Arda Reconstructed The Creation of the Published Silmarillion

by Kane, Douglas Charles

• ISBN13: 9781611460896
• ISBN10: 1611460891
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-24
• Publisher: Lehigh University Press

Summary

Douglas C. Kane reveals a tapestry woven by Christopher Tolkien from different portions of his father's work that is often quite mind-boggling, with inserts that seemed initially to have been editorial inventions shown to have come from some remote portion of Tolkien's vast body of work. He demonstrates how material that was written over the course of more than thirty years was merged together to create a single, coherent text. He also makes a frank appraisal of the material omitted and invented by Christopher Tolkien and how these omissions and insertions may have distorted his father's vision of what he considered-even more than The Lord of the Rings-to be his most important work. It is a fascinating portrait of a unique collaboration that reached beyond the grave. Kane documents the changes, omissions, and additions and traces how the disparate source materials were used to create what is in essence a composite work. He compares the published text with the source texts contained in the volumes of The History of Middle-earth as well as other works and identifies patterns of major and minor changes made to these source materials that resulted in the reconstruction of the finished text. He also cites the works of some of the most important Tolkien scholars, including Tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger, Christina Scull, Wayne Hammond, Charles Noad, and David Bratman in an attempt to understand and explain why these changes may have been made.

Author Biography

Douglas Charles Kane is an attorney specializing in employment discrimination and harassment cases and cofounder of the Tolkien Internet discussion site, WWW.thehalloffire.net.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. 9
List of Tables	p. 11
Preface	p. 13
Acknowledgments	p. 15
Source Materials and Conventions	p. 17
Introduction: Reconstructing Arda	p. 23
The Ainulindalë and the Valaquenta
Ainulindaë (The Music of the Ainur)	p. 33
Valaquenta (Account of the Valar)	p. 40
Quenta Silmarillion (The History of the Silmarils
"Of the Beginning of Days"	p. 47
"Of Aulë and Yavanna"	p. 54
"Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor"	p. 56
"Of Thingol and Melian"	p. 66
"Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalie"	p. 68
"Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor"	p. 75
"Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor"	p. 85
"Of the Darkening of Valinor"	p. 92
"Of the Flight of the Noldor"	p. 100
"Of the Sindar"	p. 116
"Of the Sun and the Moon and the Hiding of Valinor"	p. 122
"Of Men"	p. 129
"Of the Return of the Noldor"	p. 133
"Of Beleriand and Its Realms"	p. 145
"Of the Noldor in Beleriand"	p. 151
"Of Maeglin"	p. 155
"Of the Coming of Men into the West"	p. 156
"Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin"	p. 162
"Of Beren and Lúthien"	p. 173
"Of the Fifth Battle"	p. 182
"Of Túrin Turambar"	p. 193
"Of the Ruin of Doriath"	p. 207
"Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin"	p. 219
"Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath"	p. 228
The Akallabeth, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, and the Appendices to the Slimarillion
Akallabeth (The Downfall of Númenor)	p. 243
Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age	p. 248
Appendices to the Silmarillion	p. 249
Conclusion: Arda Reconstructed	p. 252
Notes	p. 263
Index	p. 271
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.