Archaic language or not?

[oshun]

I just found a cool writing link on Delia Sherman's Facebook. (Proof that there are things to see on Facebook besides my high school and university classmates looking looking old and fat and family baby pictures.)

It is called "The Elusive Art of Making the Dead Speak" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303459004577363870847167262.html). Written by Hilary Mantel, she won the Man Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall. She is speaking about writing historical fiction, but the concepts are interesting for those of us who write Tolkien.

How do you give the past a human voice without betraying it or making your reader furiously impatient? Too much period flavor, and you slow up the story. "Nay, damsel, be not afeared," may be authentic, but it will make your reader giggle. If you give way to an outbreak of "prithee" and "perchance," then perchance your reader will hurl the book across the room.

It does not take iron-clad positions, but does often a variety of considerations for ways in which to hold the modern reader and not let them get annoyed and bogged down by ponderous attempts at archaisms which irritate. It does make useful suggestions:

But the challenge goes beyond single words. You need to catch the tone of your chosen age. Our ancestors were more formal, more respectful than we are. Nowadays, give or take educational level, language is egalitarian. But in Tudor times, princesses and stable boys did not sound the same. Her vocabulary was more elaborate, derived from Latin, which she spoke and read fluently; his words were simple and robust and had English roots.

A writer must broker a compromise between then and now, and choose a plain style that can be adapted to different characters: not just to their ages and personalities and intelligence level, but to their place in life. I use modern English but shift it sideways a little, so that there are some unusual words, some Tudor rhythms, a suggestion of otherness.

I liked the tone. I use fairly modern language but doctor it to suit my characters. Fingon uses more contradictions than Maedhros. Why? He just does--he is more formal kind of guy in my verse. Nerdanel uses more contractions than Feanor, but he curses more.

I know people have differences on this question.

Mary Renault had some interesting ideas as a writer of historical fiction about how to give a flavor of ancient Greece using modern English. I will try to find those references and feed them into the discussion if anyone is interested.

[samtyr]

I find this article to be so interesting. Thanks for the heads-up; I have it bookmarked now too.

One of my friends from my X-Files days was given a book of archaic words that are no longer in use, and she has been posting some of them.
Ex: aquabob: An icicle; [from] Latin aqua, water. Kent

[Marchwriter]

Thanks for sharing, Oshun! The author is spot-on about the importance of finding the balance between archaic and modern prose. I can't tell you how many times I've been bounced right out of a story because my ear jerked across a modern word ("okay" springs immediately to mind) spouting from the mouths of a Middle-earthian. Of course, the inverse can be true too, though I find that happens less often to me in fanfiction.

I feel a lot of fanfiction boils down to how engaged an author is in making their characters / their narrative "sound right" (vague enough?) and personal style. Tolkien's world is definitely trickier to render, not only because of the sheer whopping subjectivity about what "sounds right," but also because, not unlike historical sources, we sometimes just don't have the "back-up" from our sources. To my knowledge, though Tolkien does give us a taste of the Hobbit everyman with the difference of dialect between Sam and Frodo, he doesn't document how Elven servants would have talked to each other or how fruit-sellers in Ost-in-Edhil might have haggled their prices. Did they all address each other the way Elrond addresses the Council or did they throw in a curse or two (and what would those have sounded like?)

This could also be freeing in the right hands; we definitely have room for play, and I know not a few authors on here who have done spectacular jobs rendering characters who "sound right" to my ear.

As always, more food for thought. Thanks again, Oshun.

[oshun]

I can't tell you how many times I've been bounced right out of a story because my ear jerked across a modern word ("okay" springs immediately to mind) spouting from the mouths of a Middle-earthian.

I haven't run into "okay" much in Silmarillion fics, but I did see it in LotR fics on ff net. What I am more likely to see in stories that otherwise might interest me are corporatese of the end of the 20th century creeping into people's dialogue and its ubiquitous turning nouns turned into verbs or vice versa. But then, Elizabethan writers did the noun into verb thing a lot.

As far as archaic goes, if a word is unlikely to be recognized by an intelligent reader, I do not want use that word either, unless it is a useful noun that describes something that we might not encounter on a daily basis.

My favorite modern idiomatic English interpretation of historical events is the play "Lion in Winter" by James Goldman. It avoids ever sounding tedious or archaic and yet makes one believe it could have happened that way and they could have sounded like that. It is not strictly history either, nor is it carefully archaic in tone, but it interprets aspects of these historical characters plausibly. Here are a few examples for your entertainment:

Henry II: Now see here, boy...
Philip II: I am a king - I am no man's "boy"!
Henry II: A king? Because you put your arse on purple cushions?

-----------

Prince Geoffrey: If you're a prince, there's hope for every ape in Africa.

---------

Eleanor: I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy. I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled.

---------

Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.
Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

---------

Henry II: Oh God, but I do love being king!

---------

Henry II: My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first Plantagenet, a king at twenty-one, the ablest soldier of an able time. He led men well, he cared for justice when he could and ruled, for thirty years, a state as great as Charlemagne's. He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen. She bore him many children. But no sons. King Henry had no sons. He had three whiskered things but he disowned them

---------

That kind of dialogue makes historical figures breath for me. Especially when I write Silmarillion fanfiction, I want my version of his characters to sound alive.

[oshun]

May 19, 2012 0:01:10 GMT -6 Marchwriter said:

Tolkien's world is definitely trickier to render, not only because of the sheer whopping subjectivity about what "sounds right," but also because, not unlike historical sources, we sometimes just don't have the "back-up" from our sources.

I do use historical sources for my different places and periods that I write in Tolkien fanfiction.

There is one scene in my novel A New Day where Maedhros' brothers are squabbling among themselves shortly after Maedhros returns from Thangorodhrim. Fingon is observing, thinking about how unmanageable they all are and wondering if Maedhros is tough enough to handle them. Maedhros surprises Fingon and his brothers by demanding they each swear fealty to him as head of their house. It is important to me in the plot because it solidifies him as a leader in the eyes of the readers and also makes clear his healing process and acceptance of himself has begun. OK. I use very modern language in the story and I want the oath to sound authentic and yet not be a terrible departure in language. I researched Renaissance-era oaths and found some English/Elizabethan ones. Picked a couple and merged and edited them and adapted the language to fit within the story, shading to the formal side. I liked my result.

I used a similar method for arriving at the words Maedhros uses in his speech of abdication to Fingolfin. The key for me was that I did not copy medieval language, but edited it to suit the tone and mood of my story--inclusive of the reader and personal, not impressing them or keeping them at hand's breadth away from my characters, but drawing them into their world--not distancing them from it. Still I do want those paragraphs to feel formal in that context. Oaths are formal things. If I ever wrote a live scene including Feanor's oath, as beautiful as it is, I would have to diddle with it a little to make it fit.

I think people get confused. Tolkien wrote segments of The Silmarillion in particular with the conscious intent of distancing the reader, giving a high epic tone to one piece or another, a tale from a heroic past! I am thinking of the Lays of Beleriand also. You might chose to do that. I personally would not, because it's hard to pull off and anyway that is not why I write this stuff. I want to take the epic and make it feel real and immediate, not lofty and largely legendary, but flesh and blood and believable.

[Marchwriter]

Ah, Eleanor d'Aquitaine. Such a GREAT film!

[oshun]

May 19, 2012 11:09:22 GMT -6 Marchwriter said:

Ah, Eleanor d'Aquitaine. Such a GREAT film!

I am re-reading Sharon Kay Penman's When Christ and His Saints Slept, which is a terrific novel about the prelude to how Henry II met Eleanor. (Wonderful historical novel. I want to read everything she wrote.) Which probably made me think of them today.

[randy]

he doesn't document how Elven servants would have talked to each other

He actually does, in the 'Galion gets drunk with the Captain of the Guard' scene in The Hobbit. They're just 'grunt' Wood-elves, but they come off their high Elven horse and use contractions, even!

[randy]

I am re-reading Sharon Kay Penman's When Christ and His Saints Slept, which is a terrific novel about the prelude to how Henry II met Eleanor. (Wonderful historical novel. I want to read everything she wrote.) Which probably made me think of them today.

There is a real scandal hidden in that history, all supposition, but it makes sense. Bottom line: there may have been no 'Plantagenets' on the throne of England.

[oshun]

May 19, 2012 12:41:32 GMT -6 randy said:

I am re-reading Sharon Kay Penman's When Christ and His Saints Slept, which is a terrific novel about the prelude to how Henry II met Eleanor. (Wonderful historical novel. I want to read everything she wrote.) Which probably made me think of them today.

There is a real scandal hidden in that history, all supposition, but it makes sense. Bottom line: there may have been no 'Plantagenets' on the throne of England.

I'll have to follow up on that. I missed that one so far.

ETA: I did find a reference to what you might have been talking about:

Sharon Kay Penman says in her notes at the end of When Christ and His Saints Slept:

The legend that Maude and Stephen were lovers and Henry their son has been thoroughly discredited by historians. As the British scholar Marjorie Chibnall points out in her recent biography of Maude, The Empress Matilda, this myth did not surface until the thirteenth century and may be traced to confusion over Stephen’s adoption of Henry as his heir once peace was finally made between them.

Penman, Sharon Kay (2010-04-01). When Christ and His Saints Slept . Macmillan. Kindle Edition.

I am not saying that is definitive. She does seems a pretty decent historian to me. I actually have to admit that I tend to trust her, because she reinforces some of my prejudices/leanings in other areas.

[oshun]

May 18, 2012 20:52:57 GMT -6 samtyr said:

I find this article to be so interesting. Thanks for the heads-up; I have it bookmarked now too.

One of my friends from my X-Files days was given a book of archaic words that are no longer in use, and she has been posting some of them.
Ex: aquabob: An icicle; [from] Latin aqua, water. Kent

I love to think about the question of vocabulary and syntax choices. Sloppy as I may seem to some, I actually do think about vocabulary a lot! Especially, in dialogue. And most of my choices are conscious and deliberate. I still remember my soul-searching and trepidation before the first time I dropped an f-bomb into a Silmarillion story.

[Marchwriter]

May 19, 2012 12:38:35 GMT -6 randy said:

he doesn't document how Elven servants would have talked to each other

He actually does, in the 'Galion gets drunk with the Captain of the Guard' scene in The Hobbit. They're just 'grunt' Wood-elves, but they come off their high Elven horse and use contractions, even!

D'oh, my faulty memory! You're right. How could I forgot that scene? I love that scene! It shows that even Elves whinge about having to go to work.