Thank you very much for coming.
Thanks a lot.
So I will very briefly introduce myself.
My name is the name.
I am a fellow, in classics, at Corpus Christi College.
But I also work on talking, as you may know.
And together with Mark Stewart, Edmund and others who are here today,
we kind of have this research network on Tolkien who has,
you know, we're one of the partners of this series of seminars.
I have,
I as I said, I am a talking scholar myself.
I written a book which is coming out in the next couple of months.
I might not want to promote it, but it's more like a explain that
what I'm going to do today is to, let's say, present, I'll say a chapter of the,
of the book, a sort of
reduced version of the research today I've done to prepare that book.
And, if you have the handout, every one of you has got the handout.
If not, you can get the copy of that.
I've got the handouts
because I will.
As you see, I've put a quite a lot of material,
on the handout, I will try to go
slowly, as much as I can intend to rush things.
So we'll try to go slowly, but I will refer to the material
that you find on the handout.
I will start with a question
which also displays the title I've given to this lecture today.
In the title.
The question is number zero on the handout.
Who wrote the Lord of the rings
and the things to answer just simply J.R.R.
Tolkien.
That would mean to me a crucial feature of the literary nature of the book.
But also would mean to overlook a very important feature
of Tolkien's theory and practice of literature
what he calls in a letter the mystery of literary creation.
And that's also the title of my book.
Moving to number one on the handout.
First part, I want to stress that it's quite clear
that in the writing and in the editing process
of the lot of the rule of the Lord of the rings, Tolkien took a lot of care
to conceal the identity of the author, or maybe the author.
Some in the life of the Lord of the rings in particular, and also to conceal
what I'm going to call today the make up textual frame.
Apologies for the if you want theoretical jargon,
but my metatextual frame I mainly refer to a fictional history,
a composition of transmission and publication.
That's a, The metatextual frame is a very, very common, literary device.
And you find it in many different books.
You find it even if you want, we can go back to, even the Bible itself,
in a way, as a matter, it's a frame, but a lot of different books.
Introduce
this idea that the author is not really writing the book,
but it's sort of, translating, editing, copying the book from a manuscript.
And so talking in a sense is not original in that.
But as I'm going to, you know, a show today, the way he develops
this metatextual frame, I think it's quite interesting and original.
And there are many traces, of the metatextual frame in his books.
There are many more in his unpublished books.
So if you have read, if you read the history Middle-Earth,
you will see that actually the metatextual frame is omnipresent.
I mean, there are a lot of references to it.
There are a lot of references to the authors of The Silmarillion
and the way The Silmarillion was written, and so on.
The Lord of the rings,
these are is not, so open, but actually there are quite a few traces.
The most explicit trace
is the one you find the number one on the handout,
and that's if you want to leave that crack opening up,
a view
of the underground, if you want, of the underlying narrative,
which we can reconstruct from a lot of dates
just before the final journey to the cave in says,
you remember the hobbits father in, the Shire.
Hansel, the oldest possession to his friend Sam just before leaving.
And these include.
And I read the, passage because I will come back to it again and again.
These includes a big book with plain red covers.
It's told pages were now almost filled.
At the beginning
there were many leaves called that we Bilbo's scene, and one day in hand.
Most of it was written in for those from following script.
It was divided into chapters of chapter 80.
And please note that chapter eight was unfinished,
and after that there was some blank leaves.
The title page of many titles on it crossed out one after another,
skipped a bit, and then here people, Sam ended
and Frodo had written Don't Fall of the Lord of the Rings
and The Return of the King as seen by the Little People,
being the memoirs of Bilbo and father of the Shire, supplemented
by the accounts of the friends and the learning of the wise.
Finally, together with extracts from Books of Lore,
translated by Bilbo in Rivendell.
So this passage is like a crack,
giving you as the reader, a glimpse of a very elaborate metatextual frame,
which, as I said, underlies
the novel and indeed the whole of the legendarium of Middle-Earth,
which pivots on this ancestral big book
with playing that covers of, scholars
normally I found to nowadays, the Red book from this particular material.
That's the text, the title of.
And, if you want almost the preface of the book, we learn that bit
by Baggins is the first author of the Red book number two on the handout.
He's the author of its opening text, which we can guess is supposed to be
the archetype for the textual archetype of what is now known as The Hobbit.
Talking confirms that at the very beginning
of the prolog of the Lord of the rings, you see a put the quote,
in, an analysis of number two on the handout.
And there are quite a few, indeed hints to Bilbo's authorship of The Hobbit.
Or rather diary, as it is called.
And we find them in the Lord of the rings in a way, again and again,
more normally in the form of recent references to Bilbo's
second book, a second book which was being read only by Frodo.
You see, that's a quotation that, number two a on the handout and also by maybe
only Frodo may have had a look at the head for those ready to get many times.
Mary had a quick glance, but that was enough to intrigue him,
whereas Sam has heard some of the stories, but he has never actually seen him
read it.
There is also
a we are starting to go into the literary fabric of the Lord of the rings.
We also find in the Lord of the rings a direct quote, to the hobbits
there is a quotation of The Hobbit, which is explicitly
ascribed to Bilbo, and a quote from number two on the handout.
That's really the beginning of,
these are the beginning of the first, second book of the Lord of the rings.
That was Rivendell was, as Bilbo had long reported.
And then there is a quotation, a perfect house, whether you like food
or sleep or storytelling or singing
or just sitting there thinking best or a pleasant mixture of them all
that's a quotation from The Hobbit is like a one by one quotation from the obit,
which, as we have just said, is ascribed to Bilbo, had long reported about it.
There is an event from Bilbo's diary,
this sort of archetype of the rest of the of The Hobbit,
which receives a lot of, metatextual attention in the Lord of the rings.
And if you turn the page, that's number two, be on the handout.
And that's, the narrative that,
of the finding of the ring
in several points in the book, in the Lord of the rings,
it is say that there were two variant text, two variants of the same narrative.
There was one, a fake one, if you want, which is the one
that Bilbo told, the dwarves at the time of the event.
Remember when he escapes from,
from the cave of the goblins?
Danny reports what's happened?
And this is the first variant, and that's what the one
that was written down in the first version of the of the book.
And according to this narrative, the ring was given by Gollum to me as a present.
So that's the first narrative which, you know, it still exists.
Then there is the second narrative, the second version of the same event,
which is the two and the accurate one from the perspective of Bilbo,
and it's the one that Bilbo revealed at the Council of Elrond,
which is essentially the vessel we can now read in chapter five of The Hobbit,
remember in the Council about it said, at some point I'm going to ask Bilbo
to tell, about his story in a way that's a sort of summary of The Hobbit.
But in that summary of The Hobbit.
Bilbo gives, I'll do the Council of Ireland.
We have finally the real, the accurate version of the event,
which is basically now chapter five of The Hobbit. Read this in the dark.
What's the point of
this, double dash of this number two, see on the handout.
Why this?
A double version is quite often highlighted.
I feel at least two reasons.
And the first reason is that from a narrative point of view,
the existence of a fake version of the story,
the very fact that Bilbo came up with a sort of,
not exactly a lie, but a sort of twisted version of the story,
helps to shun straight away the link with,
we may see a shadow like the evil Bilbo as soon as he possibly gets the ring,
he feels the need to come up with the narrative in a way that's a part
that we want.
Gollum already did when he got hold of the ring at the beginning.
You remember, he comes up with the story straightaway.
A different interpretation of the event.
That's my birthday present.
And in this first version of the narrative, covered,
In a Shadow of Lie helps, characterized Bilbo
as haunted by a morbid deception to justify his ownership, which is,
of course, a very important theme related to the problem of the of the ring.
But we'll just
say now, in a way, it's a post event and a post post-event explanation
of something that, first of all, is a real fact.
These two narratives do exist or better, did exist in the primary world.
I talk him say this to say that was the first version.
That was the one that readers found in the first edition of The Hobbit.
To some readers that had the first of the additions of The Hobbit essentially
read the version that Bilbo gave to the dwarves,
whereas the second one is the version that a reader started to read
from the second edition onwards, which resulted from the sort of changes
and revisions that Tolkien made in 1951 that if the one you're
talking was last comment that decided to do a revision of The Hobbit
to make it be more harmonic with the Lord of the rings,
and almost by chance, because it was not completely planned.
Almost by chance, this revised version of chapter five
was the one that was eventually published, and that's the one that we see nowadays.
And I think I, I digressed a bit
on this double narrative because if it helps to,
introduce a
key feature, an important feature of the Metatextual frame
Metatextual frame, this history of composition of The Hobbit,
in this case of the Lord of the rings, we have real primary events.
There is the event of two narratives.
That's a real primary event.
But these in a way, develop a secondary
meaning in the, in the, in the secondary world.
So there are two narratives that first of all, they are primary because the
two different real versions of the story that we find in the primary world.
But on the secondary level, these they are given a,
secondary explanation, a secondary significance,
which is this case connected to the problem of the ownership of the ring.
So I'll come back to this again
later on, because I think that's something which I will come back again and again.
This idea that there is a single element which has to a double significance,
it is not, as we know, allegorical because it does not have a 1 to 1
signifying with the primary world, but in itself can be interpreted into
different ways.
And at this point we can move on to number three
on the handout and introduce the second author of the Red book.
And the second author is, of course, Frodo, the text of the Lord of the rings,
the one that ends at the beginning, reveals that for the Lord.
The main text which is contained in the Red book, I quote again,
most of it was written in photos from flowing script,
and this is essentially the account of the War of the ring.
And moreover, another important element that we read that
is that in focus intention, the secondary text that this is important
form a unity with the other preceding texts written by Bilbo.
It's a single volume.
It's done on two different books.
It's a single book divided into 80 chapters.
So in father's mind, these are the memoirs of Bilbo and Father.
All these are not two different books, but there is a single volume,
and I think this is already quite interesting from a little point of view,
in contrast with Bilbo
sort of sheep, which is alluded to again and again in the Lord of the rings,
there are not many explicit references to for this author.
Role number three eight on the handout.
There are only some allusions.
In a way, there are some.
There are some cases in which is a title role is foreshadowed.
There is one case in particular which is during his visit to breathe,
remember, and father introduces himself as a writer.
You remember he needs to kind of cover up his identity and say, I am a writer
with traveling to the called
what's what.
I wonder what happens outside the border of the Shire
and what I find interesting is that this self-presentation as a writer,
a writer is actualized, becomes a real on the way back
at the end of the book, because this becomes and really becomes
an allusive reference to his actual writing, his account
of the War of the world during his final year in the Shire,
in the put you the quotation, another freebie on the handout
remember the people say, what about your book?
And you say, yeah, I mean, I'd be working on it,
but I'm going home now to put my notes in order.
So the beginning was, in a way, a,
like a cover up of his identity.
In the end, this is actualized,
and this is going back to the Shire to write this book.
So, we have introduced to all thoughts in a sense that somehow,
although the two, archetypical text, The Hobbit of the Lord of the rings.
But I think would be a big mistake just to make this equation and say, okay,
the Hobbit is Bilbo story written by Bilbo,
and then the Lord of the rings is for this book, written
only by far, though things are much, much more complicated than that.
Again, I won't give you all the full details, but
let me just point out, if you go to number four on the note
that there is, first of all, plenty of fictional evidence evidence.
But the fictional, first of all, that Bilbo did not finish his diary.
The hobbits archetype.
If you want the first version, the first,
part of this single book of memoir was never completed.
The Bible, and this is again quite important.
In second, we also find out that Bilbo, although didn't complete
The Hobbit, he started to also to write to the Lord of the rings.
He started to write at least some notes that would later become the sequel.
Bilbo's, also known as the author of the sequel,
not just of The Hobbit, is quite often highlighted in the Lord of the rings.
I put some example number for,
A for B, and for C,
not only is often,
described as like a quarter,
you also point in a translator, but is also supposed to be, a quarter
a what is going to be called at least a and at the beginning,
this original intention is the new adventure that did for hobbits,
going through.
So the idea of the Lord of the rings, the four hobbits, Merry Pippin,
something for will have come back to within the report A to B all that changes.
Justin Bieber would have written down the Lord of the rings.
If you turn the page and go to number four, see on the handout.
So this event of this moment of reporting actually
takes place in the Lord of the rings.
The hobbits do come back to Rivendell.
I do reports to Bilbo.
But Bilbo, I quote at first he pretended to take some notes,
but he often fell asleep.
So by the end,
he's not able to complete his,
his task is intention to finish the Lord of the rings.
And in fact, he decides to hand out his notes
to follow for those he's the one that is given the task
not just to write the sequel also, but also to put in order the chapters.
The first chapter of the volume, which is The Hobbit.
So we need to I need to imagine, you see that Frodo has,
if not on Nathaniel, but at least on editorial.
Also for The Hobbit,
for those of you may remember
a sense Bilbo's investiture, and we'll dedicate these last few years of
the Shire, to the writing of the account of the world of the ring, and also
and with up to number five on the handout to the tidying up of Bilbo's first book.
That's the phrase used by Bilbo.
You need to tidy up my notes in my, first, writing of tense.
Bilbo constitutes the role of
for the first of all, as we just read as an editorial column.
So I put my notes together.
You see, I've written a lot of stuff, a bit like Dulcie Building.
So we'll do with this song, Christopher, later on in his life.
Okay.
But again, as we are discovering,
the more we studied The Silmarillion, this is the seventh century.
I mean, this editorial goal was a bit more.
And if you talk to God, just as in the case of Frodo,
for the most part, simply to compile the defined notes
into a coherent narrative, the notes that Bilbo took
during the Council of Aragorn to firstly to take in some notes
after the council of Error while you were talking
about your adventures from Hobbiton to the middle.
But again, this is not just what you did.
As we read in the text.
We also know that these memoirs by Beebo and Frodo,
so these are not taken by Bilbo and edited by Frodo, where?
And they quote, supplemented
by the accounts of the friends and learning of the wise.
So father is not just editing the notes of Bilbo,
but just like Bilbo, father is also a compiler
for those putting together the reports and the accounts
of the characters involved in the story, and above all of the other
hobbits, Sam, Mary and Pip.
In a way, the Lord of the rings is a collective piece of literature,
which is, again called,
which is highlighted again and again and again, not just in explicit terms,
with references to further compiling from the accounts of the friends, but also,
all this is also highlighted by a lot of narrative devices
that pinpoint to the same metatextual frame.
And I'm moving to number six on the handout.
Come on.
The little device, which implies disconnect collective
nature of the work is the remembering formula number six A on the handout.
A remembering formula is basically a phrase
which is inserted to present the events that are told in a particular chapter,
as based on the memories of the characters you see.
There are quite a few examples on the end.
And number six on the handout, I just refer to the first one
people after what they call litter by the food of drink.
Here is the people reporting the.
We are in chapter three of the first book when they have just met the children.
We have this little note at the.
There are people after what I call litter by the food and drink.
What's the point about this little reference there?
Or if you go to the third one, which is even stronger
now, people may remember much of the later part of the journey.
There are many, many, many remembering forms of this kind that we normally find
in. It is interesting in passages of the story where for those not present
as if God is the author of the book, and therefore he needs to rely on the
accounts of his friends for passages where he wasn't there, especially.
I'm now talking especially to book 3 or 5, or of the Lord of the rings.
This is where,
these we are following the adventures of the other characters
I thought is not there.
And we have a quite a large number of remembering formulas that.
So we can say that all these memories of these memory formulas
should be construed as being recalled by,
at a later stage.
But one of the characters is to say, we should imagine that a
Mary or Sam will gather together with folded a certain pointer,
maybe Minister Arthur, maybe in,
Rivendell, report
the events, and then father will write down
the transcript, transcribe almost those memories, and point out
that in some cases, the memories were not perfect.
There are, in fact, several references, not just to the memory,
but also there are several references in the Lord of the rings.
Also to this narrative report.
In moments, moments
where people gather together and tell the stories to each other.
You see, I put some of them on number six B on the handout.
I would example is the one that you find in chapter four of the six books.
We are now in,
we are now in the field of Malan that we know that,
while the and the army are celebrating the victory,
there are moments in which the in some learn
much of all that happened to the company after the fellowship.
So we know that, in a sense, book three, a book five,
retold to Frodo in a do in the field of commander,
we can never stand a specific moment of the narrative.
When this happened, all these reported moments, I think should
because construed as depending on the same underlying metatextual frame.
Together we that are moving to number
to number six, from a seven on the handout
together with quite a lot of, interlaced narratives.
I now I just missed. Yes.
Just introducing another
piece of little jargon interlacing narratives.
Or we can also introduce another concept in multiple vocalizations,
interlacing narratives
is basically refers to the way the Lord of the rings has been structured.
We start following the story of one character that we jump to the other.
And again, that was not so easy.
We know when we read the history Middle-Earth that Tolkien
thought careful about how to kind of follow the different stories
of the different characters.
So and in a way, they tell lacy narrative so that we find that of the rings
are somehow justified by this metatextual frame,
another very important concept to which is now for listening
to number seven on the handout is the concept of vocalization.
So for colorization is a term for little ethereal which refers
to the point of view which is taken by characters in a particular, passage.
So we know, for instance, just to give you an example,
which I will come back, that the chapter of the who Kai is
to Peter, Maggie, it is Pippin and Mary Walker.
Leave that event and I'll report on it later on to the fencer.
And so the old chapter is vocalized from the point of view of
and of Marian Pippin.
And this introduces another very important texture, another important piece
in the mosaic of the metatarsal frame of the Lord of the rings.
And it's which relates to the character of Sam.
Sam. We mention,
Bilbo and Fodor, but we have a third of to play a very important role
in the Lord of the rings, and this is indeed Sam.
Sam plays the part of the advisor.
We know that as we read in the power text that that,
for the hand that the book to Sam in some has the task of advise it,
but also he has the task to write the final chapters of the book and author.
Now to number seven on the handout.
I think we can even pinpoint the exact moment in the Lord of the rings
where Sam's authorial hands begins.
And as we hand in the text, these are supposed to be the beginning
of the unfinished chapter.
It is to be the unfinished chapter, 80 to remember,
80 chapters where all the 80 chapter was almost completed.
So if we make the calculation, you see the little, a little schema.
The Hobbit has 19 chapters.
A lot of things are 63 chapters.
So once we can deduce that the final chapter of the novel,
which is the one including the text, is the 81st chapter of the book,
and does infer that the 80 chapter JT chapter, which is the incomplete
white, incomplete one, is the scoring of the share of the Shire.
Again, we cannot be really certain.
And what I what point of the sky of the Shire Sam's begins to write.
I have my own theory though.
As you can see on the handout said to be that this is when,
the Battle of Hobbiton begins.
I think if you remember in that chapter, father is reluctant to fight.
So it's almost as if he does not want to be a part,
of the battle of Hobbiton.
And we kind of guess that that's about where Sam begins to write
because of a change of style.
To introduce the other topic of my lecture today, there are different authors
in the Lord of the rings, but also they are very different styles.
And the style that we read find in the second half of the 18th chapter of the
of the
Sky of the Shire is a very colloquial, a very long ages text Shire.
And there is a lot of edge to, style.
And they give you just an example on the handout, which relates
to the word ladder to the hyperrealistic term
ladder boy, but with a hyper realistic tinge.
And this term is never used in the Lord of the rings, except
in this speeches by hobbits or, orcs.
I made a search.
You cannot make
all these beautiful searches with the with using PDFs and so on that you see
the word light is never used in the lost drinks except in the speech.
So you can see that it's a world
with a very clear, colloquial conversation alleged there.
But there are three exceptions in which we find lad in
in a non dire speech.
And these are only found in this chapter eight
and only in the second half of the, of the chapter.
Of course,
we cannot be 100% certain that Tolkien had that in mind, but I don't think we can.
It is impossible either.
I do think that's a
when we go back to the Shire, and that's something that totally alludes to.
I'll see when these letters, the style goes down
and whether consciously or not, that's why we can find a longer
term as the word that
this and this kind of change of style, I think, correlates quite well also
with the supposed identity of the writer of the, of the, of the chapter.
Now, Sam is taking control
of the control of the book and therefore the style begins to change.
And if you think what I was saying before about the idea that the first chapters
of the Lord of the rings are the first book to the Lord
and the rings were drafted by Ben.
But we can then also explain why at the beginning,
from a metatextual point of view, the beginning of the Lord of the rings
clearly features a low register stag, or at least a lower style
than the other books.
In a sense, the beginning is written by Bilbo or some passerby to make Bilbo,
so there is a bit of a mix of different authorial styles.
Moving to number eight on the handout,
this correlation between narrative and stylistic features
and the underlying metatextual frame is found not just in this final chapter,
but of course, it is a very widespread feature of the Lord of the rings
as a whole.
I already refer to,
the case of the beginning of the of the other Lord of the rings.
The first chapters of the London names have clearly a lower register,
but if we consider many other chapters, like the UK chapter set,
we will get to look at chapters from the point of view of The Hobbit,
remembering that that's been told from the point of view of Marion Pippin.
We can explain why in that case, the the register is very, very low.
The register of the book I chapter if you I've done a again a very quick analysis,
you can really see how suddenly goes down compared to the other two.
And the same somehow happens in book four when Sam and Father Derek,
you can see that the the style goes down a bit.
And to come back again when we move to then to book number five.
So moving to number nine on the handout, because it's already late
and I need to speed up a bit, I will just sum up what I said in the first part.
Now of this lecture in this way.
So what are now known as The Hobbit and The Lord of the rings
originally formed a single volume with 81 chapters written by Free
intermingling intermixing hobbit Hans Bilbo,
who drafted the first 19 chapter in sketch notes for the following 12.
Frodo, who polished up possibly probably the first chapter by Bilbo
and got the main bulk of his text, the Lord of the rings.
But he did it, compiling from Bilbo's notes
and incorporating the accounts of his friends and especially the hobbits,
and then finally Sam, who completed the 880 chapter
that was left unfinished by Frodo
and wrote the final one, which is also entirely because, of course,
is this only Sam can know what happens when he comes back to Middle-Earth.
These
account, if you turn the page number ten, is really quite complex
and fascinating from a later point of view, but it is only a very tiny
part of the metatextual frame,
first of all, and I have to be quick here,
we know that the Red book did not only consist of those 81 chapters,
but also included extracts from books of Lore translated by Bilbo.
Rivendell.
And, we can infer a bit more information
about the books of Laura.
From some,
references scattered in the Lord of the rings.
We know that is in the appendices.
In particular, we know that these books of lore were free number that were made
at various times and were given by Bilbo to father in his last visit to Rivendell.
That's number ten eight on the handout.
We also know that the author,
the original author of these books of law, is, er, God himself.
Number ten, be on the handout.
And these books of law dealt and we need knowledge from the passage
it put the number ten see on the handout with tales from the forging of the reading
to the Last Alliance mainly, and we can also therefore
guess that's have to do with the Second Age material,
but also with the events of the First Age of the world.
And we can say that to a certain extent, these three books of log
essentially contained some original material
material that was originally offered by Arendt
but abridged, translated and edited by Bilbo.
And this is important.
This shows an important feature of this metatextual frame.
What we read is always an approximation.
We don't read the original text.
What we read now in The Hobbit The Lord of the rings, we adjust.
Translations abridgment of a much more complex and more complete text.
So we have another author now around.
We have another important role of Bilbo.
Bilbo is up translator.
But again, that's not complete yet.
A metaphysical frame is not complete yet because Tolkien
gave out a very long note,
in the prolog of the Lord of the rings, you, encompassed
not just the writing the Red book, but also its textual history.
I am a
philologist and desperate to give myself, so I relish reading these all things.
I'm not going to do it for you.
But just to sum it up very, very quickly, you see that you can.
That's a selection of the old thing.
That's my favorite possibly parts of the lamb, things I must confess.
But you know, that would be fun at the time.
But just to sum it up a bit, this textual, fictional textual history
confirmed that, father's original book was a later by for supplemental volumes.
So there was the guide book, but then eventually went for supplemental volumes,
which included the three books of Bible translation in the final volume
feature a miscellaneous material, which was written by many different hands.
We also know that the original Red book was lost,
but there were many copies made of it, and especially a sort of a deluxe
five volume edition known as the Times Book,
which was later amended, annotated and supplemented
with the Lord of the Rings The Rise from a copy
after many centuries, A millennia, Millennia of These Times additions
which incorporated the father in Psalms, chapters
and selections of the fifth volume.
In just as the first part of Methodists textual fame is evident in the text,
with the kind of references they remember, informers, and so on.
So the second part of textual history is confirmed
by the way the appendices are presented.
If you read the appendices, there are plenty of plot marginal glosses.
There are plenty of, passages that show different textual variants.
He was very, very attentive. The very
to make sure that this second part of textual list
was reflected in the actual text that you find in now, in the appendices.
But what is important in this note is that in this,
not suddenly Tolkien comes on stage.
Tolkien's authorial or editorial goal
is now presented, and so it's connected
with all the Metatextual fame, which I outlined above.
If you turn to page number 12 on the handout
in the prolog and in the ending sets it to a certain extent,
Tolkien is therefore speaking in his own authorial persona.
Again, it's not.
Tolkien himself is the authorial persona of Tolkien,
which are not exactly the same.
And this is shown, for instance, by the reference to the publication of The Hobbit
to the transcription of obeisance scripts into English number 12.
Hay on the handout.
So we can see how the implication of this connection of Tolkien's authority,
Lord, with this complex metatextual frame, is that Tolkien
essentially is in possession, came into possession of a manuscript
descended from the Red book, and that's, as I said at the beginning,
a very common feature of the meta literary narratives.
A metatextual frames in general in literature from the antiquity
down to the 21st century.
The most
explicit hint to where they are to this role of Tolkien within the meta
textual frame, which is where, in a sense the primary in the secondary world meet,
people always wonder how do we relate to the world
of talking to the secondary, to to the real world?
Probably back to the second world analogy to a certain extent, a point at
the point is Tolkiens authorial persona,
as I recall, of an ancient book.
Again, all this is never putting up in terms.
So there is not a very clear place we're talking this place.
I found the manuscript translated, it subtly hinted to,
not just hinted to, but it is.
There are some hidden messages that he didn't, the,
secrets that, people cannot,
identify to see how talking really cared about all of this
and the most explicit one is found in the core of us,
as you can see in number 12, beyond the handout of The Hobbit
and the Lord of the rings that are written in runic letters,
I think one in the other version, that's what they read
first, the Hobbit or Dagger, but again, being the record of A.
S journey made by Bilbo Baggins of Hobbiton compiled
compiled from his memoirs by J.R.R.
Tolkien and published by George Allen.
When you see how there is a mix of the primary secondary world,
the these the stuffing, which never happens in talking in many
ways, that's one of the very few cases where we have a merging of the two
that Judge Allen and Unwin, which is a very real thing,
which the memoirs of the hobbits and the second in the Lord of the rings,
The Lord of the rings, translated from the Book of Ways much by John
Tolkien, the ring is set from the history of the wandering King
as seen by the hobbits.
Another very important reference
to which I would come back very, very soon.
So in this metatextual frame again, the secret is hidden.
It's not,
very clear to the reader, but it's that it's very clear that it's there.
Tolkien is a compiler.
Talking is a translator.
If, and this idea of translating it is also very, very important
because we also find it again, again referred to in the letters independence,
quite often in the letters, especially in answering a letter,
questions from your reader.
So he pretends to be, just a translator.
So, yeah, the world I use is just an approximation,
because there was not an exact equivalent for an Elvis world.
So after this long journey, number 13,
we can very briefly sum up what I just said about,
the main features of this metatextual frame that have to do
with both the authors and the styles of the Lord of the rings.
According to this, Tolkien has come into possession of a manuscript
copy of an old book in an ancient language, not English, in five volumes.
The book originally focused on on events
dating to the end of the Third Age, the time by three contemporary
authors of hobbits has being offered in some,
but was soon supplemented by a large bulk of visual learners
material of different origin, date, authorship and content.
Tolkien is not translating the extent of this book into English
and compiling them into separate volumes.
So going back to the opening question who are the author
of the Lord of the rings?
The authors are Bilbo.
Battles of also fodder, but also some, but also as and,
but also Malory, but also Gimli, but also people.
Nobody is the only one who said he's never got anything.
And it's interesting, I you see, this is a collective, corpus of texts
that have been handed over to the centuries that have come,
now in
the hands of Tolkien, who is editing a mending, supplementing an abridgment.
And that's the way we read now, the Lord of the rings.
Why did develop all this?
Why he,
he clearly was thinking about issues
of metatextual ity of transmission and so on.
It also, why did he hit it with it behind it?
So why it's not so clear?
I mean, there are many books where this is very, very clear.
If you think about people like Lombard for instance.
So all there are people like Ossian
who are so explicit in Metatextual frame, even to pretend that there was two.
I found this manuscript.
I will have this bastard in the story.
So in the case of Tolkien, the story's there, the metatextual frame is there.
But is is somehow.
Why? Again, I won't have the time to answer
to all these questions, but let me listen to this a first possible
level of the answer
number 14 of the handout, which has to do with the secondary meaning
of this metatextual frame within the legendarium here.
I'm, jumping a bit because it's a bit late, but here
when I say secondary meaning, I go back to what I was saying before.
I think that any element in the narrative of the Lord of the rings
and in talkies works in general, is can be split in different ways
in two and two different levels.
And the primary level, which is not a 1 to 1 correspondence, it's
much more complicated than that, but at the primary level essentially means
how, in the case of the double narrative of The Hobbit,
what's the kind of connection with what happened in the real world?
But I'm not so much interested in this level.
I'm more interested in the time in the secondary level.
So what's the point at the secondary level in the secondary world to,
pretend the whole story has been written by hobbits?
And that's the sort of thing I'm going to discuss
in the next 15 minutes of my lecture.
So moving to number, 15 on the handout.
So I'm jumping a bit to number 14.
Maybe we can come back later to this,
but it's late, so let me just move to number 15.
And number 14 is essentially a theoretical discussion of why
once we distinguish between two different layers of interpretation.
The second interpretation.
But let's say number 15 of the level of the secondary, the internal explanation.
What's the point from the point of view of the secondary literature
of doing of coming up or this kind of a developing such a complex
metaphysical thing in I think the first reason, number 15
a on the handout has to do with realism.
Just as we know, talking was a realist writer.
People who said talk, it was not realistic.
I've not understood talking.
I would say talking was one of the most realistic,
writers who ever existed.
He was obsessed with the realism.
Would be obsessed with the idea of making things real.
And, as far as the metatextual frame is concerned,
if you want to have a coherent, a real story, a story that which can be.
I couldn't believe we do need a textual history.
We cannot have just the tale without an explanation of how this tale came about.
How can we read now this tale in the 21st century?
The Metatextual frame, I think, first of all, provides internal realism.
And in a sense, he does provide a he does fulfill a similar function
to all the invented languages of Middle-Earth, which, as we know
and refer to the first passage, number 50 and a on the handout,
aiming to give an air of reality.
So I think that the language is just like the material frame.
First of all, have this function.
They make things real.
They make the Lord of the rings are something which is real.
We can rest plain where it comes from.
But there is much more than that.
Going a bit deeper, I think, the Metatextual fame in
I thing, more specifically the authorship of Bilbo.
Bilbo, as the author of The Hobbit, allow Tolkien to overcome
what you consider an insufferable obstacle
in the history of the composition of the Lord of the rings.
At the beginning, there was.
And he says again, he refers to it again, them again.
Not the call.
And the obstacle was the fact that in the original published
version of The Hobbit, we found the ending,
this very, very traditional narrative closer, according
to which Bilbo remained very happy to the end of his days.
And those were extraordinarily long and talking again.
He was obsessed with realism.
He said, I cannot write a new book.
There cannot be a sequel because there has been already a closure.
And and basically what he saw in testing way, way was success with it.
I mean that, in fact, when we read
the first volume of The History of Middle-Earth or the reconstruction
of the Lord of the rings, we see how you go to many different versions
of the first chapter, for instance, of the second, the third could really start,
and it says in a letter that one of the reason was that in this view,
The Hobbit was something that was complete.
It was finished.
He had nothing more to say about the hobbits.
There is a good, very good scholar
we called Bowman or said something which is, I agree very much in the quote,
to put you the person number, hand out the most immediate
consequence of this metatextual framing of this construction
is to disarm the troublesome sentence at the end of The Hobbit,
and ultimately to be able to find the vice effects
effectively places the entire book inside quotation marks.
And you see how we have.
We go back to the concept of localization.
In a sense, by coming up with this full frame,
we put all of it us, under the vocalization.
The Hobbit is not talking support to the arbiter.
The narrator of The Hobbit is not Tolkien himself.
He wasn't.
He didn't really like.
For instance,
if you remember the style of the narrator in the first version of The Hobbit.
And as we know, that set up the audio because we wanted to rewrite it.
So we have the first drafts of the first versions of The Hobbit.
Matthew Newton in the new style,
and but Tolkien somehow solved the problem.
Say, okay, that was not me.
It was Bilbo writing the diary.
It was. Bilbo thought that,
The Hobbit was completed.
But of course, this the perception of closure was impossible.
So in a sense.
And so by coming up with a metatextual frame
to put into inverted commas, the all hobbit, Tolkien was also,
in a sense, correcting this perception of closure, as we know from many passages,
and they put one of them a very important form of stories.
Tales never end, stories never end.
And the story is always,
going on.
The road keeps going on.
It's impossible to say the story is over.
And this idea, this problem, this concern is
openly Timothy's in the Lord of the rings and a quote
from Bilbo's statement in the first chapter, book
two don't adventure said I had an end, I suppose not.
Someone has always has to carry on the story.
Well, it can't be helped.
I wonder if it's any good to try to finish my book.
So you see here there's an explicit reference to the Methodist with fame.
It's good to finish my book connected to this problem of endless.
Bilbo thought this story was all there.
But the story is not. Story is not all the
the endless ness of story stories never end,
I think is, an idea which is connected to another
very important idea which is also related to the idea of the metatarsal framework,
which is the idea of the partiality of any story.
Any story we tell and read is necessarily passion is not the full story.
It's always fossilized.
It's always one version of the story that can be more other.
It can be more versions.
It's not false, it is true.
But it's a partial tool.
And this idea of partiality,
which is closely related to the idea of vocalization or
this idea of everything, is put to within a metatextual frame.
Everything that we read is not perfect is very important also for what
we call tokens.
Primary melting sound, visions of the world, philosophy, if not even theology.
So we may say, therefore, that the Metatextual fame,
which originated the system at the beginning from a little problem,
provided Tolkien
at an opportunity to reintegrate into a single agonistic framework.
What would have otherwise been unreal,
unreal at both.
As a superficial level, Bilbo's story did not end with The Hobbit.
We cannot conclude, the story with The Hobbit.
The story went on, but also as a deeper one at the level
that then he will openly address in on fairy stories.
Real stories never end.
All stories are partial.
They are parts of a larger mythological corpus.
They move in under 4 to 15 bit.
So we can see how this
realistic function of the metatextual frame is closely related in general,
which will make all the mythology ambition talk.
You want to build up a mythology, and we know that from,
these very early years that there was this desire and he had some models for it.
He had had enough, for instance, yet long after with this carnival, for instance.
But in general, we know that this was his desire
and this kind of desire to be done by all mythology is
closely related to this idea of doing the making in real.
This mythology must be real.
It must be as real as it was for the Homer was, it was for,
a lot
in this realistic concern which relates to this more general limit.
Poetic ambition is also valid at the in a sense, smaller scale.
If you turn the page to number 15, see on the handout,
the meta vessel is very, very useful
to explain, justify all the different statistical,
stylistic and narrative features that we find on the, on the rings.
And again, you see how this is a bit of a visual cycle, because on the one end,
the metatextual frame is supported by this stylistic variety,
but at the same time, the stylistic variety is what matters.
It needs to be justified.
The diameters were fine, as Tom Shippy put it, to be very clear way.
A superficial clash of styles.
There is a superficial clash of styles in The Hobbit,
just like in the Lord of the rings, and this is a very important
feature of this works because these works bring together,
in a way, lead time features from the ancient Greek mythology,
not the mythology, the modern novela, the realistic, stories.
So they all come together.
So necessarily there is a sort of stylistic variety,
and yet this superficial clash of styles
like what lead to a deeper understanding of unity, which is indeed
the end of the major theme and even the major lesson of The Hobbit.
So by coming out with this metatextual frame,
we also have a way to bring together to explain the diversity
talk is had clearly this little detail.
It maybe the human concerns.
How can we reconcile a variety of styles or points of view
with a unity in this metatextual frame?
You know, says, provided the solution to a certain extent.
There is,
I said, a great variety which is supported
as reflected in this idea of, you know, walk, which is collective.
The Lord of the rings as a collect, an authorship, not just one.
There are many different authors, and yet there is, in a way, a point of unity.
And the point that unit is not just the father of the day.
There is a single metatextual frame, but that there is a single
if you want general colonization, at least for the Lord of the rings.
And these is 15 D is what Tolkien would call orbital centrism.
The general point of view of the hobbits and the Lord of the rings
is the hobbit identity of the,
authors, as seen by the little people as we are before.
But even the memoir, meanwhile, be one for of
these Hobbit centrism.
The Lord of the rings has an orbit is orbital centric.
It is told by the point of view of The Hobbit, and this is so important
to, is connected, I think, to one of the other main themes
that was there to talk insight into some something that in a way
the heading the lights again and again in his letters.
Let me just quote one of it in this phone number.
1215 the on the handout that, 131,
this last great detail is seen mainly through the eyes of The Hobbit.
So important, two hobbits, not many so-called
because the last style is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme.
The place you want politics of the unforeseen,
the unforeseeable absolute will in this of the future, of the apparently small
and great forgotten, the place of wise and the great.
So the whole metatextual frame and the vocalization,
which is a underlines with the the orbital centrism actually
is related to this very, very, very deep theme.
The Lord of the rings is written by hobbits because the whole book
is about hobbits, and more precisely, about the ennobling hobbits.
The role played by hobbits in what this story and the way
by which this happened to be ennobled to God in a way,
these
hobbit or centrism, which is I think were the main function
at the secondary level of the metatarsal fame.
It is important also not just from a stylistic narrative
and thematic point of view, but also from a more deeply literate
point of view, not just the details of it, but more generally,
or what Tolkien was trying to do and what Tolkien was trying to do,
or at least what he found himself been able to do is quoting again later 131
to merge myth into history.
The Hobbit, the book, which has much more essential life
in it, was quite independently conceived.
I did not know as I began that it belonged, but
it proved to be the discovery of the completion of the whole.
His desire was to write the same religion, but they couldn't.
But in a sense, the way managed in the end to come to complete The Silmarillion,
or not to merge the complete, but eventually to become
a successful writer, which will lead to the publication of The Silmarillion,
was thanks to The Hobbit and the characters
proved to be the discovery of the completion of the home.
It's not of descent to earth and mountain to history.
What does it mean by descent to outer magic?
To history?
It's 155, so I'm not gonna give a full question.
There was would be another hour at least.
But let me just briefly conclude that I think the hobbits introduce provides
a point of view, a vocalization which Tolkien and his readers can identify
the point of view of simple human beings, modern human beings
living in a non heroic age, like that of talking 20th century.
It's so paradox.
This is from a later point of view.
It's also a way to connect that myth with a history,
to merge myth into a story.
The hobbits, and therefore the the most important characters
of the Lord of the rings, also in the sense of that authorship.
The hobbits are the authors of the Lord of the rings.
They have much more full life, more essential life
in both the primary and the secondary world.
And that's the that's the reason why they managed to merge myth and history.
They are, if you want the link connected, the connecting, the secondary
and the primary war, the mythical universe of Maryland, without this idealistic
and this kind of great aspirational human ambition for the great, for the, for the,
for the high we, the the smallness, the mediocrity of the human life in the,
the contemporary world in talking, that's really the conclusion, will later
gratefully acknowledge the role that the obits played
in his literary career, in the development of his literary work.
And this really will be my final quote at the very end of page number nine.
Personally, I desired to go to the past because it's what
been many years I desired, first of all, to put into all the
The Silmarillion together with the cosmology
and the legend of the Second Age, the downfall of Numenor.
That's Tolkiens literary desire from a young age.
They what they wanted to do.
All of these were written first, and it was my desire to issue them
in chronological order.
I remember after I published To Whole Me
to try to persuade the Spanish of the publisher Mariner, but they didn't.
And the world of light and the Lord of the rings,
and he would have nicer to have, in his view.
First publisher, then the Lord of the rings.
And yet that's the crucial bit.
It was only as a sequel to The Hobbit that publication proved possible.
Bless the little people.
Anyway, the Lord of the rings has astonished me,
and I believe the Gollum publishers did more.
Thank you very much.
An apology for having spoken a bit too much.
Thank you. I.