Re: Elliott's peoples

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sally Caves" <scaves@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: Elliott's peoples


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Cowan" <cowan@...>
>
> > For the record, I think the spelling "elvish" predates JRRT, though
> > "dwarvish" does seem to be his own (unconscious) invention.
>
> I think it has a very early connotation (and spelling) in medieval and
> renaissance parlance, as something "frightening, outre'."  But if Tolkien
is
> drawing on any kind of Victorian tradition of the "elvish" or the "elvan"
as
> "beautiful" or "fay," I'd be interested.
>
> How do elves get associated with pointy-ears, for instance?  In some
letter
> of his, IIRC, Tolkien inveighs indignantly against such interpretations of
> his elves, and insists that they have no such deformities in body or limb.
> And I think it was about things like pointy-ears, not the diminished size.
> But I can't possibly resurrect that text, remembering it as I do from the
> early eighties.  I can see myself in my apartment in Berkeley reading it.
I
> think it might have been quoted in a review of Bakshi's Lord of the Rings,
> where everyone was upset that Bakshi had given the Elves slanted eyes.  I
> was sort of mildly annoyed that they had to have pointy ears in Jackson's
> film.
>
Well, I've always associated elves with vulcans, so pointy ears and slanty
eyes annoy me not. However, I draw the line at undersizement.