Middle-earth canon
Encyclopedia
The term Middle-earth canon, also called Tolkien's canon, is used to loosely define the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien
regarding Middle-earth
as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom
to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fictional canon within a given subset of Tolkien's writings.
The terms have been used by reviewers, publishers, scholars, authors and critics such as John Garth, Tom Shippey
, Jane Chance and others to describe the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien
on Middle-earth
as a whole. Other writers look to the entire body of work of the author as a "Tolkien canon", rather than a subset defined by the fictional "Middle-earth" setting.
, The Lord of the Rings
, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
, and The Road Goes Ever On
. After Tolkien's death his son Christopher published The Silmarillion
with many textual changes to knit several mostly unfinished manuscripts together as a coherent narrative. Further posthumous publications (with text more closely following Tolkien's original) include Unfinished Tales
, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
, Bilbo's Last Song
, and The Children of Húrin
.
Christopher Tolkien also published the 12-volume History of Middle-earth
, containing many texts, drafts, and notes by Tolkien (both early and late), together with Christopher's own extensive notes placing these in context.
Further works authorized by the Tolkien Literary Estate include The History of The Hobbit
in two volumes by John Rateliff and The Annotated Hobbit by Douglas Anderson
, both with notes and early drafts by Tolkien. Linguistic material by Tolkien concerning Middle-earth has also been published with the permission of the Estate in two periodical publications. The Qenya and Gnomish Lexicons, in full, appear in Parma Eldalamberon Numbers 11–16; other mostly self-contained fragments, notes, and poems appear in various issues of Vinyar Tengwar. All of this material together constitutes a collection which, much like real-world histories and mythologies, contains numerous points of obscurity, omission, or apparent contradiction.
; Thorin's grandfather was imprisoned in the same dungeons that held Beren and Lúthien; the Elven
king was Thingol
and his land Menegroth.
When he revised The Hobbit to bring the story of the finding of the Ring in line with The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien retained the original version as the tale Bilbo told to justify his acquisition of the Ring.
picks up the story of The Hobbit some sixty years later, and contains many of the same locations and characters. Tolkien now explicitly linked the story to the Silmarillion tales, but placed it some six thousand years later in time. This reframing made some details in The Hobbit, such as the goblins' ready recognition of the ancient swords Orcrist and Glamdring, difficult to reconcile into a single history.
Other details from The Hobbit don't quite mesh with The Lord of the Rings. Frodo
and his companions, for example, cover much the same territory in the Trollshaws as Bilbo
and the Dwarves, but take much longer to reach Rivendell
, and the geography is described differently. Several adjustments to The Hobbit only increased the discrepancies; and in the 1960s, Tolkien began rewriting The Hobbit more in the style and tone of The Lord of the Rings, adjusting the journey and landmarks to fit the later story, but ultimately abandoned the effort.
Towards the end of his life, the focus of Tolkien's writing shifted from story telling inspired by his philological pursuits to more philosophical concerns, and Tolkien never finished a unified, systematic, and internally consistent narrative.
Christopher observed that absolute consistency among the Middle-earth tales could only be achieved by losing much that was good in them:
He went on to say:
Throughout his commentaries in Unfinished Tales and the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien points out differences between various versions of the original texts and the final editorial selections and occasional alterations in The Silmarillion. In the Introduction of Unfinished Tales he observes that such selection was necessary to publishing a unified narrative; but in some cases he later came to feel that he went too far, for example in the ruin of Doriath
:
Editing for consistency can be seen by comparing the chapter "Of the Voyage of Eärendil" in The Silmarillion with its corresponding section in the History of Middle-earth Volume V (The Lost Road and Other Writings). The Quenta Silmarillion of the 1930s was Tolkien's final text for this section, and Christopher carried it forward into The Silmarillion nearly word for word with editorial modifications — for consistency with other works — primarily limited to nomenclature: Fionwë edited to Eönwë
, Lindar to Vanyar
, etc. For example:
In the continuing development of the published history of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien quotes in The Children of Húrin
his father's own words on his fictional universe:
Christopher Tolkien
offers this justification for exercising his editorial authority to produce The Children of Húrin as a separate book:
Ethan Gilsdorf reviewing The Children of Húrin wrote of the editorial function:
The quest by some readers for a consistent fictional canon within some subset of Tolkien's writings was noted by Verlyn Flieger. Since the degree of narrative consistency that might be expected from a series of novels is not always found in Tolkien's work, Flieger attributed the need on the part of some readers to find consistency within the stories to the sense of reality that Tolkien strove to instil in his work, although the search for a definitive fictional canon has been seen as ultimately irrelevant to appreciation of his tales.
The desire for a fictional Middle-earth canon arises from the need of some readers to form an internal consistency between the stories, a need related to their "willing suspension of disbelief". Tolkien, in his essay "On Fairy Stories", claimed that no individual fantasy story can be successful without maintaining an "inner consistency of reality". An author, he says:
W.H.Auden, former student of Tolkien, supports this notion in his review of one of Tolkien's books:
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
regarding Middle-earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom
Tolkien fandom
Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion...
to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fictional canon within a given subset of Tolkien's writings.
The terms have been used by reviewers, publishers, scholars, authors and critics such as John Garth, Tom Shippey
Tom Shippey
Thomas Alan Shippey is a scholar of medieval literature, including that of Anglo-Saxon England, and of modern fantasy and science fiction, in particular the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, about whom he has written several scholarly studies. He is widely considered one of the leading academic scholars...
, Jane Chance and others to describe the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
on Middle-earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
as a whole. Other writers look to the entire body of work of the author as a "Tolkien canon", rather than a subset defined by the fictional "Middle-earth" setting.
Tolkien's works
The works on Middle-earth published by Tolkien during his lifetime include The HobbitThe Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
, The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is a collection of poetry written by J. R. R. Tolkien and published in 1962. The book contains 16 poems, only two of which deal with Tom Bombadil, a character who is most famous for his encounter with Frodo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring...
, and The Road Goes Ever On
The Road Goes Ever On
The Road Goes Ever On is a song cycle that has been published as sheet music and as an audio recording. The music was written by Donald Swann, and the words are taken from poems in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, especially The Lord of the Rings.The title of this opus is taken from "The...
. After Tolkien's death his son Christopher published The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, who later became a noted fantasy writer. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R...
with many textual changes to knit several mostly unfinished manuscripts together as a coherent narrative. Further posthumous publications (with text more closely following Tolkien's original) include Unfinished Tales
Unfinished Tales
Unfinished Tales is a collection of stories and essays by J. R. R. Tolkien that were never completed during his lifetime, but were edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980.Unlike The Silmarillion, for which the narrative fragments were modified to connect into a consistent and...
, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien is a selection of J. R. R. Tolkien's letters published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter assisted by Christopher Tolkien...
, Bilbo's Last Song
Bilbo's Last Song
"Bilbo's Last Song" is a poem by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was given by Tolkien as a gift to his secretary Joy Hill in 1966. After Tolkien's death in 1973 Hill showed the poem to Donald Swann, who liked the poem so much that he set it to music and included it in the second edition of The Road Goes Ever...
, and The Children of Húrin
The Children of Húrin
The Children of Húrin is an epic fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in the late 1910s, revised it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973...
.
Christopher Tolkien also published the 12-volume History of Middle-earth
The History of Middle-earth
The History of Middle-earth is a 12-volume series of books published from 1983 through to 1996 that collect and analyse material relating to the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. Some of the content consists of earlier versions of already published...
, containing many texts, drafts, and notes by Tolkien (both early and late), together with Christopher's own extensive notes placing these in context.
Further works authorized by the Tolkien Literary Estate include The History of The Hobbit
The History of The Hobbit
The History of The Hobbit is a two-volume study of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. It was published by HarperCollins in June and July 2007 in the UK, with both volumes released in the United States by Houghton Mifflin on September 21, 2007; a boxed set combining The Hobbit with The History of The...
in two volumes by John Rateliff and The Annotated Hobbit by Douglas Anderson
Douglas A. Anderson
Douglas Allen Anderson is an author and editor on the subjects of fantasy and medieval literature, specializing in textual analysis of the works of J. R. R...
, both with notes and early drafts by Tolkien. Linguistic material by Tolkien concerning Middle-earth has also been published with the permission of the Estate in two periodical publications. The Qenya and Gnomish Lexicons, in full, appear in Parma Eldalamberon Numbers 11–16; other mostly self-contained fragments, notes, and poems appear in various issues of Vinyar Tengwar. All of this material together constitutes a collection which, much like real-world histories and mythologies, contains numerous points of obscurity, omission, or apparent contradiction.
The Hobbit
Although Tolkien said that The Hobbit was conceived separately from his mythological stories, early drafts show that it was set in that world, referring explicitly to characters and places which appeared in his Book of Lost Tales which would later become The Silmarillion. The Necromancer was originally Thû, the precursor of SauronSauron
Sauron is the primary antagonist and titular character of the epic fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.In the same work, he is revealed to be the same character as "the Necromancer" from Tolkien's earlier novel The Hobbit...
; Thorin's grandfather was imprisoned in the same dungeons that held Beren and Lúthien; the Elven
Elf (Middle-earth)
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Elves are one of the races that inhabit a fictional Earth, often called Middle-earth, and set in the remote past. They appear in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings, but their complex history is described more fully in The Silmarillion...
king was Thingol
Thingol
Elu Thingol is a fictional character in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He appears in The Silmarillion, The Lays of Beleriand and Children of Húrin as well as in numerous stories in the many volumes of The History of Middle-earth...
and his land Menegroth.
When he revised The Hobbit to bring the story of the finding of the Ring in line with The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien retained the original version as the tale Bilbo told to justify his acquisition of the Ring.
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
picks up the story of The Hobbit some sixty years later, and contains many of the same locations and characters. Tolkien now explicitly linked the story to the Silmarillion tales, but placed it some six thousand years later in time. This reframing made some details in The Hobbit, such as the goblins' ready recognition of the ancient swords Orcrist and Glamdring, difficult to reconcile into a single history.
Other details from The Hobbit don't quite mesh with The Lord of the Rings. Frodo
Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.He is the main protagonist of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He was a hobbit of the Shire who inherited Sauron's Ring from Bilbo Baggins and undertook the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom...
and his companions, for example, cover much the same territory in the Trollshaws as Bilbo
Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist and titular character of The Hobbit and a supporting character in The Lord of the Rings, two of the most well-known of J. R. R...
and the Dwarves, but take much longer to reach Rivendell
Rivendell
Rivendell is an Elven outpost in Middle-earth, a fictional realm created by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was established and ruled by Elrond in the Second Age of Middle-earth...
, and the geography is described differently. Several adjustments to The Hobbit only increased the discrepancies; and in the 1960s, Tolkien began rewriting The Hobbit more in the style and tone of The Lord of the Rings, adjusting the journey and landmarks to fit the later story, but ultimately abandoned the effort.
Writings after The Lord of the Rings
According to Christopher Tolkien, despite J.R.R. Tolkien's desire to bring the older Silmarillion stories to a publishable state, much time was spent instead trying to bring consistency to the works already published. The unpublished manuscripts were left in various states of completion. These older stories had existed and changed over many decades, partly in response to The Lord of the Rings; as he reworked the material, he made substantial changes, up to and including the abandonment of major themes and entire tales, and wholesale rewrites and revisions of otherwise seemingly complete narratives.Towards the end of his life, the focus of Tolkien's writing shifted from story telling inspired by his philological pursuits to more philosophical concerns, and Tolkien never finished a unified, systematic, and internally consistent narrative.
The Silmarillion compilation
The Silmarillion was compiled by Christopher Tolkien (who was long involved in J. R. R. Tolkien's creative process) and published in 1977, four years after Tolkien’s death. It presents an abridged cycle of Tolkien's drafts of his Elvish legends, drawing material from the earliest Book of Lost Tales to drafts written long after The Lord of the Rings. Most of the original texts have subsequently appeared in the History of Middle-earth. Christopher's goal was a version resembling what he thought at the time his father might have produced.Christopher observed that absolute consistency among the Middle-earth tales could only be achieved by losing much that was good in them:
"a complete consistency (either within the compass of The Silmarillion itself or between The Silmarillion and other published writings of my father's) is not to be looked for, and could only be achieved, if at all, at heavy and needless cost."
He went on to say:
"My father came to conceive The Silmarillion as a compilation... and it is to some extent a compendium in fact and not only in theory."
Throughout his commentaries in Unfinished Tales and the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien points out differences between various versions of the original texts and the final editorial selections and occasional alterations in The Silmarillion. In the Introduction of Unfinished Tales he observes that such selection was necessary to publishing a unified narrative; but in some cases he later came to feel that he went too far, for example in the ruin of Doriath
Doriath
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, Doriath is the realm of the Sindar, the Grey Elves of King Thingol in Beleriand. Along with the other great forests of Tolkien's legendarium such as Mirkwood, Fangorn and Lothlórien it serves as the central stage in the theatre of its time, the First Age...
:
"I think now that this was a mistaken view, and that the undoubted difficulties could have been and should have been, surmounted without so far overstepping the bounds of editorial function."
Editing for consistency can be seen by comparing the chapter "Of the Voyage of Eärendil" in The Silmarillion with its corresponding section in the History of Middle-earth Volume V (The Lost Road and Other Writings). The Quenta Silmarillion of the 1930s was Tolkien's final text for this section, and Christopher carried it forward into The Silmarillion nearly word for word with editorial modifications — for consistency with other works — primarily limited to nomenclature: Fionwë edited to Eönwë
Eönwë
Eönwë is a supporting character in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium. He first appears in print in the posthumously published The Silmarillion, though his character had existed long before its original publication in 1977.-Biography:...
, Lindar to Vanyar
Vanyar
In the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Vanyar are the fairest and most noble of the High Elves. They are the smallest of the three clans of the Eldar, and were the first to arrive in Aman. According to legend, the clan was founded by Imin, the first Elf to awake at Cuiviénen, his wife Iminyë, and...
, etc. For example:
From The Silmarillion: "In the front of that fire came GlaurungGlaurungGlaurung is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth legendarium. He is introduced in The Silmarillion as the first of the Dragons. He is also a major antagonist in The Children of Húrin. He was known as The Deceiver, The Golden, The Great Worm and the Worm of...
the golden, father of dragons, in his full might; and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the OrcsOrc (Middle-earth)In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings, Orcs or Orks are a race of creatures who are used as soldiers and henchmen by both the greater and lesser villains of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings — Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman...
in multitudes such as the NoldorNoldorIn the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Noldor are Elves of the Second Clan who migrated to Valinor and lived in Eldamar. The Noldor are called Golodhrim or Gódhellim in Sindarin, and Goldoi by Teleri of Tol Eressëa. The singular form of the Quenya noun is Noldo and the adjective is Noldorin...
had never before seen or imagined." — p. 151.
From The Lost Road: "In the front of that fire came Glómund the golden, the father of dragons, and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the Orcs in multitudes such as the Gnomes had never before seen or imagined." — p. 280.
The Children of Húrin
The Children of Húrin
The Children of Húrin is an epic fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in the late 1910s, revised it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973...
his father's own words on his fictional universe:
"once upon a time... I had in mind to make a body of more or less connected legend... I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched."
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien , and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T. The J...
offers this justification for exercising his editorial authority to produce The Children of Húrin as a separate book:
"...it has seemed to me that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of the Children of Húrin as an independent work, between its own covers, with a minimum of editorial presence, and above all in continuous narrative without gaps or interruptions, if this could be done without distortion or invention, despite the unfinished state in which he left parts of it."
Ethan Gilsdorf reviewing The Children of Húrin wrote of the editorial function:
"Of almost equal interest is Christopher Tolkien's task editing his father's abandoned projects. In his appendix, he explains his editorial process this way: "While I have had to introduce bridging passages here and there in the piecing together of different drafts, there is no element of extraneous 'invention' of any kind, however slight." He was criticized for having monkeyed with his father's text when putting "The Silmarillion" together. This pre-emptive strike must be meant to allay the fears of Tolkien's most persnickety readers."
Fictional canon for Middle-earth
As a result of the manner of its creation, the secondary world of Middle-earth is complicated. Its creator developed various elements of his fiction over the course of decades, making substantial changes including the abandonment of major themes, facts and entire tales, and undertook wholesale rewrites and revisions of otherwise 'complete' narratives. The author's opinions on the relationships of his texts to each other often changed. In his letters, Tolkien comments upon the intertextual relationships of his works:"I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [of finishing The Silmarillion]. Part of the attraction of the L.R. [The Lord of the Rings] is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed."
The quest by some readers for a consistent fictional canon within some subset of Tolkien's writings was noted by Verlyn Flieger. Since the degree of narrative consistency that might be expected from a series of novels is not always found in Tolkien's work, Flieger attributed the need on the part of some readers to find consistency within the stories to the sense of reality that Tolkien strove to instil in his work, although the search for a definitive fictional canon has been seen as ultimately irrelevant to appreciation of his tales.
The desire for a fictional Middle-earth canon arises from the need of some readers to form an internal consistency between the stories, a need related to their "willing suspension of disbelief". Tolkien, in his essay "On Fairy Stories", claimed that no individual fantasy story can be successful without maintaining an "inner consistency of reality". An author, he says:
"... makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. ... The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed."
W.H.Auden, former student of Tolkien, supports this notion in his review of one of Tolkien's books:
"Of any imaginary world the reader demands that it seem real, and the standard of realism demanded today is much stricter than in the time, say, of Malory."
See also
- J. R. R. TolkienJ. R. R. TolkienJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
- List of Middle-earth writings
- Tolkien fandomTolkien fandomTolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion...
- Tolkien's legendariumTolkien's legendariumThe phrase Tolkien's legendarium is used in the literary discipline of Tolkien studiesto refer to the part of J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy fiction being concerned with his Elven legends; that is, historic events that have become legendary from the perspective of the characters of The Lord of the...
- Tolkien researchTolkien researchThe works of J. R. R. Tolkien have generated a body of academic research, studying different facets such as* Tolkien as a writer of fantasy literature* Tolkien's invented languages-As a writer:...
External links
These links are to Tolkien websites where Middle-earth canon issues are discussed by readers, fans, etc.- The Tolkien Estate Website
- FAQ Tolkien Estate Website "The Estate exists to defend the integrity of J. R. R. Tolkien’s writings. Christopher Tolkien's work as his father’s literary executor has always been to publish as faithfully and honestly as possible his father's completed and uncompleted works, without adaptation or embellishment."
- Tolkien societies
- Tolkien's Parish (an essay by Steuard Jensen).
- Encyclopedia of Arda (includes a note on canon [see page bottom]).