Escaping Reconsideration
subtitle: "I feel bad about criticizing Tolkien, but here goes"
Decades earlier than the
Glorfindel essays, for the drafts of
The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien somewhat randomly borrows the name
Glorfindel from earlier, unpublished works (along with
Legolas and
Gimli too, for two other examples), and within the drafts, Tolkien noted to himself
"(Glorfindel tells of his ancestry in Gondolin)" (HME VI. 214)
And as noted, a much older JRRT would later write that the choice of this particular name
"escaped reconsideration" before
The Lord of the Rings went to print. Okay, why should the inclusion of the name Glorfindel in
The Lord of the Rings need reconsideration? Tolkien's answers appear to be [see
Glorfindel II]:
A) a lingustic issue: does the name fit well enough into
Sindarin -- as it originated from a different language, now long discarded, called Gnomish. Concerning this, see footnote below.
B) Tolkien writes:
"difficulty is presented by the things recorded of Glorfindel in The Lord of the Rings, if Glorfindel of Gondolin is supposed to be the same person as Glorfindel of Rivendell."
Okay, but
wait-a-minute now, JRRT then goes on to correctly note that according to the already published text, Glorfindel of Rivendell must be an Exile, a Noldo . . . agreed, but Glorfindel of Gondolin
was a Noldo (a Gnome), and the reincarnation of
Elves had been a long-standing
truth within
Middle-earth.
And after seemingly forgetting that he had already altered the earlier idea of Gondolin being entirely Noldorin, Tolkien still considers the question of: what if Glorfindel of Gondolin was Sindarin. He concludes that this doesn't work (again, within the context of:
if the "two" are supposed to be the same being). Then JRRT writes
"This difficulty, far more serious than the linguistic one, may be considered first"
So here the difficulty is far more serious than the linguistic one, but I note again: Glorfindel of Gondolin wasn't Sindarin in the already written histories. He never was Sindarin, so why, as it seems to me, throw that "in the way"?
Next JRRT goes off on a tangent about reduplication of names (as quoted above in the thread) --
for myself, and I realize this is subjective, I don't see a huge problem with another Elf even using the name Glorfindel, especially given that Elven mothers could have some measure of foresight regarding naming their children -- but in any case, this tangent is not the same thing
as what is said about Glorfindel of Rivendell in the text of
The Lord of the Rings -- and the next paragraph is basically an explanation of
Elvish reincarnation.
In the following paragraph, we seem to get to a perceived difficulty with Glorfindel of Gondolin being a Noldo -- Tolkien noting that he was under the ban imposed by
Manwe, and thus should not be allowed to re-incarnate in
the Blessed Realm.
Right. But why should Glorfindel need to be reincarnated
before the ban was lifted? In the explanation given, Tolkien goes to some length to explain why Glorfindel was allowed to become an incarnate person again, and then explains that he remained in the Blessed Realm until the
Second Age, in any case.
And finally, JRRT goes on to ponder when in the Second Age Glorfindel returned to Middle-earth, which explanation includes a bit of the history of the Second Age, in order to fit in his return before the Change of the World. The text ends (
if not it would be very long indeed), and according to Christopher Tolkien, it ends with:
"no indication that it was unfinished, although the "linguistic difficulty" referred to on p. 379 was not taken up."
So my fellow Tolkien fans,
so far it seems to me that JRRT has
created a difficulty by imagining Glorfindel "needing" to be reincarnated
before the ban was lifted.
Keeping in mind:
"difficulty is presented by the things recorded of Glorfindel in The Lord of the Rings, if Glorfindel of Gondolin is supposed to be the same person as Glorfindel of Rivendell."
Well, I guess so,
if . . .
. . . you propose that Glorfindel of Gondolin was Sindarin (but again, he never was).
. . . you propose that Glorfindel of Gondolin is reincarnated before the ban is lifted. But have I missed something about this? The
Noldor were allowed, in body, back West after the ban was lifted, so wouldn't this apply to the re-incarnates?
__________
Again I'm no linguist, but the issue seems to be
nd. In
Sauron Defeated, in
The King's Letter, the "Noldorin" name of Goldilocks, one of
Sam's children, is
Glorfinniel. And in a Sindarin context, Tolkien would publish:
"Nd became nn usually, as Ennor "Middle-earth", Q. Endore; but remained nd at the end of fully accented monosyllabls such as thond "root" (cf. Morthond "Blackroot"), and also before r, as Andros "long foam". This nd is also seen in some ancient names derived from and older period, such as Nargothrond, Gondolin, Beleriand." Appendix E, Writing and Spelling
Okay, the name Glorfindel isn't mentioned here, but in
Words Phrases and Passages [PE 17], under his Glorfindel entry, JRRT notes:
"OS findel later to finnel. The names of the Noldor in legend often contain archaic elements notably retention of nd medially and finally."
This was written well after
The Lord of the Rings was published, and well before Glorfindel II was written. I'll grant Tolkien would have liked to reconsider using Glorfindel before the book was published, but he seems to have tackled the "problem" of the form of the name well before the early 1970s, in any case.
Comments? Corrections? Any negative finger-pointing at me for "arguing" with one of my heroes?
Anyway, I must nap 🐾
.
