Flammifer
Well-Known Member
The absence of the Pengolodh / Aelfwine frame from the published Silmarillion has been much discussed (and perhaps mourned) by Prof. Olsen.
If TLOTR and the Silmarillion are to be married, however, that frame has almost certainly got to go. The only way to retain it would be for Tolkien to have found and translated two sources (Aelfwine's Anglo-Saxon account of his conversations with Pengolodh, and The Red Book of Westmarch's Westron account of The Hobbit and TLOTR), that just happened to cover events and histories that connected and were congruent.
In TLOTR, Tolkien has already set up the frame that The Red Book of Westmarch contains Bilbo's Translations from the Elvish.
It would seem to be a fairly easy frame shift to replace Aelfwine with Bilbo as the receiver of these stories. He could ask questions, when puzzled during translation, of Elves in Rivendell (Lindir, Erestor, Glorfindel, Elrond, etc.) and their answers could be the same as Pengolodh's, just shifting the frame from Pengolodh and Aelfwine to Rivendell Elves and Bilbo.
This seems an obvious, fairly easy, and almost necessary (since introducing the Red Book with Bilbo's Translations as the source material), shift of frame.
Yet, I see no evidence that Tolkien ever considered this? Did he? Does anyone know?
If not, why not? What speculations occur?
If TLOTR and the Silmarillion are to be married, however, that frame has almost certainly got to go. The only way to retain it would be for Tolkien to have found and translated two sources (Aelfwine's Anglo-Saxon account of his conversations with Pengolodh, and The Red Book of Westmarch's Westron account of The Hobbit and TLOTR), that just happened to cover events and histories that connected and were congruent.
In TLOTR, Tolkien has already set up the frame that The Red Book of Westmarch contains Bilbo's Translations from the Elvish.
It would seem to be a fairly easy frame shift to replace Aelfwine with Bilbo as the receiver of these stories. He could ask questions, when puzzled during translation, of Elves in Rivendell (Lindir, Erestor, Glorfindel, Elrond, etc.) and their answers could be the same as Pengolodh's, just shifting the frame from Pengolodh and Aelfwine to Rivendell Elves and Bilbo.
This seems an obvious, fairly easy, and almost necessary (since introducing the Red Book with Bilbo's Translations as the source material), shift of frame.
Yet, I see no evidence that Tolkien ever considered this? Did he? Does anyone know?
If not, why not? What speculations occur?