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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Feb 12, 2008 23:20:09 GMT -6
Just want to "bump" this part of Fim's post to the foreground here, needs answers! "Here's my question: What is the relationship between the geography of the Hobbit world, and the Sil world? If I read Fan's post correctly, early on JRRT intended that they happen in the same locations. But though he later stitches them together in the same world, it clearly isn't the same places. Sil is located in Beleriand - which is drowned at some point - I think at the end of the first age, but I'm not finding that at this moment. Did Tolkien decide to drown Beleriand simply to explain the radical change of geography for the Hobbit? Or did it always end that way? (I know that the drowning of Numenor was always integral to that story, but what about Beleriand?) I haven't read the HoMe series so the intricacies of Tolkien's earlier drafts are unknown to me. I can answer when Beleriand sank at least. It was indeed the end of the First Age. In fact, it was the cataclysm that ended the First Age. That was the point at which the Valar went to war with Morgoth, came to Middle-earth, wrecked shop, and decided "Whoa, let's lay off the divine wrath, guys, before we break something else! This is why we can't have nice things!" The Drowning of Beleriand is a pretty epic finale to The Silmarillion. The idea of that not being part of the story is intriguing to me. If Tolkien originally intended The Hobbit to be taking place in the same lands, wouldn't that mean he had no such definitive ending to his earlier Elvish mythology? That's what doesn't jive for me about the idea of linking the downfall of Beleriand to the genesis of The Hobbit. If Beleriand wasn't always intended to be destroyed, how would the Elvish mythology have ended in this version? Regardless, I think it might be stretching things to assume The Hobbit was to actually be in Beleriand rather than in a world that also contained Beleriand. Perhaps that's what leads to the development of Ages in Tolkien's work. The more links he established between the mythology and his children's story, the more he realized the two just didn't mesh stylistically and needed to be divided into separate ages and areas of the world to make sense.
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Post by fanuidhol on Feb 13, 2008 5:34:47 GMT -6
I do have some answers (the other answers are likely in the other volume that I don't own) but I'll have to ask you to have patience. Fan
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 13, 2008 10:05:49 GMT -6
Like Fan, I'll need time to run down appropriate quotes, but I think in Vol. IV and V there is some discussion about whether/ when Beleriand sank, and HOW MUCH of it was lost. As I vaguely recall, one version in the early Silmarillion had it sink in the First Age, but a later revision softened this blow, to just a partial subsidence so that the Second Age assault on Thu was led from Beleriand by Amroth (rather than Gil-galad). But maybe I got that wrong. I'll see if I can find it again. At any rate, by the time of the publication of the "standard" Silmarillion version, Fredegar is correct, and Beleriand goes under the waves totally at the end of the the First Age.
Is this what you are looking up, Fan? If so, I'll bow to your superior research skills and wait for your results!
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Post by fanuidhol on Feb 13, 2008 12:31:39 GMT -6
Andorinha, keep the image of me studiously flipping through a pile of books, taking notes, mumbling to myself "Take that Andorinha!" when I find just the right quote.... Reality is that I can't be too far from the bathroom for any length of time.
Research away! Fan
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 18, 2008 11:04:49 GMT -6
While Fanuidhol flips studiously through the pages, I have accessed another section of the online review of John Rateliff's Mr. Baggins, and have found something curious therein that tends, I think, to support the case for an independent status original to The Hobbit. In this case, even the geographical setting of the tale seems to be placed in question as, having in JRRT's mind, no necessary connection with Middle-earth at all.
From the early Pryftan Fragment, Bilbo to the Dwarves: "I have no magic signs on my door and I am sure you have come to the wrong house -- but treat it as the right one. Tell me what you wish me to do and I will try it -- if I have to walk from here to Hindu Kush the Great Desert of the Gobi and fight the Wild Wire worm<s>. of the Chinese." (Rateliff, MB, part one, p. 9).
Now this gives me the feeling that at one time, Bilbo's venture was actually to be set in our own "real world" and possibly sometime in the era when trips to the Gobi were still romantically adventuresome and not yet routine (Marco Polo?), say 1300 AD to 1900?
This is the first time I've had reason to doubt the placement of the tale in Middle-earth. Now, I wonder how quickly JRRT then moved to embed Bilbo's saga in his Middle-earth geography? Do the Gobi Desert and Chinese references still show up in the next stage of the writing, the Bladorthin Typescript? When are they dropped? Gack, will I HAVE to buy Rateliff's books after all?
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 18, 2008 19:53:13 GMT -6
Andorinha quoted from Rateliff: Geeze. It makes me want to take a trip to Marquette University and ask Matt Blessing for permission to study The Hobbit manuscripts that are up there! Although the professor's penmanship is usually pretty horrid so it might be difficult to see what he has written in many places!
Fanuidhol and Fimbrethil...you both live about 8 to 10 hours way from Milwaukee don't you? I'm only an hour and a half away. We should plan a field trip! Andorinha how far away are you?
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Post by fimbrethil on Feb 18, 2008 22:40:00 GMT -6
A field trip sounds like fun!
Does Marquette have all the early versions of the Hobbit? I looked online at their collection, but I couldn't find any place that listed them by these "nicknames" - like Pryftan fragment. Do we know that it is there?
I agree that the geography that Andorinha has discovered seems very significant. It seems that Tolkien had no original intention to connect "In a hole in the ground..." with the tales of the Simarils and their world.
Unless...
He always (I think) intended that the Silmarillion was a mythology for England. Could it be that the Hobbit story was to be in a medieval England? And therefore the allusions to Beren and Tinuviel would be to the very distant past? This is a huge stretch, I know. But what was his plan for how everything linked together?
Fimbrethil
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 19, 2008 1:44:55 GMT -6
Nyah-Nyah-Nyah!!! A quick trip to the book store, and I've secured my very own copy of Rateliff's Mr. Baggins!!!
I am shocked, and dismayed! (LOL!)
In reviewing Rateliff's strenuous efforts to place Bilbo's tale tightly within a Silmarillion context, I fear he plays fast-and-loose with the facts adducible from the published texts and the early manuscript/ typescript fragments.
FACTS ESTABLISHED (until Dratted Fan can find some contrary citations!):
1. The Pryftan Fragment has several geographic locales mentioned in passing that are embarrassments to Rateliff: China, Gobi Desert, Hindu Kush, and the Shetland Islands.
2. There are NO geographic names in the various texts of The Hobbit that can be matched up with those of the pre-1930 legendarium.
3. The name Beleriand does not occur in any of the versions. Nor does Tol Eressea, or Kortirion.
4. There are NO crossover characters except Elrond, who, in the early versions of The Hobbit is not yet the same as Elrond son of Earendil (see Letter of JRRT mentioned in the messages above, Letters, #257, pp. 346-47).
The dis-used name "Fingolfin" that Rateliff makes much of, is NOT a connection to The Silmarillion, rather just another case of Tolkien using a "place-holder" name until he can work out another more appropriate one. In this case, JRRT had a joke in mind concerning the invention of the modern game of golf, and he needed some name with "golf" in it. Fingolfin" was available, but totally inappropriate, and soon dropped for a better, fully new name without prior connections or history in the legendarium, Golfimbul.
5. Sometime, late in the composition of the book, as even Rateliff admits, the Necromancer = Thu = Sauron may have been added to give Gandalf a needed excuse for leaving the Dwarves and Hobbit on their own, Sauron was NOT an original part of the story, as JRRT makes clear in Letter #19, p. 26 as we mentioned above.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 19, 2008 2:59:09 GMT -6
Tonight, the matter of "geography" claims my primary attention, see Mr. Baggins, pp 17 - 23, where Rateliff's essay, "The Geography of the Tale & The First Map" presents the claim that Bilbo's tale is set in the western lands of Beleriand -- as Fan has hinted up above. After reading this section twice over, I believe Rateliff does not prove his thesis, and indeed this section seems to do nothing better than illustrate just how wild his imagination can be as he allows it to gallop all over the facts available.
Rateliff starts out trying to brush aside the geographic references to our REAL world found in the Pryftan Fragment (China, Gobi Desert etc). He feels that by simply saying: the fantasy Middle-earth is connected to the REAL Earth, all these specific references are meaningless. Middle-earth IS our Earth. Yeah? So what? How does this remove/ invalidate the placement of the hobbit's tale in its early Chinese context? Rateliff never really explains this, he just rushes on past it, assuming we have dropped the matter, because HE certainly has.
He seems to be hinting that just because JRRT once connected The Hobbit geographically to China, it does not mean that this connection is valid, especially as these references disappear by the time of the published version. Well, that may be so, but this is a dangerous line for Rateliff to take, because this would then mean that ANY statement Tolkien once made in early versions, and then left out -- could likewise be null and void. Well, that's acceptable to me. JRRT had The Hobbit once placed in a world where there was a Gobi Desert, and China, but later changed his mind. He also may have placed it in a context where Beren and Luthien's destruction of Tol Gaurhoth fitted into the narrative* -- but again he changed his mind and dropped that angle too. OK, great, I can live with both those alterations. It is FAIR to drop the one (China) and then drop the other (Luthien and Beren); either drop then both, or re-insert them both.
But, apparently, Rateliff CANNOT play fairly here. He wants so badly to prove that The Hobbit always had a firm connection with The Silmarillion that he is quite willing to drop the Chinese/ Gobi Desert stuff -- but then refuses to drop the Beren and Luthien material. He does not like the Gobi reference, it dilutes his thesis; but he absolutely NEEDS the Beren and Luthien reference if the chain of his argument is to make ANY sense at all. This is Unfair, right? Illogical? So how can he justify keeping Beren and Luthien AFTER JRRT himself tossed them out of the narrative? Simple, he cheats.
In the HOME volumes, BLT specifically, Rateliff finds a curious statement -- not from JRRT -- but from Christopher Tolkien. Rateliff takes this statement out of its context, and raises it to the height of a law, but a law he will later twist (hereafter I'll refer to this, jokingly, as "CT's Law"):
"Christopher Tolkien warns us [in BLT] ... that just because an element drops out of the later versions of one of his father's stories does not necessarily mean that the conception had been abandoned..." (MB, p. 17)
So, just because JRRT drops the Beren and Luthien passage as being "unsuitable" in The Hobbit, Rateliff now feels that he can slip it right back in, and JRRT can just go hang!
So how does does Rateliff justify this action? Well, his chain-linked argument runs like this, The Hobbit is well integrated into the Silmarillion mythos because:
Link 1: An early version of The Hobbit mentions Beren and Luthien. Link 2: Beren and Luthien destroyed Thu's castle Tol Gaurhoth. Link 3: Tol Gaurhoth was in Beleriand. Link 4: if we accept Thu = necromancer, and The Necromancer = Sauron, and assume Thu = Sauron, then Sauron's castle is the one that Beren and Luthien destroyed. Link 5: Dol-Guldur MUST be Tol-Gaurhoth, so they are in Beleriand. Link 6: The Necromancer's tower is in southern Mirkwood in The Hobbit, so Mirkwood MUST be in Beleriand. Link 7: Bilbo's home is west of Mirkwood, therefore, Bilbo's home is in Beleriand.
Does this chain stand up to the strains that we must put upon it?
Even Rateliff must have realized how sorry this chain appears, because he went off on another tangent trying to find collaboration elsewhere -- taking another citation out of its context, and selectively re-interpreting it under CT's Law!
He found in BLT a statement that "the lonely isle later known as Tol Eressea, was England itself (BLTI24-25); Kortirion among the trees the city of Warwick..." etc. (MB, p. 17). So from this bit of geography (later abandoned totally by JRRT as I'll demonstrate) Rateliff congratulated himself on finding a second avenue of proof that Hobbiton was in Beleriand, and The Hobbit was ALWAYS an integrated part of the Silmarillion back story myth.
___________ *Given the fact that the manuscript here, where the Luthien and Beren material is placed comes only in a brief and chopped up note, I think it rather more likely that JRRT had a sudden thought that here some of his older material might fit. He penciled it in, the later realized it caused enormous trouble, and did not work after all. He removed it then, because it had place in the new tale.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 19, 2008 4:22:30 GMT -6
Unfortunately for Rateliff, using his concept of "CT's Law," he has now chased himself out onto a nasty, high limb. Can he survive the fall?
If he is to have a Hobbit tale connected integrally with the back story myth, he must convince us that Hobbiton is in Beleriand, and all the alterations made in Middle-earth geography since BLT I are not valid, and only the ancient version (that JRRT long ago discarded) must hold sway. Rateliff would still have us believe, that because once Tol Eressea was equated with England, it would ALWAYS and FOREVER be England. I think NOT!
So, how convincing is he?
Rateliff wants to be able to use "CT's Law" whenever it is useful to his thesis, but he also wants to disallow its use when it contradicts his own assumptions. Consequently he points out that back in BLT 1 Tolkien once toyed with the idea that his Elven realms of Luthany include a Tol Eressea that was once identified with England, and the City of Kortirion was once associated with modern English Warwick. Rateliff assumes that this version still rules Tolkien. But does it? By the 1940s, during the time he was putting LotR together, JRRT found it necessary to use quite a different version of geography, one that seems to enter the backstory with Vols. IV and V of HOME when Beleriand is drowned, and later Numenor is also. Now, and thereafter JRRT conceived of a Shire located where England is today, far, far to the east of Beleriand (now under the Atlantic Ocean) and far, far, far east of Tol Eressea. In fact, after Home IV and V, Tol Eressea was abutted next to the heavenly lands of Valinor, and was so sacred that no Men (mortals including hobbits) could set foot there under penalty of the gods. Then, following the fall of Numenor, Tol Eressea was removed entirely from the round globe of the mortal lands -- while today, I do believe, England, is still with us in this mortal realm...
Here, then, Rateliff's attempt to use the BLT1 material to bolster his chain fails completely. By 1940, it was impossible for England to be associated with Tol Eressea, and that thought had to be utterly abandoned by JRRT. Rateliff's attempt to resurrect it is plain nonsense. So Rateliff is now left with his simple chain of 7 links, and if any one of them proves unacceptable -- the whole argument collapses.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 19, 2008 4:23:28 GMT -6
So, How Does The Chain Fare?
A bit later, Rateliff tries valiantly to force poor Thror's Map into a Beleriand context (bottom p. 19). To do this, Rateliff has to ignore what the "Map of Fimbulfani" (later the "Map of Thror") really shows us -- precisely nothing at all.
Plate I, just after MB p. 216, gives us very little real information, just a star-shaped mountain, and a bit of the water course of the Running River. With the exception of its orientation to the north, this map is the same as that found in the published versions of The Hobbit, and -- if we restrict our judgments to just this map -- the mountain COULD be located any where in Tolkien's Middle-earth, or even in our own Gobi Desert. We know from legends on the map, that the Iron Hills lie to the east, The Withered Heath lies north, and Mirkwood is off to the west -- but how far away are they? We have to wait some time further for the creation of a larger scale map to put the Mountain into its context, the map of the Wilderland found as the end piece in The Hobbit.
So, where then is this Wilderland in relation to the legendarium geography? To serve his attempt to place Bilbo's house in Beleriand, Rateliff must now convince us that Mirkwood is also in Beleriand. What is his evidence for this astonishing statement? Can he show us a quote from JRRT, or even a suggestion from Chris Tolkien? No. He simply decides, all on his own, that the Mirkwood of Bilbo's tale MUST be most closely associated with the ancient forest of Taur-na-Fuin, which was in Beleriand.
"Can Mirkwood or the Wild Wood be tied to any of the great forests in Tolkien's early mythology? Certainly Beleriand itself was originally called 'Broseliand' (later emended to 'Broceliand') in the 'Lay of Leithian' ... A much better candidate, however, is Taur-na-Fuin ... the forest of the Night." (MB pp 19-20)
How does he make this leap!? There once was a "night Forest" in Beleriand, and now we have a forest called Mirkwood -- both are dark and night-shaded, therefore both are the same! NONSENSE! Tolkien often uses the same images, over-and-over. Fangorn's wood is a dark forest, The Old Forest by the Shire is a dark place, Mirkwood likewise, but they are not therefore exactly the same forest in the same location. But Rateliff assumes they are.
Another bold leap, Mr. Rateliff then makes -- not content with having given just one example of his astounding agility -- is his jumping to the conclusion that because Thu-Sauron once had a tower (Tol-Gaurhoth) in Taur-na-Fuin, that Dol Guldur (not really mentioned as such in The Hobbit) must be the same as Tol-Gaurhoth. What, cannot Sauron ever have more than just one home? Seems later on in LotR times he has two, Dol-Guldur and Barad Dur.
But Rateliff persists, having "proven" to himself that Tol-Gaurhoth and Dol-Guldur must be the same, he proudly cries that this "proves" Mirkwood = Taur-na-Fuin, and therefore Mirkwood must be in Beleriand! And if the eastern forest of Mirkwood is in Beleriand, then Bilbo's house (westward of the forest) must likewise be in Beleriand. Therefore, in Mr. Rateliff's mind, the story of the Hobbit is firmly set in Tolkien's Silmarillion geography!
Amazing!!! LOL! With such leaps of logic, I could soon prove to the gullible that I am Lindberg's kidnapped baby!
What Rateliff has done here, in trying to make The Shire a suburb of Beleriand, is batten on a single, parenthetical note, about the Necromacer's tower being destroyed by Beren and Luthien. JRRT soon removed this citation, which, I bet, was only momentarily in his head, and soon removed as unsuitable. It was especially unsuitable because there were three self-evident reasons why it would not work in this present hobbit/ dwarf tale: 1. Tol-Gaurhoth was ruined, and abandoned FOREVER, so the new dwelling place of this Necromancer could not be the one referred to in the Beren and Luthien tale. 2. The time sequence would be problematical, and much of The Silmarillion would have to be re-written to fit Bilbo's tale into the older history. 3. There would be an enormous problem concerning the geographies.
Rateliff, assumes, VERY INCORRECTLY, that JRRT could never make a mistake, and if he once used Beren and Luthien, even for just a minute in the hobbit tale, they must be there forever and ever, that JRRT had no right to change his mind and delete even this erroneous material. LOL. But WE know better. JRRT DID delete the Beren & Luthien material, and he MEANT it to stay deleted, despite Ratelif's attempts to stick it back in again. And, without the erroneous Luthien & Beren citation, the entire chain by which Rateliff seeks to prove Bilbo lived in Beleriand falls apart.
In conclusion, I think where Rateliff has gone wrong, is simply that he allowed himself to be blinded by his own zeal to convince himself (and us) that The Hobbit is a firm part of the Silmarillion legend from its beginning. He has grotesquely over-stated his case here, and has been most careless in twisting the facts, and distorting JRRT's legacy. JRRT worked, as he tells us himself, by the "spur-of-the-moment" and composed piece-meal many of his tales. Some would subconsciously influence the others, but fine details like where and when the hobbit's tale should be placed, were matters he left for later works of revision and reconciliation. There is no need -- though Rateliff apparently feels it -- to try to FORCE all JRRT's writing into the mold of the Legendarium of The Silmarillion; and, as in this case, the attempt simply results in silliness. Beleriand IS not, in JRRT's "Hobbit," nor ever was, so far as the texts show us, the home setting of The Shire; and Mirkwood IS NOT Taur-na-Fuin.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 19, 2008 11:09:56 GMT -6
RE Stormrider's: "Fanuidhol and Fimbrethil...you both live about 8 to 10 hours way from Milwaukee don't you? I'm only an hour and a half away. We should plan a field trip! Andorinha how far away are you?"
A field trip does sound good, sigh, but I'm 1454 miles from Milwaukee, 24 hours driving time, a bit far.
RE Rateliff:
In the next section, the Bladorthin Typescript, JRRT continues with the Chinese, Real World connection, reduced to a simple message about "the Wireworms of the Chinese" p. 40. Hmm, so what's a Wireworm, and are they really associated with China? For this chapter, the notes made by Rateliff do not attempt to press the "Hobbiton in Beleriand" absurdity.
So, what I'm picking up, thus far (despite Rateliff's attempts to the contrary), is the sense that The Hobbit has more "stand alone" features in it than connections with the Silmarillion, and we seem to be left with Letter 19, p. 26, as the main source of connection, Necromancer = Sauron, but with JRRT's own admission that this was only an incidental connection, made late in the composition to give Gandalf an excuse to leave the expedition. How much of Thu = Sauron, and whether the Lay of Lethian material regarding Thu is relevant for the later Sauron, I think, remains in question. As for geography, well there is still no direct connecting place name that would allow me to see a Middle-earth placement until after HOME Vols IV and V have altered the world and drowned both Beleriand and Numenor, and this seems to come in the 1940s to smooth The Hobbit account's juncture with LotR and make it (long after The Hobbit was published) more congruent with the sequel volume that told Frodo's tale.
Maybe someone else with access to Rateliff can come up a viable alternative?
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Post by fimbrethil on Feb 19, 2008 16:22:15 GMT -6
I've just ordered a copy of Rateliff's book through Interlibrary loan, and it will take a couple weeks before I get it. Then I can have a more informed opinion.
I'm not buying it because the conversation here has convinced me I probably don't want to buy it, and also I just spent a chunk of book-money to buy the Rob Inglis audio CDs of LOTR. I've wanted these for years, and I'm looking forward to brightening my commute with Tolkien. (I listened to them years ago, on library copies of the CDs, and always knew that I needed to own them someday.)
I'm intrigued by the idea that Tolkien originally placed the Hobbit in some extension of the real world. I long suspected that he hadn't always meant to include it in his developing world, but I thought it was in some "other place," undefined.
About a year ago I read William Morris's The Well at the World's End. Somewhere I read that Morris was the first to put his stories in other worlds. Prior to that fairy stories and fantasy typically happened "Once upon a time" - somewhere and somewhen in our world. Of course, it used to be that there was such a thing as "terra incognita" on the globe - places that were unknown and undiscovered by Europeans. Lilliput was reached by sailing vessel. Once the whole earth was mapped, it became necessary to create other places where fantastical stories could happen.
Fimbrethil
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 20, 2008 9:57:02 GMT -6
RE Thimbrethil's: "I'm intrigued by the idea that Tolkien originally placed the Hobbit in some extension of the real world. I long suspected that he hadn't always meant to include it in his developing world, but I thought it was in some 'other place,' undefined."
Interesting, I'm reading "Roverandom" right now, and it is likewise placed in our Real World (in a general sense) even though its protagonist is a dog who fluidly shifts (or is shifted by wizards) from real to toy to real again. Farmer Giles is likewise in our Real World, just a long time ago (Sub-Roman Britain 410 - 550 AD). I'm trying now to find ANY story of his that does NOT take place in this world, or as you put it "in some extension of the real world."
When Lewis and JRRT split the chore of writing science fiction, Lewis chose "other worlds" while JRRT took "this world, other time," did this choice reflect a pre-conditioning predilection on his part? For The Hobbit, I wonder if JRRT was simply following the standard European, Fairy-tale practice -- a format laid down long before modern (post rationalist times 1500 on) science made the idea of "other world" visits a routine part of human fiction? Just as the hobbit/ Dwarf tale has its roots in this Fairy-tale complex, so, the default mode of placement for anything "Fairy-tale-ish" JRRT might write would be our own world?
After 1925 or so, JRRT had amassed a considerable amount of Elfdom material, his "legendarium" or mythos, and this stuff was set in one version or another of our world removed by time, and I think that this stuff was always in the back of his mind, and that it crept eventually into most of his "independent" works. In 1927 as he was writing down "Roverandom" (originally another "told-tale") he mentioned that it began to absorb bits and pieces of the mythos. This is how I see The Hobbit developing -- a loose oral tale that gradually became formalized, and lost some of its original time/ place settings as it became ever more gradually drawn into the mythos mass, eventually requiring a major revisionary episode to finally, firmly make it part of that legendarium.
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 20, 2008 21:54:42 GMT -6
When I first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the world it was set in seemed very much like it could be our world. The settings, peoples, life-styles, values all seemed like a more ancient age in this world--except that the peoples were humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, wizards, orcs, etc. However, as I read the stories, I assumed it was set somewhere else and not on our earth or in any of its ancient ages.
But I had read or heard somewhere that Tolkien wanted to write a tale for England so I wondered if Middle-earth was supposed to be our own Earth. But after reading The Silmarillion, Valinor and Middle-earth really did not conform to any of the religious or scientific explanations of the creation of earth.
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