# The Sil and LOTR



## Legolam (Nov 18, 2002)

I was just reading CT's foreword to the Sil last night, and I noticed a bit where he said his father had intended the Sil and LOTR to be published together as one gigantic book - an entire history of middle earth. However, obviously he didn't. I was just wondering if LOTR would have had the success it had if it had been part of the Sil? Also, why did JRRT decide to publish LOTR first, if all along he'd intended it to go with the Sil?


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## aDaHe (Nov 18, 2002)

because the Sil was his life time work and the lotr was a sequel to the hobbit. he finished tlotr but did not finish the sil because he died and i think that his son finished it for him


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## Maedhros (Nov 18, 2002)

From the _Letters of JRRT: 124_


> Ridiculous and tiresome as you may think me, I want to publish them both - The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings - in conjunction or in connexion. 'I want to' - it would be wiser to say 'I should like to', since a little packet of, say, a million words, of matter set out in extenso that Anglo-Saxons (or the English-speaking public) can only endure in moderation, is not very likely to see the light, even if paper were available at will.
> All the same that is what I should like. Or I will let it all be. I cannot contemplate any drastic re-writing or compression. Of course being a writer I should like to see my words printed; but there they are. For me the chief thing is that I feel that the whole matter is now 'exorcized', and rides me no more. I can turn now to other things, such as perhaps the Little Kingdom of the Wormings,2 or to quite other matters and stories.


Tolkien was scorned by his publishers regarding the Silmarillion, and if he wanted it published the right way.


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## aDaHe (Nov 18, 2002)

there this matter is quite solvied, but i dont think that they should be published to gether anyway!!!
the lotr is about the third age while the Sil is about the begining and the first age!!!

nice avatar !!!


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## Maedhros (Nov 18, 2002)

Thanks.
The Silmarillion is the legendarium behind the LOTR. It is interesting to note that a skecth already existed of the Silmarillion before the creation of LOTR. It makes me wonder, that if the stories of The Fall of Gondolin and The Tale of Tinúviel were already written in ca 1917, does that means that he liked more the Silmarillion than Lotr.


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## aDaHe (Nov 19, 2002)

it said that the Sil was tolkiens whole life story...
i dont know if this means that he came back to the Sil if everything got hard or if it was like a hobby that he never really ment to finish, and then the lotr was incentive to finish...
consider this...a life story of tolkiens imagination!!!


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## Gil-Galad (Nov 22, 2002)

My personal opinion is that if the Sil was published togehter with LOTR it wouldn't be understood by many readers.It was too complicated.
And something else.LOTR is like a tale and the Sil is like a chronology,it's a history of whole world.There is big difference between the styles of the two books.That makes publishing them together impossible.


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## aDaHe (Nov 23, 2002)

quite true, but i was talking about the way in which the book was being written...Sil was finished way after wasn't it?

but your right, the lotr is like a timeline about the begining to the end of the first age while lotr is a story about the war of the ring


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## Lantarion (Nov 23, 2002)

As I have understood it, Tolkien was much more interested in creating the myths of the Silmarillion than the plotline of the Lord of the Rings (although I must admire all of the years he spent working on the LotR), as well as progressing his languages. I heard somewhere that Middle-Earth or Arda itself was created just to serve as a history for the languages Tolkien created, Quenya and Sindarin. Is that true? I'm not so sure myself, partly because of Tolkien's obvious fascination with myths and legends (eg. Beowulf, Kalevala, Edda, to name the most famous ones), even more so perhaps than with languages (eg. Old English, Finnish, Welsh, Gaelic, etc.).


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## Aiwendil2 (Nov 24, 2002)

Well, Tolkien thought that myth and language were inseparable. His interest in languages was essentially the same thing as his interest in myth.


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## Hador Lorindol (Nov 25, 2002)

It's always a shame when a bit of reality sneaks into the stories of Middle Earth. The simple truth is that Tolkien's publishers were so astounded by the success of the Hobbit that they wanted more of the same - and Tolkien knew that these books would make him and his family financially secure for the rest of their lives. Those stories are all written in a narrative format to make them more accessible but the Silmarillion is more of a collection of the annals of Middle Earth. It's debatable whether or not Tolkien had originally planned to make the stories come from the point of view of a Middle Earth historian, or whether Bilbo and Frodo became a convenient medium when LoTR was being written. I also wonder if Tolkien had ever planned to put some more narrative into the Silmarillion, he does in places like "Of Beren and Luthien" but it would have been a huge job to convert the rest. I do think there is a scope for a film of the story of Melkor's defeat though.

I found the Silmarillion difficult to get into at first - even though I was fascinated by the stories of Illuvatar and the Valar. It is written in a fashion that requires complete concentration from the reader to get the most out of it. It is, of course, worth the effort and I am now wading through the unfinished tales which are even harder work! CT has notes on his own notes regarding the notes made by JRRT!


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## Ceorl (Nov 30, 2002)

Well it is true that Tolkien created his world as a place for his languages to be used, I read that as well, cant quite remember where though; probably letters.


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## Gil-Galad (Nov 30, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Lantarion _
> *As I have understood it, Tolkien was much more interested in creating the myths of the Silmarillion than the plotline of the Lord of the Rings (although I must admire all of the years he spent working on the LotR), as well as progressing his languages. *


I agree with you.He started writing about myths and legends and after a long period of time,when he had already a complete imagination of ME,he wrote LOTR.
I believe works like The Silmarillion,the stories in Unfinished Tales and Lost Tales shows that actually myths and legends were of greatest importance to Tolkien.He never completed them because they were so complicated that all the time he had wasn't enough to finish them.


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## Finduilas (Dec 23, 2002)

> He started writing about myths and legends and after a long period of time,when he had already a complete imagination of ME,he wrote LOTR.



Didn't he write the Hobbit first?



> In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.



Simple words for simple beginning and not so simple...well,there is no end because his works are immortal as well as many others.


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## Gil-Galad (Dec 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Finduilas _
> *Didn't he write the Hobbit first?
> Simple words for simple beginning and not so simple...well,there is no end because his works are immortal as well as many others. *


The first things he wrote were about elves,not about hobbits.As I can remember they are written in 1915 or 1916.I'm not sure ,so I'll check and tell you what is the first written thing by Tolkien.


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## Finduilas (Dec 23, 2002)

> The first things he wrote were about elves,not about hobbits.As I can remember they are written in 1915 or 1916.I'm not sure ,so I'll check and tell you what is the first written thing by Tolkien



Yes,but I meant didn't he write the Hobbit before the LOTR?


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## Gil-Galad (Dec 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Finduilas _
> *Yes,but I meant didn't he write the Hobbit before the LOTR? *


Yes he did,but the Hobbit is created too long time after Tolkien had a full imagination of ME


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