C. Tolkien on Balrog Wings?
EChoota
been able to put the whole wing question towards C.T. and get his opinon on the
matter. Or is C.T. unwilling to give an opinon?
Marc Greis
Search Dejanews. On April 15 1998, William Cloud Hicklin posted the
following message with the subject 'Balrog wings: the word from the
mountaintop':
: Christopher Tolkien, on the Balrog of Moria:
:
: "I myself never thought that the second mention of the 'wings' of the
: Balrog had any different signification from the first."
I hope William doesn't mind me quoting this message here, but it was
shorter than explaining how to do a power search in Dejanews. ;)
On the other hand, Christopher obviously doesn't really know the answer
either, since he said, 'thought', but he didn't say that he *knows*
anything definite. Don't get me wrong, I like his answer, but I don't
think that it is really a proof for JRR Tolkien's intentions. The one
thing that it does prove is that the passage about the Balrog in the
LOTR *can* be interpreted in the way the BWO (Balrog Wing Opponents)
interpret it.
Marc
--
Marc Greis gr...@cs.uni-bonn.de
Michael Martinez
>Search Dejanews. On April 15 1998, William Cloud Hicklin posted the
>following message with the subject 'Balrog wings: the word from the
>mountaintop':
>
>: Christopher Tolkien, on the Balrog of Moria:
>:
>: "I myself never thought that the second mention of the 'wings' of the
>: Balrog had any different signification from the first."
>
>I hope William doesn't mind me quoting this message here, but it was
>shorter than explaining how to do a power search in Dejanews. ;)
And I hope people realize the above citation is taken out of context.
>On the other hand, Christopher obviously doesn't really know the answer
>either, since he said, 'thought', but he didn't say that he *knows*
>anything definite. Don't get me wrong, I like his answer, but I don't
>think that it is really a proof for JRR Tolkien's intentions. The one
>thing that it does prove is that the passage about the Balrog in the
>LOTR *can* be interpreted in the way the BWO (Balrog Wing Opponents)
>interpret it.
At the time I asked Bill what the specific question was. I don't remember if
he answered me, but he did post a rather lengthy citation from the letter.
People should look for that message and not just the above sentence.
\\ // Worlds of Imagination on the Web in...@xenite.org
\\// RealName: Science Fiction and Fantasy Xenite.Org
//\\ <http://www.xenite.org/index.htm>
// \\ENITE.org...............................................
Michael Martinez
>On the other hand, Christopher obviously doesn't really know the answer
>either, since he said, 'thought', but he didn't say that he *knows*
>anything definite. Don't get me wrong, I like his answer, but I don't
>think that it is really a proof for JRR Tolkien's intentions. The one
>thing that it does prove is that the passage about the Balrog in the
>LOTR *can* be interpreted in the way the BWO (Balrog Wing Opponents)
>interpret it.
One more point -- the letter did not prove this assertion at all. It was
dealing with specific issues and proved of no real purpose in the debate.
People should read the entire citation but should be aware that Bill Hicklin
was sharing a private correspondence and he felt uncomfortable quoting as
much as he did.
Michael Martinez
>>following message with the subject 'Balrog wings: the word from the
>>mountaintop':
For those who are interested, here is the fuller citation (which Bill posted on
April 17 in message <35379F21...@gamewood.net>). I've formatted the
citations provided to make it easier to read them (there was some line wrap):
Michael Martinez wrote:
> In article <87af9mp...@minastirith.stu.rpi.edu>, Michael A Wolf
> <mi...@minastirith.stu.rpi.edu> wrote:
> >William <soli...@gamewood.net> writes:
> >
> >
> >> > Where does it say he said that (I don't doubt it just curious.)
> >> > --
> >>
> >> Letter.
> >
> >I'm not really doubting you (and wasn't it you who mentioned that you
> >know CT?), but I wonder if there's any way that you could prove that
> >it was really him. Does CT have net access? :)
>
> Christopher Tolkien doesn't have access to the Net. But it's
> interesting that Bill chose to quote only one sentence, out of
> context, from this letter. And it's also obvious that Christopher
> Tolkien is not making any statements about whether the Balrog's
> wings are wings, or not wings, or not able to fly, or not
> a Maia, or anything of significance.
I chose to give only one sentence because I have no permission to cite
from CT's correspondence in extenso. They are after all private
letters. But I'll at least provide the context:
"I was as a rule not sent the later material from Markette - the
typescripts made by my father - and have never seen them in many
cases...Thus the final typescript (following the fair copy manuscript
'C', (The Treason of Isengard pp 202-33) of 'The Bridge of Khazad-dum'
(Markette no. 3/3/25) I never saw. I presume that it was there that the
mention of the Balrog's wings being spread from wall to wall entered.
You could ask Chuck Elston, the infinitely helpful archivist at
Markette, to look up 3/3/25 for you. But then it probably wouldn't be
very helpful to you, without any precise knowledge of when my father
typed it: although in a letter of 28 February 1949 he wrote that 'I am
finding the labour of typing a fair copy of the "Lord of the Rings" v.
great.' I myself never thought that the second mention of the 'wings'
of the Balrog had any different signification from the first."
--
_________________________________________________
William Cloud Hicklin "And he named him craven,
soli...@gamewood.net and lord of slaves"
At the time, we were discussing/debating/arguing over how much change had
occurred in the chapter after it reached its nearly final form in 1941. I
cannot at this time find a specific example that represents the full discussion.
Bill had announced a couple of weeks before he had written a letter to
Christopher Tolkien and the discussion continued on until well after he posted
the above paragraph.