Writing
Tolkien worked on The Lay of Leithian from the summer of 1925 until September 1931, when he abandoned it with only thirteen of the seventeen planned cantos completed. During the composition he made many amendments of the already existing parts of the poem, partially based on the criticism of his friend C. S. Lewis who had read the poem in 1929. In the 1950s, after the publishing of The Lord of the Rings, he resumed working on the poem, of which he rewrote many passages, particularly of the second canto which was expanded and split into two. Nevertheless the poem never reached a complete or definite form.
Read more about this topic: The Lay Of Leithian
Famous quotes containing the word writing:
“No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”
—Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)
“All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.”
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“The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.”
—James Fenton (b. 1949)