tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post7196440881490477350..comments2024-03-11T16:29:13.619-05:00Comments on Lingwë - Musings of a Fish: Mystery Tolkien passage, solved!Jason Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-53445234653399682532012-12-07T10:24:18.220-06:002012-12-07T10:24:18.220-06:00Yes, it’s from the Tolkien/Gordon Sir Gawain and t...Yes, it’s from the Tolkien/Gordon <i>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</i> after all! But as Diego says, it’s a passage that has been removed from the Norman Davis revision of 1967. Another cautionary tale in relying on this later revision. Thanks for the prompt to go back to it, Diego. I had, in fact, been much too quick to dismiss it.<br /><br />I went back through the earlier edition much more closely, and the passage occurs on p. xxiii, in the section “Dialect” of the Introduction. However, in addition to two other mistakes on the part of the authors of <i>Alliterative Poetry</i> (first, failing to cite the source of a direct quotation; second, attributing it solely to Tolkien, when the edition has two co-editors), it appears they may also have misquoted it. Pretty badly. The passage actually reads:<br /><br />“Thus local names originally beginning with <i>hw–</i> written down at Cockersand or Furness are spelt <i>qu–</i>, whereas such local names written at Lancaster, Whalley, and elsewhere south of the Ribble are spelt <i>wh–</i>, <i>w–</i>.”<br /><br />I say it <i>appears</i> they misquoted it, because I have to consider the possibility that the authors’ quote is accurate to the 1924 first edition of <i>SG&GK</i>; whereas, the fourth impression that I own takes up corrections made in 1930. But while I could imagine that additional substance (e.g., Lancaster, Whalley) was added in 1930 by Tolkien and Gordon, it seems unlikely to me that the other differences reflect changes they made (e.g., <i>the</i> for <i>thus</i>, <i>in</i> for <i>or</i>). So, we have a cautionary tale in sloppy scholarly practice as well.<br /><br />Anyway, mystery solved! :)Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-22150799129510881112012-12-06T21:40:38.973-06:002012-12-06T21:40:38.973-06:00I think it must come from the 1925 edition of Gawa...I think it must come from the 1925 edition of <i>Gawain</i>. A similar quotation appears in Kiteley, J.F., "The De Arte Honeste Amandi of Andres Capellanus and the Concept of Courtesy in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (<i>Anglia - Zeitschrift für englische Philologie</i> 79 (1961) pp. 7–16). Kiteley cites the 1925 edition on the first page, and on p. 14 says:<br /><br /><b>Tolkien and Gordon, <i>op. cit.</i>, p.xxiii, observe: Thus local names originally beginning with <i>hw-</i> written down at Cockersand or Furness are spelt <i>qu-</i>, whereas such local names written at Lancaster, Whalley, and elsewhere south of the Ribble are spelt <i>wh-</i>, <i>w-</i>.</b><br /><br />H. Huscher in his edition of <i>John Page, Siege of Rouen</i> (<i>Kölner anglistische Arbeiten</i> 1, 1927) quotes on pp. 105-6:<br /><br /><b>Tolkien und Gordon in ihrer Ausgabe von <i>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</i> (Oxford 1925), p. xxiii bemerken: "It is notable that in <i>Sir Gawain</i> <i>wh</i> (= OE <i>hw</i>) alliterates with original <i>w</i>, in contrast to such a poem as <i>The Destruction of Troy</i>, in which <i>wh</i> (= OE <i>hw</i>) alliterates with <i>qu</i> (= OE <i>cw</i>). Yet the <i>Destruction of Troy</i> is probably north-west Midland: the general character of its language in the extant copy is confirmed by the occurrence of the West Midland form <i>hom</i> "them" in alliteration. The alliteration of <i>wh</i> and <i>w</i> in <i>Sir Gawain</i> indicates that it was composed further south than <i>The Destruction of Troy</i>. The line between the different developments of OE <i>hw</i> which made possible these different types of alliteration seems to have been roughly the valley of the Ribble."</b><br /><br />There is nothing about this in Davis' edition p. xxiii, but the Appendix on Language has a paragraph "To represent the sound descended from OE <i>hw-</i> [...]" (pp. 136-7) which could be derived from the 1925 text quoted here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-53032794406849309812012-12-06T20:27:42.017-06:002012-12-06T20:27:42.017-06:00I'd guess it was a private remark, not even ne...I'd guess it was a private remark, not even necessarily written down, given the lack of a citation. "Private communication" wasn't so automatic back in 1930, I'm betting.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.com