reading.

.


> I'll put it this way. Tolkien was interested in languages. He invented
> his own language in his 20s which he called a "Fairy language". But a
> true language must occur over time. It has to change according to
> certain rules. So Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion as a world for his
> language to develop within.
>
> In "Leaf by Niggle", Tolkien wrote a story about a guy who enjoyed
> drawing leaves and was very good at that. So he began drawing landscapes
> with distant mountains as a backdrop for his leaves. Eventually,
> everyone liked his his landscapes and were crazy about what was going on
> in those distant mountains. That's the story of the Silmarillion.
>
> On 7/7/2010 3:36 PM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
>> It was based upon his ideas regarding deep history.
>>
>> In other words.
>>
>>
>>> When I was but a young lad in college, I took a course with Prof. Hoyt
>>> on the linguistics of Middle Earth, including an extensive survey of
>>> Prof. Tolkien's own writings on the subject, his speeches, and his
>>> views on language.  The scholarly consensus among such people as H.
>>> Fauskanger (who runs the Ardalambion website) is that Tolkien's
>>> literary works served as a backdrop for him to experiment with the
>>> changing field of philology and its metamorphosis into modern
>>> linguistics.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 2:33 PM,<brunians at brunians.org>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Tolkien wrote books.
>>>>
>>>> He expected to make money selling them.
>>>>
>>>> He did make money selling them.
>>>>
>>>> His major income did indeed come from his professorship.
>>>>
>>>> You speak quite confidently as to Dr Tolkien's motivations.
>>>>
>>>> I wonder how intimately you knew him.
>>>>
>>>> .
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Tolkien made his living as a professor.  The "background" of the
>>>>> Silmarillion was to give his world an impetus for his languages to
>>>>> change, much as our own did, coupled with his desire to formulate a
>>>>> modern mythology for Great Britain.  Ergo, Silmarillion and all of
>>>>> his
>>>>> "notes" that have been posthumously edited and published by his son.
>>>>>
>>>>> LH
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 1:22 PM,<brunians at brunians.org>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The man wanted to get paid.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is not an hypothesis.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> .
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 1:43 PM, Dan'l
>>>>>>> Danehy-Oakes<danldo at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 2010/7/7 Ant?nio Pedro Marques<entonio at gmail.com>:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> The Quenta Silmarillion is an unfinished book, but why is it
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> deeply
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> flawed?
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Try reading "Of Beleriand and its Realms" without falling
>>>>>>>>>> asleep.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Is that a matter of not 'leav[ing] out the parts that people
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> skip'?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It's a matter of not doing a good job of integrating one's
>>>>>>>> infodumps.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Again, not a novel.  The infodumps were as much for the author's
>>>>>>> working
>>>>>>> out
>>>>>>> of his creative impulse as anything else.  Personally, I'm
>>>>>>> fascinated
>>>>>>> by
>>>>>>> Tolkien's process, and while "Of Beleriand and its Realms" is a
>>>>>>> hard
>>>>>>> slog,
>>>>>>> I'm glad to have it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>>>>>>>>   _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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