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Exploring the uncanny perception of depth in Tolkien's writing and world-building A Sense of Tales Untoldexamines the margins of J. R. R. Tolkien's work: the frames, edges, allusions, and borders between story and un-story and the spaces between vast ages and miniscule time periods. The untold tales that are simply implied or referenced in the text are essential to Tolkien's achievement in world-building, Peter Grybauskas argues, and counter the common but largely spurious image of Tolkien as a writer of bloated prose. Instead, A Sense of Tales Untold highlights Tolkien's restraint-his ability to check the pen to great effect. The book begins by identifying some of Tolkien's principal sources of inspiration and his contemporaries, then summarizes theories and practices of the literary impression of depth. The following chapters offer close readings of key untold tales in context, ranging from the shadowy legends at the margins of The Lord of the Rings to the nexus of tales concerning Trin Turambar, the great tragic hero of the Elder Days. In his frequent retellings of the Trin legend, Tolkien found a lifelong playground for experimentation with untold stories. "A story must be told or there'll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving," wrote Tolkien to his son during the composition of The Lord of the Rings,cutting straight to the heart of the tension between storytelling and world-building that animates his work. From the most straightforward form of an untold tale-an omission-to vast and tangled webs of allusions, Grybauskas highlights this tension. A Sense of Tales Untold engages with urgent questions about interpretation, adaptation, and authorial control, giving both general readers and specialists alike a fresh look at the source material of the ongoing "Tolkien phenomenon."

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Publié par	The Kent State University Press
Date de parution	23 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781631014659
Langue	English

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A SENSE OF TALES UNTOLD
A SENSE OF TALES UNTOLD
Exploring the Edges of Tolkien’s Literary Canvas
PETER GRYBAUSKAS
The Kent State University Press KENT, OHIO
© 2021 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-60635-430-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
25 24 23 22 21 5 4 3 2 1
IN MEMORY OF
ANGELINE F. EVANGELISTA
(1931–2017)
A story must be told or there’ll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving. —J. R. R. Tolkien, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
What did Odin whisper in the ear of his son, Ere Baldr on bale was laid? — The Poetic Edda
the beginning and end of a story is to it like the edges of the canvas —J. R. R. Tolkien, Smith of Wootton Major
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments and Permissions
List of Abbreviations for Works by Tolkien
Introduction
1 Tolkien and the “Fundamental Literary Dilemma”
2 Great Matters Grown Dim: The Allusive Web of the Last Alliance
3 “Strange Lumber”: Faded Tradition in the Túrin Saga
4 A Portrait of the Poet as a Young Man: Omission in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
5 Destroying Magic, Kindling Fire: Untold Tales and Tolkien’s Legacy
Epilogue
Notes
Works Cited
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND PERMISSIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has been many years in the making. Its germination dates back an Age or more to undergraduate work in Maryland with Dr. Verlyn Flieger. It grew in starts and stops and after several transplants; since those undergraduate days it has been to Rome, to Oxford, and back to Maryland again. No doubt it retains something of the character of these times and places.
In bringing this project to fruition, I have had much help along the way. I am most grateful to Verlyn Flieger for her many years of mentorship, friendship, and good conversation. Thanks also go to friends from school days: Kannan Mahadevan and Adam Baker, and classmates at UMD, especially Rob Wakeman. For much encouragement, thanks to the TolkTalkers of Maryland—Michelle Markey Butler, Eleanor Simpson, Carl Hostetter, and Chip Crane. Thanks to Robin Anne Reid for her work on the Tolkien track at the PCA National Conference and to fellow conference-goers, organizers, and panelists over the years—at UVM, Kalamazoo, and Modena, too. Grazie mille to Roberto Arduini and my friends in the Associazione Italiana Studi Tolkieniani. And thanks also to my students over the years in ARHU158K, ENGL101, and ENGL391.
Thanks to Catherine McIlwaine and to Cathleen Blackburn for help navigating the Tolkien material at the Bodleian Library, and to Chris Smith and Jack Baker at HarperCollins Publishers. Thanks to Susan Wadsworth-Booth, Mary Young, and the staff at the Kent State University Press; to Valerie Ahwee for her editorial assistance; and to my anonymous readers whose generous reports helped make this book better. Thanks to my parents, who (meaning no harm) first encouraged me in letters. For good company and cheer on the road, thanks to my wife, Marie, and our broodlings, Bruno and Flavia.
PERMISSIONS
Portions of chapter 1 are revised from “Untold Tales: Solving a Literary Dilemma” in Tolkien Studies Vol. 9, West Virginia University Press, 2012.
Portions of chapter 2 are revised from “‘Now Often Forgotten’: Gollum, the Great War, and the Last Alliance,” which first appeared in Baptism of Fire: The Birth of the Modern British Fantastic in World War I , ed. Janet Brennan Croft, Mythopoeic Press, 2015.
Portions of chapter 4 are revised from “A Portrait of the Poet as a Young Man: Noteworthy Omission in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son ” in Tolkien Studies Vol. 17, West Virginia University Press, 2020.
Quotations from Tolkien’s unpublished writings are printed here with the kind permission of the Tolkien Estate.
Quotations from Tolkien’s published writing are reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.:
The Hobbit © The Tolkien Estate Limited 1937, 1965
Farmer Giles of Ham © The Tolkien Estate Limited 1949
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth © The Tolkien Estate Limited 1953, 1966, 1980
The Lord of the Rings © The Tolkien Trust 1954, 1955, 1966
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book © The Tolkien Estate Limited 1961
Leaf by Niggle © The Tolkien Trust 1964
Smith of Wootton Major © The Tolkien Trust 1967
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo © Tolkien Estate Limited 1975
The Silmarillion . © Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1977
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth . © Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1980
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien © The Tolkien Trust 1981
Finn and Hengest © The Tolkien Trust 1982
The Book of Lost Tales , Part I © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1983 “The Monsters and the Critics” and Other Essays © The Tolkien Estate Limited and the Tolkien Trust 1983
The Book of Lost Tales , Part II. © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1984
The Lays of Beleriand . © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1985
The Shaping of Middle-earth . © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1986
The Lost Road and Other Writings . © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1987
The Return of the Shadow © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1988
The Treason of Isengard . © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1989
The War of the Ring © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1990
Sauron Defeated . © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1992
Morgoth’s Ring © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1993
The War of the Jewels © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1994
The Peoples of Middle-earth © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 1996
The Children of Húrin © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 2007
Tolkien on Fairy-Stories © The Tolkien Estate Limited 2008
The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun © The Tolkien Trust and C. R. Tolkien 2009
The Fall of Arthur . © The Tolkien Trust 2013
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary . © The Tolkien Trust 2014
The Story of Kullervo . © The Tolkien Estate Limited 2010, 2015
Beren and Lúthien . © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 2017
“Dragons” © The Tolkien Estate Limited 2018
The Fall of Gondolin . © The Tolkien Estate Limited and C. R. Tolkien 2018
ABBREVIATIONS FOR WORKS BY TOLKIEN
ATB
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
B
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary
BC
Beowulf and the Critics
BL
Beren and Lúthien
BLT I
The Book of Lost Tales, Part I
BLT II
The Book of Lost Tales, Part II
CH
The Children of Húrin
D
“Dragons,” in The Hobbit 1937–2017: A Commemorative Booklet
FG
The Fall of Gondolin
FH
Finn and Hengest
FR
The Fellowship of the Ring
H
The Hobbit
HB
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son , in Essays and Studies
LB
The Lays of Beleriand
Letters
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
LR
The Lost Road and Other Writings
MC
The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
Miscellany
A Tolkien Miscellany
MR
Morgoth’s Ring
Peoples
The Peoples of Middle-earth
RK
The Return of the King
RS
The Return of the Shadow
S
The Silmarillion
SD
Sauron Defeated
SG
The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun
Shaping
The Shaping of Middle-earth
SK
The Story of Kullervo
SWM
Smith of Wootton Manor
TI
The Treason of Isengard
TL
Tree and Leaf
TOFS
Tolkien on Fairy-Stories
TT
The Two Towers
UT
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth
VT
Vinyar Tengwar
WJ
The War of the Jewels
WR
The War of the Ring
INTRODUCTION
Of the many charming treasures unveiled in the recent Tolkien: Maker of Middle- earth exhibition and catalog, the first Silmarillion map, drawn by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1920s on an “unused page from an examination booklet from the university of Leeds,” is one that might be said to stand out (McIlwaine 2018, 222–23). How could it not? The experience of unfolding one of Tolkien’s maps is a formative one in many readers’ lives, perhaps even the first remembered instance of not just literary but bibliophilic pleasure, the map unfolded on a bedroom rug or spread across a kitchen table. And, of course, the maps of Middle-earth confirm some of our most cherished ideas about Tolkien: that he is first and foremost a world-builder, or “sub-creator” as he puts it in his essay “On Fairy-stories”—probably the finest of the twentieth century.
But this map tells other stories, too. Near the top left can be read the words—not in Tolkien’s hand, but stamped with administrative authority—“Do not write on this margin.” Perhaps it is a story of wartime paper shortages and financial crunches, of the conflicts between professional duties and private hobbies, or of the idle fancies of bored academics. Whatever the case, it remains a fascinating and even funny little window into a humble moment in the creation of a literary oeuvre that has gone on to shake the world. But neither of these are the subject of this book.
This is a book instead all about the margins of Tolkien’s work, what I call (as an umbrella term) his untold tales: the frames, the edges, allusions, lacunae, the borders between story and un-story, gaps and spaces between vast Ages and miniscule periods in an ellipsis. Surely every reader of Tolkien’s fantasies could rattle off a “pet” untold tale: whether it be the surefooted Cats of Queen Berúthiel, the wanderings of the Blue Wizards, or the bar menu at the Forsaken Inn . My own for many years, and I suppose ultimately the germ of this project, was the narrator’s grotesquely detailed hypothesis as to Shelob’s recovery and return to action afte