Subcreation in The Silmarillion: Aule and the Creation of the Dwarves

Continuing from the previous post, for today an example of how to apply the four (medieval) ways of reading one of the stories from The Silmarillion:  the account “Of Yavanna and Aule.”

 

 

 

For reference, the four ways (or levels) of reading all literature:

1. The literal/historical approach
2. Allegorical / typological (Not the formal or “crude” allegory such as The Pilgrim’s Progress)
3. Ethical / moral
4. Eschatological / end purpose — What hope does this passage point us to?

As applied to this account, an early chapter in The Silmarillion:

• The literal/historical approach: When does this story take place? Tens of thousands of years before Lord of the Rings, very early in the creation, before the appearance of the children of Iluvatar (elves and men).

Who are the characters?  Just four – Aule, Iluvatar, Yavanna and Manwe.  Aule is a smith type character, but not (as is often exhibited in folk tales) hobbled or lame.  As Tolkien described in his letters, all of the Valar characters are unfallen Angels, in contrast with the gods of pagan mythology.  Aule could be viewed as an unfallen version of Sauron.  Yavanna is specifically concerned with growing things, such as trees and flowers.  Manwe is The Lord of the West, and in him we have a parallel to the archangel Michael.  He knows most deeply the mind of Iluvatar.

In this story we have the origin of both the Eagles and the Ents. We also have the basic story as presented.  Aule makes an honest mistake, going off by himself to create.  He repents when he is confronted.

• Allegorical / typological: In this story we have the quality of love from creatures to their creator, a love that is free.  Also we see a picture of prayer and repentance.  Another major element is the father/son relationship, and sub-creation by the child (Aule).  Other themes include the connection between speech and logos (discourse or reason).  Aule at first speaks to the dwarves, but stops speaking when Iluvatar shows up.  Here and elsewhere throughout The Silmarillion, we see that a special silence occurs every time that something is to be created: an example of silent prayer.

• Ethical/moral: the dangers of subcreation that goes off on its own, in isolating oneself and doing something without God.  The lonely artist in his tower — the modern notion of an artist — is clearly opposite of Tolkien’s view.  Another caution is against limited love and lack of empathy.  Both Yavanna and Aule have a limited capacity for love, beyond their own specialty — Aule with the dwarves and Yavanna only with trees and growing things.  It takes a mediator, Manwe, a priestly figure, who is able to understand and connect with both Aule and Yavanna.

• The Hope: to look forward to the day when our sub-created works will be as like and unlike the original versions as we ourselves will be. As Tolkien said in On Fairy Stories, “All Tales may yet come true.”  That includes even the things we make, marred by our impatience.  This story fo Aule and Yavanna is relevant for artists, writers, as well as for parents.  Paul talks about building on the foundation.  What we do well, with holiness, is what will endure.  According to our obedience to God, and how He has revealed to us Hiw will for each of us, that becomes permanently part of paradise.

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How to Read The Silmarillion

Like many people, my first attempts at reading The Silmarillion stopped after a few chapters.  It is not what many people expect, the format of a novel that starts at a beginning and reads sequentially to the end.

The Amon Sul podcast in particular has provided some general help to encourage listeners to read The Silmarillion.  In particular, the “Last Homely House” sub-series focuses on The Silmarillion.  These two episodes (The Tree and the Axe, and  The Silmarillion Doesn’t Exist) from early 2021 provide a lot of practical advice about how to read it.

Instead of a novel with detailed story and character dialogue and development, The Silmarillion gives us a high-level narrative, with numerous characters – and they all seem to start with the same letter, F.  Reading the standard “novel,” we expect to try to keep up with the details and all the different characters.  Another common problem is to get “stuck” and quit at the geography chapter, (14) “Of Beleriand and Its Realms,” which gives descriptions of the sections of land, a type of writing reminiscent of several chapters in the Bible book of Joshua.

We can best approach The Silmarillion by thinking of it a compendium of Lore.  Some of the material is for reference (such as the geography chapter).  Some sections are self-contained stories (Of Beren and Luthien, for example) not dependent on other material.  The “Quenta Silmarillion” is a longer section of a sequential story, and one good approach is to read this part first, a high level narrative prose — and refer back to earlier chapters of reference material as needed.   It is okay to skip the geography chapter.  Further, it is best to not try to keep track of all the details and remember all the names, but get the grand scope, the overview.

Of note, when Christopher Tolkien arranged the material to publish The Silmarillion, which came out four years after J.R.R. Tolkien’s death, he made some key editorial decisions.  One such decision, that makes reading The Silmarillion more difficult, was to remove “the frame” that Tolkien had devised.  The original frame, or narrative device, that Tolkien had created, was similar to the familiar story pattern of a present-day character (usually an elderly person) talking to another, younger person and remembering and telling of their memories from long ago.  In this case, an Anglo Saxon man came in contact with an Elf Loremaster, who is telling the story to the Anglo Saxon person – thus connecting the history to our real world.  Later, Tolkien moved toward the idea of Bilbo for the narrative frame, that all of this is a translation by Bilbo – a continuation of the Red Book of Westmarch frame mentioned with reference to the hobbits and Lord of the Rings.  Christopher Tolkien chose to completely remove this frame, which might have helped readers, especially when The Silmarillion was first published.

Since The Silmarillion is in style similar to Medieval writings, we can read it in the way that medieval people read all literature – how they read the Bible, how they read pagan literature such as Homer’s The Iliad, as well as all other literature:

1. The literal/historical approach — the actual content of the story, the text itself
2. Allegorical / typological

Of course we all know that Tolkien “cordially disliked” allegory.  Tolkien by that meant the type of formal allegory that leaves nothing to the reader’s application and imaginative freedom — such as Pilgrim’s Progress — as well as reading Lord of the Rings as an “allegory” about the atomic bomb.  Yet Tolkien himself wrote allegorical stories – not of the formal allegory type, but more of a typological story. The story itself exists, and a deeper meaning is also present (what Tolkien termed mythical rather than allegorical):  Leaf By Niggle (see previous post), and Smith of Wootton Major.

Of note, it is okay to ask “how to find Christ in this passage” in Tolkien’s writings.  In the Middle ages, they thought it was okay to ask this question about The Iliad.

3. Ethical/moral — what does it teach us about virtue, actions of some consequences over others. The so what?
4. The hope in the story.  Its eschatological / end purpose — What hope does this passage point us to?  The Silmarillion has a lot of depressing stories, repeated accounts of failed cities and examples of “the long defeat.”

Tolkien shows us that there is always a sense of loss, a permanent loss.  The resurrected Christ is still bearing the wounds of His passion.  The wounds become transformed, but are not erased.  (In Revelation, we are told that God wipes away our tears; the tears are there still, they don’t vanish.)  As Tolkien observed, in his On Fairy Stories, “All tales may yet come true.” That includes the bad ones.  Hope does not work on the idea that everything is erased.  The hope is for redemption and the defeat of evil.  After all, we put up monuments for great battles where evil was defeated.  Hope does not depend on evil to exist, and yet it informs our lives, such that we only experience hope in the context of having experienced evil.

For next time, a look at the above four methods of medieval-style reading, in an example, one chapter in The Silmarillion:  Of Aulë and Yavanna.

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Tolkien: A Celebration — Intro to Tolkien Scholarship

I’m gradually delving into the world of Tolkien scholarship: what people have written about J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth legendarium.  I previously read one of Matthew Dickerson’s books, Following Gandalf, a good introduction to treatment of themes found in Tolkien’s writing.  Now I’m reading through the essays in Tolkien: A Celebration, essays published shortly after the centenary of Tolkien’s birth (1992, 100 years after his birth), a good sampling of different ideas and directions that people have taken in academic study of J.R.R. Tolkien.  Indeed the possibilities seem endless, with what different people find to relate to in Tolkien’s writings.  Podcast episodes also provide introduction to various authors in this field, such as this Amon Sul podcast I recently listened to; the author, Dr. Lisa Coutras (Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-Earth mentions that Tolkien: A Celebration was her introduction to Tolkien scholarship.

Tolkien, as is so well known, “cordially disliked” allegory, and distinguished formal allegory from application — preferring the latter, in the imagination and application of the reader, instead of the single, particular meaning dictated by the author (as in formal allegories).  The essays in this volume certainly expand on the area of application; as generally the case with essay collections, some of these are more helpful than others.

The second essay in this volume, “Over the Chasm of Fire: Christian Heroism in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings,” by Stratford Caldecott, includes basic summary of events in The Silmarillion (for those who may not be familiar or have forgotten these stories), and offers insights regarding the loss of Beren’s hand:

Beren must lose his hand before Luthien can put hers in its place.  That is the way grace works: our own hand, our own ability to grasp and act, can only take us so far.  In reality as in story, life itself must be renounced, every sacrifice accepted, for the sake of love, before love can finally conquer even death, and man be united with grace beyond the grave.

and then, relating this to the account of Frodo and Sam at Mount Doom:

The desire to grasp is finally renounced; the grasping Shadow falls into the Fire and is forgiven.  Frodo has lost a finger, and humble Sam may see him as the great hero, but by that remark and the spirit it reveals it is Sam himself who is conformed to Beren One-Hand; Sam, not Frodo, whose touch will bring the Shire back to life in a golden age.

The next essay, “Modernity in Middle Earth,” is actually about how Tolkien expressed a concern that so many of us resonate with, getting to the heart of the things of most value, versus the progressive values of moderns and post-moderns.  The essay points out what is behind the most common criticism of Lord of the Rings: the dominant charge against Tolkien has been that of escapism and/or reaction; and the overwhelming majority of these critics, as is evident from their other writings, subscribe to the very same values of modernity — statism, scientism, economism, and secularism — which are implicated in the pathological dynamic that so alarmed Tolkien, and still deeply worries his readers today.  This can certainly be applied, as a way of understanding ordinary people around us who do not “get” Tolkien — as with a close family member who outwardly professes Christianity, yet has a scientific, 21st century technology and secondary causes, modernist outlook on life, and has read The Lord of the Rings but doesn’t see anything of particular worth there, preferring current-day authors of secular novels.

Another essay (“The Lord of the Rings — A Catholic View”) comes up with a rather unusual application — at least one I had never considered.  Isildur can be compared to three failed monarchs who held to the traditional construct of Church and State at a time when modernism was coming in strong —  Charles I of England (Anglican in early 17th century England), Louis XVI (Catholic, late 18th century monarch during the French Revolution), and Nicholas II (last of the Tsars, Eastern Orthodox, early 20th century), as another ruler who desired to uphold the traditional kingdom, yet had a personal weakness or flaw that brought about his downfall.  Granted that Catholics want to claim Tolkien as “one of our own,” but I tend to agree with others who have observed that what Tolkien created — though as Tolkien said it was a Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, more consciously in the revisions — was not something that put his Catholicism up front and center.  As the Amon Sul podcast host says, it’s great that Catholics want to promote Tolkien, but that’s not the main point about Tolkien and what he accomplished.

Some of the essays are written at the popular level (such as the opening one from George Sayers link: previous post), others at a somewhat higher reading level, and a few at a more academic level–notably, The Art of the Parable, which I’ll need to reread to fully appreciate its content.  The essay on time and death is also really good, noting the sadness and the pride that entered the elves, unfallen beings who nevertheless were not fully content and desired the higher station of the Valar:  an essay that brings to mind the wonderful fact of Christ’s Incarnation and Resurrection, and the difference in the Middle Earth stories as a time before those events.

I’m just over halfway through Tolkien: A Celebration, and enjoying the many different ideas, applications, and different literary features of interest within Tolkien’s legendarium.  a

 

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Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” and Allegory versus Application

Lately I’ve been considering Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” and its literary greatness.  It is the one book, other than the Bible, that I continually re-read over the years, always appreciating it in new ways.  I’ve read several online articles on the topic – and there is no shortage of such articles.  I’ve also learned about several “commentary” books that delve into the messages in Middle Earth, The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings.

Which brings me to its literary form, and allegory versus application.  Of formal allegories – pure allegories with direct correspondences and conscious, intentional allegories – John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress remains popular, a classic, and it has its fans who likewise regularly re-read it; Charles Spurgeon is one that comes to mind.  Tolkien’s work is of a very different kind, an actual story that has a lot of insights and application.

It’s well known that Tolkien disliked pure allegory, and did not consider his work in that category.

But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.  I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers.  I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

I find myself in agreement with Tolkien regarding the preference for story.  So, what is it about Tolkien’s work that so many of us can appreciate?  First, I would say that it provides grand themes and a great view of the world: God’s majesty and the beauty He has created, and varied characters to show us something of what it means to live in this world.

For several years, I read the Bible in a genre format, a modified Horner Bible reading plan with 10-12 chapters of the Bible per day, all from different sections of the Bible, and different genres: narrative, poetry, prophecy, gospels, history, epistles, and so forth.  This reading plan helped me to see  the “full picture” grand themes view of the Bible and its unity in all the parts.   “Lord of the Rings” can be thought of as like the Old Testament, with its narrative and wisdom literature, as well as a decent amount of prophecy. It shows us the greatness of the world we live in, with all its variety, and a view of Christendom.

Pilgrim’s Progress, on the other hand, is more about the inner life of the individual – a writing from the early-modern era of the late 17th century – and about the make-up of the individual believer in terms of distinctive Christian characteristics and how well the individual holds to God’s truth.  It fits in with Modernism and the focus on the individual, yet by doing so misses the larger picture.

As pointed out in this article at The Imaginative Conservative:

Similarly, Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress is not a person but a personified abstraction who exists purely and simply to signify the Christian on his journey from worldliness to other-worldliness. As a formal or crude allegory, every character in Bunyan’s story is a personified abstraction.

It is this kind of allegory to which Tolkien is evidently referring in the foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings. He cordially disliked such allegories because they enslaved the imaginative freedom of the reader to the didactic intentions of the author.

In order to teach and preach, the author of a formal or crude allegory dominates the reader’s imagination, forcing the reader to see his point. Whereas good stories bring people to goodness and truth through the power of beauty, formal allegories shackle the beautiful so that the goodness and truth become inescapable. Such allegories may have the good and noble purpose of teaching or preaching, but they do so at the expense of the power and glory of the imaginative and creative relationship between a good author and his readers.

The Bible has a lot of narrative and poetry, wisdom literature, and prophecy — similar to Tolkien’s work.  God’s word also includes some parables and figures/types.  So there is some of what could be called allegory (in the broader definition, beyond formal/crude allegory), “this for that” symbolic reference teaching.  One example is Paul’s application of the Sarah and Hagar event.  But this is application and analogy, rather than formal allegory.  Sarah and Hagar were real people and the event described really occurred in history.  Jesus’ parables involved allegory, “this for that” representation in several parables, as for instance the parable of the soils, and the wheat and tares – all of these with specific correspondences.  (Also, with these types of parables there was a form of judgment going on.  The people were not responding, and so He only spoke to them in parables, but gave the interpretation to His disciples.  Reference Matthew 13:10-13  )

But there were other types of parables as well, in the story form, with actual characters and the meaning plain enough, stories that we can understand and relate to as we consider the characters and the story – for instance, the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan; also, the parable of the master of the vineyard.  In this last example, the Pharisees perceived that He was talking about them (Matthew 21:45).

So as I see it, “Lord of the Rings” has more in common, in its literary features, with the Bible — and thus, the ways in which God has chosen to communicate with us His creatures — than the more limited format of pure allegory of the conscious, intentional type.  It is true that preaching, exposition of the word, is something that God has decreed for the New Testament church.  We also see an example of it as early as Nehemiah’s day, when the people assembled and the leaders read and explained the meaning of God’s word, and so the work of preaching is important.  But God’s word itself is not generally presented in the form of sermons.  Certainly some of the New Testament epistles, especially the books of Romans and Hebrews, have some quality of that, the sermon teaching.  But God’s word – in the vast majority of it — presents us with narrative story, with poetry, wisdom literature, prophecies– never with lengthy pure allegories that are personified abstractions of doctrinal concepts.

As so well expressed in the above quote, we do see in Lord of the Rings that good stories bring people to goodness and truth through the power of beauty, whereas formal allegories shackle the beautiful so that the goodness and truth become inescapable. Such allegories may have the good and noble purpose of teaching or preaching, but they do so at the expense of the power and glory of the imaginative and creative relationship between a good author and his readers.

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