Ceci n'est pas une pipe

[Jim Deutch]

I think Professor Olsen was too dismissive of the piper. (and I word that very carefully)

Tinúviel was dancing there / To music of a pipe unseen,

His attitude seems to be summed up by "who cares about the piper dude?" but he never questioned the piper's actual existence. I do not believe there is a piper at all. The piping is more like a sound in your head than a sound in your ears; it is part of the enchantment of Tinúviel's dance.

He heard there oft the flying sound / Of feet as light as linden-leaves, / Or music welling undergound, / In hidden hollows quavering.

Just as you wouldn't think that Beren suddenly has super-power hearing to be able to hear footsteps -- distant footsteps! -- and just as you wouldn't think that there's suddenly an orchestra assembled in a cave somewhere below, you don't have to think there is any piper either. They're all just part of the enchantment.

It is true that in an earlier version of the poem there was a piper; he is even named. But in this version, Tinúviel dances, and there is music. Tinúviel dances, and that is music.

 

[Harnuth]

The piping is more like a sound in your head than a sound in your ears; it is part of the enchantment of Tinúviel's dance.

Yes. Until Corey mentioned the idea, it had never occurred to me that there might have been a real piper there. I had always imagined the scene to be of a girl dancing to music that existed only in her own mind.

 

[Jim Deutch]

I changed the thread title.
Ceci n'est pas une pipe was We don't need no steenkin pipers!

This is not a funnier joke.

 

[Faelivrin]

Although Aragorn doesn't mention him in the LotR, there is a real piper in the Lay of Leithian version of the story, and in the Quenta Silmarillion version of the story. Daeron was present in both of those, playing his ambiguously named instrument(s). He was Luthien's best friend until Beren came along. His complaints to Thingol about the situation are a significant part of the plot, too.

 

[Jim Deutch]

there is a real piper in the Lay of Leithian version of the story, and in the Quenta Silmarillion version of the story. Daeron was present

And this is exactly why (or so I hypothesize) Corey did not question the actual presence of a piper in Aragorn's version of the poem. But I DO question it. In fact, like Harnuth, it had never occurred to me before the class session that there even might be an actual piper (for all the reasons in my original post).

I think the earlier versions are influencing the interpretation here. Based only on Aragorn's poem in tLotR, there is no reason to believe that it refers to any actual musician. The evidence in the text is against it.

 

[Faelivrin]

The story of Beren and Luthien isn't an "earlier version", though. Tolkien continued writing and rewriting the Lay and Quenta Silmarillion (including the part about Beren and Luthien and Daeron) after the LotR was finished. He never removed Daeron from the story - Aragorn is telling only a tiny fraction of the whole tale, and Daeron isn't the focus of the story. Tolkien didn't throw out the Silmarillion stories. While he was writing the LotR he fully intended to publish the entire Silmarillion alongside The Lord of the Rings, so he had no need to interrupt the LotR with every detail about Beren and Luthien. He considerd the Silmarillion stories just as valid as the LotR itself.

 

[Jim Deutch]

I think the earlier versions are influencing the interpretation here.

The story of Beren and Luthien isn't an "earlier version", though. Tolkien continued writing and rewriting the Lay and Quenta Silmarillion (including the part about Beren and Luthien and Daeron) after the LotR was finished. He never removed Daeron from the story

Thank you for the clarification. I think the other versions that Corey read in class were earlier than LotR (not that it matters: we're not going to quibble over the one word "earlier").

I find it very interesting indeed that he continued working on further versions after LotR and that they continued to include Daeron. It certainly suggests that in Tolkien's mind (as well as in Corey's!) there was, indeed, a piper. But I still stand by my original conclusion that

Based only on Aragorn's poem in tLotR, there is no reason to believe that it refers to any actual musician. The evidence in the text is against it.

Without regarding any other versions of the Beren and Luthien story, based only on the text in LotR, I still believe that the correct interpretation of this poem is that there is no piper.

 

[Harnuth]

For what it's worth: I, too, believe that the correct interpretation of Tolkien's work is in the text that was published during his lifetime. We can only guess what he might have done with any other stories which existed only as drafts but were eventually published, edited by someone else, after his death. We do know what changes J. R. R. Tolkien made during his life in the published version of The Lord of the Rings.

I shudder to think what someone might do with the earlier drafts of the stories I have had published and cringe to see what other people do with other writers' notes after their deaths. If Tolkien cut something out of the published version of his story, he made that cut for reasons that were important to him.


Amusement: I rewrote my story The Last Plague so many times before it was finally accepted for publication that my writer buddies started calling it The Last Rewrite.
(Then, when published, it got the cover of Analog! Cue the music: An-a-log! Gonna put my story on the cover. 'Log! Gonna buy five copies for my mother...)

 

[Lincoln Alpern]

The story of Beren and Luthien isn't an "earlier version", though. Tolkien continued writing and rewriting the Lay and Quenta Silmarillion (including the part about Beren and Luthien and Daeron) after the LotR was finished. He never removed Daeron from the story

All right, but was Daeron still present at Luthien and Beren's initial meeting? He can still be in the story without necessarily lurking in the background, playing on the pipes unseen by Beren.

I shudder to think what someone might do with the earlier drafts of the stories I have had published and cringe to see what other people do with other writers' notes after their deaths. If Tolkien cut something out of the published version of his story, he made that cut for reasons that were important to him.


Amusement: I rewrote my story The Last Plague so many times before it was finally accepted for publication that my writer buddies started calling it The Last Rewrite.
(Then, when published, it got the cover of Analog! Cue the music: An-a-log! Gonna put my story on the cover. 'Log! Gonna buy five copies for my mother...)

Neat; it's so wonderful when things come together like that.

I've wondered sometimes what others would think of the earlier drafts of my stories, as opposed to their current versions. In some cases I'd be mortified, but often I think it'd be interesting to see how the stories have changed and evolved since their earliest glimmerings. (Mostly, though, I just wish I could stop rewriting the blasted things and get them to a point where they're suitable for submission ...)

 

[amysrevenge]

The things I've written, I haven't ever really kept earlier versions of. Being in the computer age, it would be trivial to periodically save a snapshot of the working file I suppose, but I never do. And Track Changes drives me bonkers, as I've never been able to tune it to Track Important Changes, not to clutter my margin with minor formatting details.

For me it's just the one working file as it goes through revision, until it's finished. Even for things that go through outside formal editing I use just the one working file, although I suppose technically the attachments in the emails to the editor would be a snapshot that a biographer could access.