Volume 14 Number 3 Article 4 Spring 3-15-1988 The Silmarillion as Aristotelian Epic-Tragedy David Greenman Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Greenman, David (1988) "The Silmarillion as Aristotelian Epic-Tragedy," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 14 : No. 3 , Article 4. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol14/iss3/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Illustrates how the First Age narratives in The Silmarillion and Unfinished alesT implement key ideas from Aristotle’s Poetics. Identifies the history of the first age as Aristotelian epic-tragedy. Additional Keywords Aristotle. Poetics—Relation to The Silmarillion; Epic tragedy in The Silmarillion; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion—Relation to Aristotle; Tolkien, J.R.R. Unfinished alesT of Númenor and Middle-earth This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol14/iss3/4 P a g e 2 0 MYTHLORE 53: Spring 1988 The Silmarillion as Jlristotelian £pic~Tragedy David Greenman It is unlikely that J.R.R. Tolkien would have Elves. Just prior to their awakening at Cuivienen in acknowledged that Aristotle’s Poetics played a large the far east of Middle-earth, the angelic Valar had part in his depiction of the First Age of the world "brought order to the seas and the lands and the (Arda), material that constitutes a complete segment of mountains" (S, 35). They had also overcome the The Silmarillion.1 Yet, since Poetics is the original Lucifer figure Melkor who fled to Outer Darkness. "handbook” of literature, since it expounds brilliantly Although a great number of Elves remain in Middle- on nearly all features of tragedy and epic, since Tol­ earth, many of them accept the call of the Valar who kien was steeped in ancient Greek even before he invite them to journey west to reside in the blessed became an expert in later languages and literatures, realm of Valinor over the great sea, the place where and since The Silmarillion is best understood as their tragedy will later begin. epic-tragedy, he could hardly have avoided, nor likely would he have wanted to avoid, writing this work in The First Age comes to an apocalyptic end accordance with the most sensible ideas of Aristotle, approximately six hundred years after exiled Noldorian that most sensible of all literary arbiters. Elves return to Middle-earth from Valinor, at which time the Valar, now assisted by Elves and Men, once The illustration that follows, of the ways The again war with Melkor, (now named Morgoth "the Dark Silmarillion accepts and implements key ideas from Enemy of the World,") and defeat him in the War of Poetics, will establish the genre to which Tolkien’s Wrath, a global conflict in which the physical shape of work belongs, and will identify the components of its Arda changes with the submerging in the ocean of the narrative structure. My discussion concerns itself with western portion of Middle-earth, Beleriand. Action completeness, plot, magnitude, spectacle, language, depicted in the First Age is continuous, and the con­ character, recognition, reversal, and catharsis of tours of its beginning and end are strikingly clear. emotion through pity and fear. Poetics also declares that tragedy, "the most Because Tolkien left the work unassembled and beautiful by art," will result from plots synthesized unfinished at his death the thorny problem of just "about a few households... who happened to suffer or what The Silmarillion is as a literary work necessarily produce terrible things" (P, 24). In Tolkien’s First enters into any serious discussion. Christopher Tol­ Age narrative several such households .. occupy the kien has gone over this ground several times in his forefront of attention, primarily those of the Elves introductions to it and to Unfinished Tales and The Feanor, Turgon, and Thingol, among others, and that Book of the Lost Tales. In an effort to show its total of the Man Hurin. The Silmarillion in fact, consists of effect others have also tried to impose their schemati- a single great plot of the struggle for survival on the zations on The Silmarillion, sometimes with helpful part of all the world’s beings who must fight against insight.2 the enslaver Morgoth, and of numerous smaller plots which involve the characters in conflicts with each The question of completeness is something that other and with their physical environments. Poetics explicitly deals with, especially as concerns plot. Aristotle says "tragedy is imitation of action that If an author is going to construct an entire myth­ is complete and whole and has a certain magnitude" ical age single-handedly then he had better be con­ (P, 15). Plot, per se. he calls the "principle" and cerned with magnitude, as Tolkien certainly was. "In "soul" of tragedy (P, 13). Consequently, he puts the regard to extending magnitude," Aristotle claims, highest premium on the construction of the incidents, "there is a great advantage which is proper to epic­ "for tragedy is imitation, not of men, but of action or making.” The poet can describe many actions concur­ life" (P, 13) and "plot is the imitation of action... the rently, and these, if appropriate, increase the mass of synthesis of the incidents" (P, 12). Although "epic­ the poem... introducing dissimilar episodes[;] this is a making differs from tragedy in the length of its con­ good, for it is the sameness of the incidents which, struction and in its meter... it [nevertheless] ought to by quickly satisfying the hearer, makes tragedies fail be possible to see the beginning and end together" (P, 46). (P, 46), which means that the author’s overview is most important. It is necessary then, to see how The In reading The Silmarillion in its published form Silmarillion qualifies as a consciously artistic whole one certainly encounters "dissimilar episodes." Tol­ construct. kien’s conflicts span eons of time and uncountable leagues of space. Nevertheless, the variety of "dissim­ The First Age is a complete mythos which includes ilar episodes" in The Silmarillion "is a good" because "Ainulindale," "Valaquenta," "Quenta Silmarillion," "Of they do not break down into unconnected fragments; Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin," and "Narn I Hin rather, they force the reader to expand his percep­ Hurin." The last two narratives are not printed in The tions so that he feels the ongoingness of all the Silmarillion but in Unfinished Tales, yet they are aspects of the life described and the simultaneity of integral to the story of the First Age while several actions spread far and wide across Valinor and Bele­ other narratives which are found in The Silmarillion riand. The reader "lives" concurrently in the deal with the Second and Third Ages. These printing enchanted forest of Doriath, in the stone-hewn for­ decisions were made by Christopher Tolkien, the edi­ tress of Nargothrond, in coastal Nevrast and in the tor of his father’s works that remained unpublished at hidden kingdom of Gondolin, in the stark west the time of his death.3 marches, in the lush forests of Ossiriand, in the grim hill-lands of Dor-Lomin and Hithlum, in the northern After the cosmic and earth-shaping events hell-kingdom of Angband, and in the trackless waste­ described in "Ainulindale," the narrative focus of the lands and along the rivers in between all these First Age centers on the elder children of Iluvatar: places. MYTHLORE 53: Spring 1988 P a g e 2 1 The magnitude of time in the First Age is espe­ produces wonder: for instance, the appearance of Dra­ cially awesome —to take nothing away from the magni­ gons. Tolkien tells us in "On Fairy Stories" that he tude of space, which includes activity in the cosmos, himself "desired dragons with a profound desire" (41). expanding oceans, and contracting land masses. Leav­ In The Silmarillion, to substantiate Aristotle’s claim ing aside the incalculable amount of time that passes that "the fearsome and the piteous may arise from the between Creation and Melkor’s flight to Outer Dark­ spectacle" (P, 24), we behold Glaurung, his gigantic ness, forward time as counted only from the end of head propped on the hilltop of Amon Ethir, encounter­ the First War is itself staggering to comprehend. Dur­ ing poor Nienor in art uneven battle of wills, and ing this long, indeterminate period the Valar raise the fatally skirmishing with Turin, in psychological and Pelori Mountains in Aman and bring nature to a state physical combat. The Silmarillion depicts the ending of of perfection and the two holy Trees of Light arise in the First Age in a burst of dragon-centered spectacle Valinor.