While it is not possible to argue that J.R.R. Tolkien intentionally designed his world to fit in a traditional pattern, as he rejected the use of intentional allegory, it is somehow evident that his vision of the world is more than a simple literary tool. In my opinion, the authenticity of his works resides in the proper understanding of principles once valid, now no longer to be found in the real world. That points to the necessity of fantasy, a vision of the world different from what we consider to be true. Tolkien himself did not consider his legendarium as “false”. In a letter dated 1951, he clearly stated that a certain category of „truth”cannot be perceived by means other than myth. Without explicit allegory, but with a greater meaning, Tolkien’s mythical world is, in more than a few aspects, traditional.
The legendarium begins, in the same manner as the Book of Genesis, with the Principle. He, Eru Iluvatar, existing before and beyond Time, first created the Ainur with his thought. As “emanations” of the divine thought, the Ainur inherently possessed power and virtues of their own. There is not much to develop on the nature of these beings. Their knowledge, which is also the basis of their authority in the created world, is of divine origin, but limited and particular, and the limits of their understanding always let obscure parts in Eru’s plan remain unveiled. The true greatness of the forefather lies in the intimate parts of his thought, where the unity of truth resides, and in the yet unfolded history, source of wonder and amazement for both mortals and Ainur.
The act of Creation, which Tolkien designed with much detail and originality, is the point where the similarities with classical myths are abandoned. The History is seen as the Music of the Ainur turned into being by Iluvatar. Eru himself plays a great role in the act. He has a plan for the world and his thought is embodied in a theme. He also possesses the active principle, “the Flame Imperishable”. Actually Tolkien does not imply that Eru was the Flame, he says that it was “with Him”.
„Then the voices of the Ainur began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.”
So Tolkien’s Creation is in fact a craft. The unity of the theme passed into the multiplicity of things through the work of the Ainur. An episode somewhat similar to the Vedic myth of the three Ribhu craftsmen who divided into four parts the chalice of the Titan.
The Ainur are, like the great part of Hyperborean divine figures, largely functional. The generic title of „Power” describes the initial aspect of the impersonal divinity of the Ainur. Made to reflect in their own nature the perfection of Iluvatar, they are still bounded and not limitless. Instruments of Eru in the Creation of Arda, the World that Is, the Ainur gain personality following their choice to enter Arda and partake in the unfolding of history, the drama of their own shaping. “Then they put on the Raiment of Earth and descended into it, and dwelt therein”. Though it may seem that the Valar (the name Elves gave to the Ainur dwelling in Arda) gained their nature as a result of a weakness, a “desire”, their choice is in full accord with their divine being. Eru Iluvatar’s vision was just a step in the great plan of bringing the world from potentiality to actuality, the plan in which their role was to shape the divine seed, both in the unfolding of history (the Music of the Ainur) and in the corporeal world. “Then those of the Ainur who desired it arose and entered into the World at the beginning of Time and it was their task to achieve it, and by their labours to fulfill the vision which they have seen.”
“Therefore Iluvatar gave their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World.” Again, Tolkien mentions the Flame, the principle of activity which keeps the World into Being. The first object of Melkor’s desire, which he searched in the Void, and for that he never found it. That shows that Melkor, despite his great power, was incapable of understanding the divine thought. His music, although majestic, is vain. The power does not reside in the form, but in the essence, and here the Enemy shows his internal weakness and why he is doomed to disappear. The continuous struggle between the Children of Iluvatar with Melkor has a correspondent (if Tolkien’s way of thinking permits the use of the word) in the essential contradiction between the divine law of the World, the principle of the Imperishable Flame, eternal, occult and immutable, and the power of Melkor, whose authority resides in fear and illusion, thus being limited and changeable. His power appears in all things as the result of blasphemous mockery of true nature and authority of the Valar. That’s why he never managed to subdue the sea or bring it into his domain, as his simulacrum of order cannot restrain the primordial forces of water, “the fairest of all things”. Incapable of true creation, Melkor remained a master of illusion and counterfeit, and his desire to corrupt everything that was new and fair never ceased. Even the Orcs, whom he created by twisting the Elves’ beauty, do not revere him as their father, but rather obey him out of fear, never ceasing to hate him.
The struggle which reflects the original musical contest in which Melkor arose against the will of Iluvatar is the basis of the metahistory of Arda. Thus the unfolding of the drama has a deeply sacral and symbolical dimension, and History appears as the continuous re-enacting of the initial confrontation.
The Music of the Ainur is by no means the ideal image of the World as it existed before history, in a way similar to Plato’s Ideas. Confronting the Vision of Iluvatar with the World at the beginning of Time, the Valar found that they were not similar. “For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Timeless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshadowing.” The Music is indeed the course of metahistory, and by mixing their own thoughts in Iluvatar’s theme, the Valar had put the world into motion , revealing for the first time the becoming which is the cause of all multiplicity. So the order of Arda is much more than the primordial state of uncorrupted Being. As Iluvatar managed to overcome Melkor’s music by introducing it into his own, the order of the world is the integration of good and evil, of particular order and particular chaos in a scheme in which all things gain their value in the thought of Iluvatar. Time is not homogenous, as the Music itself was not as such, either. It is indeed cyclical. Inexorable in some ways, because it mirrors the Music of the Ainur, but still incomprehensible, as the Music is only the basis of metahistory, and its fulfilling often takes aspects that amaze even the Powers, thoughts intimate to Eru and brought into Being by his own will.
As creation is the first divine act of putting order into chaos, into the vortex of infinite possibilities which Tolkien calls the Imperishable Flame, the unfolding of history culminates with the contrary process, the undoing of everything marred by Melkor in the beginning, so as the World to be rebuilt and the Theme be played aright. Chaos has its own value, as it facilitates regeneration. Overall, Tolkien’s divinity is conceived as coincidentia oppositorum. Iluvatar reveals to Melkor the illusion of individual freedom. All good and evil are conceivable in the thought of Eru, so Melkor’s desire of individuality beyond the the great plan of Iluvatar is pure ignorance. “And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.” Tricked by his vanity, Melkor no longer recognizes himself as a part of the divine plan. However, he never ceases to be. And the order of the world, surpassing all imperfection, is the organic view in which all things take part, partially and imperfectly, to the achievement of the perfect thing devised by the perfect mind.
While Tolkien’s world proved meaningful as it revealed its metahistory, the same meanings are to be found in the shape of Arda. Symbolic landmarks reveal the divine presence in Arda and the continuous strife between law and chaos. Tolkien’s world is, in the same way as the traditional man viewed the space around him, geographically consecrated and its features are often cosmologically relevant. The most common is the symbolism of Center, whose first manifestation is the occult (“Secret”) principle of the Imperishable Flame. Either an island in the middle of a lake, a sacred land, a mountain or a tower, these landmarks have a precise function: to organize the universe around them, to become a place where the World under the Stars comes closer to the Timeless Halls of Iluvatar. Ritually re-enacting the cosmogonic work of the Valar, Elves and Men confirm the supremacy of the spirit against the treachery of Melkor. Again and again, the symbolism of the Center is the same cosmogony on lesser scales, devised to keep the world in order.
Apart from the hidden Flame, in the first ages before the coming of the Elves, the World had a present and efftective center. Tolkien firstly talks about the Isle of Almaren in the middle of the Great Lake, the first dwelling of the Valar. The image of land in the middle of water clearly indicates a center of order amidst the primordial, unshaped and chaotic waters. However, Tolkien’s views on the nature of water are ambiguous and uncommon. The fairest of all things, water is the image of Time, to which all Valar are inevitably bound. For Tolkien, fire is chaos, the primordial fire from the depths of the earth, the tool of Melkor. As the strife between the Powers and Melkor precedes the World, but is essentially tied to it, cosmology reflects this battle. “When therefore Earth was yet young and full of flame, Melkor coveted it, and he said to the other Valar: <<This shall be my kingdom, and I name it unto myself>>”. Subduing the fires under the land is the first act of the shaping of Arda, the first time when Melkor’s simulacrum on order is contested by legitimate authority. Although fire is the main chaotic element, water retains a sovereignity of its own, and the Vala Ulmo is often seen as a distinctive figure among his fellows, not dwelling in their lands and following only his own advice. Although it doesn’t resemble the water kingdom of Absu and Tiamat, the domain of Ulmo is both loved and feared by the Children of Iluvatar, who find great wisdom in Ulmo and great peril in seastorms.
Returning to the symbolism of the Center, it manifests later in Valinor, as the mountain Taniquetil, where the Vala Manwe resides. The first sign of a ritual regarding the consecration of the World appears in the story of the Teleri, the Elves who chose not to dwell in Valinor, but on its shores, under the stars of Arda. On the island of Tol Eressea they raised a high mound which stood under the light of the Trees, and their city was built upon it. This is an act of deliberate sub-creation of a copy of the Undying Lands to sanction the order of the lands around it. The Teleri approached the divine in an original manner: instead of taking their place in Valinor, they chose to bring the light of Valinor into the world, thus confirming the unity of creation as the will of Iluvatar was. When they abandoned Valinor for the search of the Silmarils, the Noldor did indeed break the law of the Valar, but by doing so they confirmed the way of the warrior, the active resistance against chaos. However, their act sealed Valinor, thus changing the Center from its effective state to an occult, hibernating land, awaiting the hero to reactivate the bonds between the Valar and the Children of Iluvatar. The estrangement of Valinor marks the decadence of Arda. The Deathless Lands were slowly separated from Middle-Earth, remaining accessible only to those who knew “the straight way”, immortals like Elves and a few mortals who achieved the right to enter “by special grace” (Letters, 156, 411). After the sundering of Numenor, Manwe remodeled Arda, making it spherical, and removed Valinor from it. Thus the cycle of decadence closed and became inescapable, as the Center was no longer effective since mortals broke the Ban of the Valar. “Men may sail now West, if they will, but return only into the east and so back again; for the world is round, and finite, and a circle inescapable, save by death.” The True West remained an occult land, inaccessible by physical means, but only by truly heroic nature.
Overall, the shape of Arda is by no means unintentional, but reveals a sacred geography, a traditional world to which Elves are naturally bound, even in decadence, and in which Men struggle to pursue a spiritual way that goes both according to their mortal nature and against it, for the true transcendence is in the Principle, beyond the confines of the World.
Multumiri stimabilului Sebastian pentru bunavointa de a corecta originalul de neghiobiile mele de limba engleza.
Traducerea in limba romana, pentru care multumim stimabilului Ion, se afla publicata pe site-ul Proiectului Arche, aici.
Si un cadou din partea casei, pentru cei mai mizantropi dintre voi, asa cum si subsemnatul este in momentele de fata.
Burzum – Channeling the Power of Souls into a New God
