XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien   
   From: dthierbach@usenet.arcornews.de   
      
   Troels Forchhammer  wrote:   
   > Your re-phrasing seems to deal with Tolkien's reuse of motifs between   
   > different stories (something he was, I think, particularly prone to   
   > do with _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ where he freely used   
   > motifs, narrative elements and other features from the Silmarillion   
   > texts by re-locating them in time and place and fitting them to the   
   > new story).   
      
   Yes, but not exclusively. I think Tolkien used this method all over   
   the place. It's like he had all these little "emblematic" motifs   
   somewhere in the back of his head, and then repeatedly tried to attach   
   them to different texts until everything fits (or sometimes not). Like   
   leaves looking for a tree, if you want :-) I can't remember too many   
   examples off the top of my head now, but besides those used both in TH   
   and SIL he re-uses them from fairy-tales (like Rapunzel's hair, which   
   we talked in CotW) or from other places like Beowulf (to come back   
   to the beginning of the thread).   
      
   > I agree that this is probably the better question to ask   
   > from the critical point-of-view,   
      
   It's not only the critical POV. I think it provides another level   
   of understanding Tolkien's stories. In this respect they are like   
   real-world myths -- people just steal ideas, modify them to some degree   
   and weave them into stories. Tolkien did the same, with his own ideas   
   and with those from other sources.   
      
   > but I don't think we should forget the readerly view-point, which   
   > deals largely with how things are intended to be perceived when   
   > reading the story.   
      
   I don't think one should call this the main POV of the reader, or   
   something. These are stories. There are there to be enjoyed as   
   stories. And it's important to recogize how everything hangs together.   
   The "Zusammenhang", as Shippey calls it (I wonder where he got that   
   word from :-)   
      
   The "yes, but what is the subcreated world *really* like?" game that   
   especially SF&F readers like to play with the authors is, at least IMHO,   
   an *additional* aspect, and not the main one (or the only one).   
      
   > Recognizing that Tolkien's intentions could change, I still think it   
   > is a valid question to ask whether Tolkien at any point during   
   > composition/revision intended for a reader who knew the Silmarillion   
   > to recognize the Arkenstone as one of the Silmarils?   
      
   Sure, one can ask all kinds of questions. And wrt. to the "can we construct   
   a consistent subcreated world" there's a clear answer (in retrospect).   
   But this POV misses so much interesting stuff.   
      
   > With respect to the initial thought -- the very moment when Tolkien   
   > 'borrowed' the Silmaril motif for the Arkenstone, it could be   
   > interesting to know what Tolkien was thinking there and then; and of   
   > course it could also illuminate the process of Tolkien's reuse of   
   > motifs.   
   >   
   > Coming to think of it, this is probably what you had in mind anyway   
   > ;-)   
      
   Yes. See above. I think Tolkien did this quite often.   
      
   >> Yes. Of course there was the little problem of changing a work   
   >> that was already in print :-)   
      
   > That didn't stop Tolkien before.   
      
   Of course. But it's a real PITA selling the larger changes to the   
   publisher :-) Smaller ones are so much easier.   
      
   And of course the fact that Tolkien wanted to make all this changes   
   is an indication that he took the "yes, but what is really like?"   
   game very seriously. Though by taking it seriously he turned it   
   into a moving target for the reader...   
      
   - Dirk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)