Grief, Grieving, and Permission to Mourn in the "Quenta Silmarillion"

Published on 12 April 2024 | Conference Paper

In the Quenta Silmarillion, the narrator of The Silmarillion allows characters to experience grief and express mourning in different ways, reflecting the biases that he brings to the text.

The Most Important Characters Never Named: Unveiling the Narrators of The Silmarillion

Published on 6 April 2019 | Conference Paper

This paper, presented at the 2019 Tolkien at UVM Conference, considers the question of who (fictionally) wrote The Silmarillion, what evidence exists for this authorship, and what implications arise when reading and understanding a Silmarillion narrated by a fully developed character.

Stars of the Lesser

Published on 29 November 2007 | Short Story | Award-Nominated | Gift Story | Reader's Choice 

Young Pengolodh meets his first Fëanorian beside the sea, as Celebrimbor attempts to replicate Fëanor's greatest accomplishment: harnessing light.

This work is part of the collection Felakverse.

Character Biography: Pengolodh

Published on 1 March 2016 | Essay

Pengolodh is the most important character never mentioned in the published Silmarillion. This essay discusses what he would have known of the history he wrote about and how that impacts interpreting The Silmarillion for fanfiction.

“Thus Wrote Pengolodh”: Historical Bias, Its Evidence, and Its Implications in The Silmarillion

Published on 8 April 2017 | Conference Paper

The fictional author of The Silmarillion impacts how the story is told. This paper, presented at the 2017 Tolkien at UVM Conference, makes the case for Pengolodh as the author of much of the Quenta Silmarillion and explores how his biases manifest in the text.

The Author of the “Quenta Silmarillion”–and Why I Think He Was Elvish

Published on 7 February 2018 | Essay

In his late writings, Tolkien reversed decades of the Silmarillion tradition, with its explicitly Elvish narrator, in favor of a Númenórean. This essay makes the case that, while this is Tolkien's stated intent, he never carried out these revisions, and the texts should still be read as coming from the Elvish tradition.

The Deaths of Kings: Historical Bias in the Death Scenes of Fëanor and Fingolfin

Published on 8 March 2017 | Essay

The death scenes of Fëanor and Fingolfin parallel each other closely in plot, beginning with the rash pursuit of single combat with Morgoth. Yet the manner in which the narrator of The Silmarillion, Pengolodh, employs language and symbolism leads to two very different conclusions that likely served to advance Pengolodh's political and personal agenda.

Caranthir the Slandered: Narrative Bias, Cross-Cultural Alliances, and Fëanor’s Angriest Son

Published on 26 July 2018 | Essay

Caranthir is relentlessly described in The Silmarillion as dark and harsh and haughty, yet these descriptions bear little resemblance to his actual deeds. Instead, I argue in this essay, Caranthir serves as one of the rare cosmopolitans of the Noldor and is deliberately cast by the Silmarillion's pseudohistorical narrator as a foil to the equally cosmopolitan Finrod Felagund in order to elevate the reputation of the latter.