Cosmology of Tolkien's legendarium
The cosmology of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium combines aspects of Christian theology and metaphysics with pre-modern cosmological concepts in the flat Earth paradigm, along with the modern spherical Earth view of the Solar System.
The created world, Eä, includes the planet Arda, corresponding to the
Ontology
Creation and destruction
Eru is introduced in
"I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the shadow! You cannot pass."
Tolkien stated that the "Flame Imperishable" or "Secret Fire" represents the
Arda ends in the apocalyptic battle of
Eru's direct interventions
In the
Discussing Frodo's failure to destroy the Ring in The Return of the King, Tolkien indicates in a letter that "the One" does intervene actively in the world, pointing to Gandalf's remark to Frodo that "Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker", and to the eventual destruction of the Ring despite Frodo's failure to complete the task.[T 8]
Fëa and hröa
Fëa and hröa are the "
Unseen world
In
The Elves who stayed in Middle-earth where Melkor once was dominant, being in bodies and surrounded by things that are themselves marred and subject to decay by the influence of Melkor, created the Elven Rings out of a desire to preserve the physical world unchanged; as if it were in the Undying Lands of Valinor, home of the Valar. Without the rings they are destined to eventually "fade", eventually becoming shadows in the physical world, prefiguring the concept of Elves as dwelling in a separate and often-underground (or overseas) plane in historical European mythology.[T 12] Mortals who wear a Ring of Power are destined to "fade" more rapidly, as the rings unnaturally preserve their life-span turning them into wraiths. Invisibility is a side-effect of this, as the wearer is temporarily pulled into the spirit-world.[T 13][T 14]
Men, Elves, and Paradise
Men live only in the world (Arda), are able to die from it, have souls, and may ultimately go to a kind of Heaven, though this is left vague in the
Tolkien | Catholicism / Medieval world |
---|---|
Eru, the creator | God |
Valar , immortal, participating in the creation |
Angels (or pantheon of Norse gods) |
Fallen Vala, Melkor | Fallen Angel, Satan |
Elves ("functionally immortal"[7]) | ? |
Men (mortal) | Men (with souls) |
Orcs (evil) | ?[5] |
Beasts | Animals (no soul) |
Several scholars have likened the implied cosmology of Tolkien's legendarium to that of his religion,
Tolkien | Catholicism |
Pearl, Dante's Paradiso |
---|---|---|
"that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be"[T 15] | Heaven | Celestial Paradise, "beyond" |
Undying lands of Aman, Elvenhome in Valinor | Purgatory | Earthly Paradise, Garden of Eden
|
Middle-earth | Earth | Earth |
Evil in Middle-earth
Tolkien used the first part of The Silmarillion, the Ainulindalë or creation account, to describe his thoughts on the origin of evil in his fictional world, which he took pains to comport with his own beliefs on the subject, as accounted in his
Shippey writes that Tolkien's Middle-earth writings embody the ancient Christian debate on the nature of
The physical universe
Flat-earth cosmology
-
Sketch of one of Tolkien's conceptions of Arda within the Void, Kúma, showing the Encircling Ocean, Ekkaia around the Flat Earth, Ambar, the Air, Vista, and the Starry Heaven, Ilmen, before the creation of Sun and Moon.
-
Arda as a flat disc in theYears of the Lamps
Eä is the Quenya name for the material universe as a realisation of the vision of the Ainur. The word comes from the Quenya word for the existential to be in its aorist form. Thus, Eä is 'that which is'. Eä was the word spoken by Eru Ilúvatar by which he brought the universe into actuality.[T 2]
The Void (Kúma, the Outer Dark) is the nothingness outside Arda. From Arda, it is accessible through the Doors of Night. The Valar exiled Melkor to the Void after his defeat in the
When Arda (the Earth) was created, "innumerable
Ilúvatar created Arda according to a
Ekkaia, also called the Enfolding Ocean and the Encircling Sea, is a dark sea that surrounds the world before the cataclysm at the end of the Second Age. During this flat-Earth period, Ekkaia flows completely around Arda, which floats on it like a ship on a sea. Above Ekkaia is a layer of atmosphere. Ulmo the Lord of Waters dwells in Ekkaia, underneath Arda. Ekkaia is extremely cold; where its waters meet the waters of the ocean
Ilmen is a region of clean air pervaded by light, before the cataclysm at the end of the Second Age. The stars and other celestial bodies are in this region. The Moon passes through Ilmen on its way around the world, plunging down the Chasm of Ilmen on its return.[T 21]
Spherical-earth cosmology
Tolkien's legendarium addresses the spherical Earth paradigm by depicting a catastrophic transition from a flat to a spherical world, in which Aman, the continent where Valinor lay, was removed "from the circles of the world".[3] The only remaining way to reach Aman was the so called Old Straight Road, a hidden route leaving Middle-earth's curvature through sky and space which was exclusively known and open to the Elves, who were able to navigate it with their ships.[3]
This transition from a flat to a spherical Earth is at the centre of Tolkien's "
A few years after publishing The Lord of the Rings, in a note associated with the story "
Planets and constellations
Tolkien developed a list of names and meanings called the
A few individual stars have been identified as names of real stars, whether by Tolkien, his son Christopher, or by scholars. Tolkien indicates in "Three is Company" in The Fellowship of the Ring that Borgil is a red star which appears between Remmirath (the Pleiades) and before Menelvagor (Orion). Larsen and others write that Aldebaran is the only major red star to fit the description.[23][20] Helluin (also Gil, Nielluin and Nierninwa) is the dog star, Sirius, while Morwinyon is Arcturus.[20]
As with the planets, a few major constellations are named in the Legendarium, and can be equated with real constellations seen in the Northern hemisphere. Eksiqilta (also Ekta) is
Analysis
Theological basis
In his 2020 book Tolkien's Cosmology, the scholar of English literature Sam McBride suggests a new category, "monotheistic polytheism", for the theological basis of Tolkien's cosmology, insofar as it combines a
The theologian Catherine Madsen writes that Tolkien found it impossible to make his many drafts and revisions of The Silmarillion consistent with The Lord of the Rings, leaving it unpublished at his death. Its cosmology is glimpsed: she notes that the tale of Earendil is recited, and it serves as background to Frodo and Sam's use of the Phial of Galadriel, which contains some of the light of Earendil's star. In contrast, the creation myth of the Ainulindalë is not even mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, though she notes that it could have been: Beowulf offered a suitable model familiar to Tolkien, in the minstrel's telling of a creation story. By having The Lord of the Rings told from the hobbits' point of view, Madsen writes, cosmology is pushed still further into the background: the hobbits know even less of the Valar than Men do, and Eru is not mentioned at all.[27]
Round world version
Scholars have noted that Tolkien seems in later life to have hesitated and drawn back from the flat earth cosmology of Arda in favour of
The Tolkien scholar Janet Brennan Croft states in Mythlore that the races of Middle-earth, Hobbits, Men, Elves, and Dwarves, all believe that there is "a literal cosmological battle between Good and Evil", all expecting a "final cataclysmic battle". Readers may, she writes, consider interpreting the Ainulindalë metaphorically, so that Melkor's attempts to destroy Arda, "raising the valleys, throwing down the mountains, spilling the seas—could be read as a symbolic representation of geological forces", but there is no suggestion of this in the text.[29]
See also
References
Primary
- ^ Tolkien 1977, pp. 329, 336, 356, 358
- ^ a b c d Tolkien 1977, Ainulindalë
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 2, ch. 5 "The Bridge of Khazad-dûm"
- ^ a b c d Tolkien 1977, ch. 1 "Of the Beginning of Days"
- ^ Tolkien 1977, ch. 2 "Of Aulë and Yavanna"
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #131 to Milton Waldman, late 1951
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #156 to R. Murray, S.J., November 1954
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #192 to Amy Ronald, December 1956
- ^ Tolkien 1993, p. 400
- ^ Tolkien 1993, p. 339
- Blessed Realmlive at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power."
- ^ a b Tolkien 1954a book 2, ch. 7 "The Mirror of Galadriel". "yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten."
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 2 "The Shadow of the Past". "if [a mortal] often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings."
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 2, ch. 1 "Many Meetings". "You were in gravest peril while you wore the Ring, for then you were half in the wraith-world yourself."
- ^ Tolkien 1955, book 6, ch. 4 "The Field of Cormallen"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1977, ch. 3 "Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 2 "The Council of Elrond"
- ^ Tolkien 1993, "Myths Transformed", section VII
- ^ Tolkien 1977, ch. 13 "Of the Return of the Noldor"
- ^ Tolkien 1977, ch. 11 "Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor"
- ^ a b Tolkien 1977, ch. 11 "Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor"
- ^ a b "Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendarium' contains a transition from a flat world ... to a globe ...." Carpenter 2023, #154 to Naomi Mitchison, 25 September 1954
- Akallabêth
- ^ Tolkien 1984, "The Coming of the Valar"
- ^ Tolkien 1955 Tolkien defines Anor and Durin's Crown (under 'Star') in Index IV and Menelvagor and Ithil in Appendix E.I in the entries for 'H' and 'TH' consonant sounds respectively.
- ^ Parma Eldalamberon. 12. This includes star names omitted from The Book of Lost Talesappendix, on its pages 35, 43, 63, and 82.
- ^ Tolkien 1955 Appendix E. I, TH
- ^ Tolkien 1984b, p. 266
- ^ Tolkien 1993, Index
- ^ Tolkien 1984, Appendix, "Mornie"
- ^ Tolkien 1977, Of the Coming of the Elves (also Durin's Crown, Burning Briar, Edegil, Otselen, Seven Stars, Seven Butterflies, Silver Sickle, Timbridhil)
Secondary
- Harold Shaw, 1976, p. 59. "Tolkien admitted to Clyde Kilby in the summer of 1966 that this was the Holy Spirit. The nature of the Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, appears only in the abstract in the story "Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth" ... anticipat[ing] the Incarnation. 'They say that the One will enter himself into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end'". Bradley J. Birzer, "Eru" in Michael D. C. Drout (ed.), The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, 2007, p. 171.
- ^ Dickerson, Matthew (2013). "The Hröa and Fëa of Middle-earth: Health, Ecology and the War". In Christopher Vaccaro (ed.). The Body in Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on Middle-earth Corporeality. McFarland & Company. pp. 64–82.
- ^ a b c d e Shippey 2005, pp. 324–328, "The Lost Straight Road"
- ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 270–273.
- ^ a b Tally, Robert T. Jr. (2010). "Let Us Now Praise Famous Orcs: Simple Humanity in Tolkien's Inhuman Creatures". Mythlore. 29 (1). article 3. Archived from the original on 17 November 2022. Retrieved 17 November 2022.
- ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 362, 438 (chapter 5, note 14).
- ^ a b c Chandler, Wayne A.; Fry, Carrol L. (2017). "Tolkien's Allusive Backstory: Immortality and Belief in the Fantasy Frame". Mythlore. 35 (2). article 7. Archived from the original on 16 November 2022. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
- ^ from the original on 16 November 2022. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
- ISBN 978-3031112669.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0.
- ^ a b Kelly, A. Keith; Livingston, Michael (2009). "'A Far Green Country: Tolkien, Paradise, and the End of All Things in Medieval Literature". Mythlore. 27 (3).
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0.
- ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 160–161.
- ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 169–170.
- ISBN 978-1403-91263-3.
- ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
- ISBN 0140038779.
- ^ ISBN 978-1403946713.
- ^ Larsen, Kristine (2008). Sarah Wells (ed.). "A Little Earth of His Own: Tolkien's Lunar Creation Myths". The Ring Goes Ever on: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference. 2. The Tolkien Society: 394–403.
- ^ a b c d e f g Manning, Jim; Taylor Planetarium (2003). "Elvish Star Lore" (PDF). The Planetarian (14). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 December 2016.
- McFarland Publishing. pp. 69–83. The index entries are Gong, Ingil, Mornië, Morwinyon, Nielluin, Silindrin, and Telimektar.
- Mythgard Institute. Archived from the original(PDF) on 21 March 2015.
- S2CID 170378050.
- ^ McBride 2020, p. 14.
- ^ McBride 2020, p. 35.
- Journal of Tolkien Research. 11 (1). Article 5. Archived from the original on 12 May 2021. Retrieved 23 September 2021. reviewing McBride 2020
- ^ ISBN 978-1-61147-065-9. Archivedfrom the original on 19 February 2024. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- S2CID 170596445.
- ^ Croft, Janet Brennan (2010). "The Thread on Which Doom Hangs: Free Will, Disobedience, and Eucatastrophe in Tolkien's Middle-earth". Mythlore. 29 (1). Article 9. Archived from the original on 3 December 2021. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
- McBride, Sam (2020). Tolkien's Cosmology: Divine Beings and Middle-earth. Kent, Ohio: OCLC 1121602421.
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- OCLC 9552942.
- OCLC 519647821.
- ISBN 978-0-395-25730-2.
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