Re: Possible self-mockery in LotR?

On Sun, 20 Oct 2024 22:49:37 -0700, Bobbie Sellers
<bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:

On 10/20/24 22:34, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Thu, 17 Oct 2024 07:54:38 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:
 

In LotR, Book V, Chapter 8, Aragorn says (in part) the following to
Meriadoc:
>
   [...] If your pack has not been found, then you must send for
   the herb-master of this House. And he will tell you that he
   did not know that the herb you desire had any virtues, but
   that it is called _westmansweed_ by the vulgar, and _galenas_
   by the noble, and other names in other tongues more learned,
   and after adding a few half-forgotten rhymes that he does not
   understand, he will regretfully inform you that there is none
   in the House, and he will leave you to reflect on the history
   of tongues. [...]
>
Whew! That's quite a sentence.
>
Is it possible that JRRT was indulging in a bit of self-mockery here,
given his main area of study, as well as one of his reasons for writing
LotR in the first place, was "the history of tongues"?
>

An alternate explanation is that JRRT was being paid by the word....

>
That would be a losing deal for a publisher hiring a
Philogist. There is always a longer and more confusing way
to say so.
I think the self-deprecatory jib at the learned is
is just that for the sake of humor.

For /LOTR/, he wasn't paid much up front, if anything. The publisher
wanted a successor to /The Hobbit/ but WWII's restrictions were still
affecting the publisher, so they gave him a percentage of the profits
instead of a large advance. They expected the book to sink like a
stone.

Boy, were /they/ wrong. Part 1 sold out so fast they had to get a
second, much larger printing, right away. Part 2 continued the trend.
Fans had to wait months for Part 3 while JRRT and his publishers
squabbled over how much of the Appendices they were willing to
include. Since Part 2 ends with the Mother and Father of All
Cliffhangers, the wait must have been very frustrating.

--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"