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Document Type
Panel Discussion
Event Website
http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm
Start Date
1-8-2021 10:00 AM
End Date
1-8-2021 10:45 AM
Description
Tolkien’s love of word play legitimizes considering the linguistic closeness of errantry, Eärendil , and errand. This leads to the points this panel will consider: Tolkien has more than once taken themes and motifs first used in a lighter story and woven them, in more serious form, into his broader legendarium; for example, The Hobbit’s Bard presages Aragorn, and its lower-case ring the centrally important Ring of the longer work. Eärendil is supposed to have been the subject of one of the great tales, but we never get it in its full form, or more comparably, in multiple forms over many years in various degrees of fullness, like the story of Beren and Lúthien. Do the points of similarity between “Errantry” and “Eärendil was a mariner” deserve a closer look? In addition to the reused metrical format, parallel incidents, repeated vocabulary and even lines, there is“bewilderment” and wakening from it to remember an errand—an errand never defined for us, as Eärendil’s tale is never fully defined.
Moderator: Janet Brennan Croft
Panelist: David Emerson
Panelist: David Bratman
Panelist: Verlyn Flieger
Tech Mod: Alicia Fox-Lenz.
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Included in
Eärendil’s Errand and “Errantry”
Tolkien’s love of word play legitimizes considering the linguistic closeness of errantry, Eärendil , and errand. This leads to the points this panel will consider: Tolkien has more than once taken themes and motifs first used in a lighter story and woven them, in more serious form, into his broader legendarium; for example, The Hobbit’s Bard presages Aragorn, and its lower-case ring the centrally important Ring of the longer work. Eärendil is supposed to have been the subject of one of the great tales, but we never get it in its full form, or more comparably, in multiple forms over many years in various degrees of fullness, like the story of Beren and Lúthien. Do the points of similarity between “Errantry” and “Eärendil was a mariner” deserve a closer look? In addition to the reused metrical format, parallel incidents, repeated vocabulary and even lines, there is“bewilderment” and wakening from it to remember an errand—an errand never defined for us, as Eärendil’s tale is never fully defined.
Moderator: Janet Brennan Croft
Panelist: David Emerson
Panelist: David Bratman
Panelist: Verlyn Flieger
Tech Mod: Alicia Fox-Lenz.
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc51/schedule/24
Comments
Recorded Session