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Tolkien's World-Creation: Degenerative Recurrence Volume 14 Number 1 Article 1 Fall 10-15-1987 Tolkien's World-Creation: Degenerative Recurrence Robley Evans Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Evans, Robley (1987) "Tolkien's World-Creation: Degenerative Recurrence," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 14 : No. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol14/iss1/1 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 Argues The Lord of the Rings’s structure is an inversion of that of The Silmarillion, closely linking the two. Notes “some of the elements that are inverted and the pattern in which they appear.” Additional Keywords Heroes in J.R.R. Tolkien; Heroism in J.R.R. Tolkien; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings—Narrative structure; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion—Narrative structure 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/iss1/1 MYTHLORE 51: Autumn 1987 Page 5 Tolkien's World-Creation• • Degenerative Recurrence Robley Evans Not enough attention has been paid to the narra­ recording the similar events or characters that in tive structure of Tolkien’B two major fantasies and to some way are reductive versions of their original the ways in which their formal organization directs models. In his study of the Antigone myth, Antigones, the reader’s attention to thematic development. My George Steiner notes that mythic writers who deal concern is with the development of a typology for with the constancy of human suffering represent it as describing the structural elements in Tolkien’ s narra­ synchronic; to see suffering as repeated in history iB tives, a typology which should emphasize the close to foreshorten it. "Humanist tragedy, whether classical links between his two major fantasies. The process of or biblical, is a sustained analogy, unifying time world creation and destruction in The Silmarillion through an invariance of exemplum and moral mean­ prepares for the reconstruction of that world in The ing."1 As we shall see, the history of the Elves may Lord of the Rings, as we all know. Not enough has be treated in this way: a series of similar events and been done, however, to emphasize that the destruction figures inevitably brings about the destruction of the of the One Rjng by Frodo and Sam is a structural as First Age of Middle-earth in the perpetuation of moral well as thematic conclusion to historical development and perceptual error. We can find analogy at work recorded in the Ainulindale and the Quenta Silmaril­ everywhere in The Silmarillion: in the wars with lion. The structure of the Trilogy is an inversion of Morgoth, the destructive taking of oaths by Feanor that of the earlier work. By noting some of the ele­ and his heirs, the development of Elf kingdoms to be ments that are inverted and the pattern in which they destroyed turn by turn in mistaken pursuit of the appear, Tolkien’s artful consistency as a writer Silmarils, in what Tolkien calls "possessiveness,” that becomes more apparent, along with the possibility that dulling of moral perception expressed here in its the relationship of the two fantasies is a more imagi­ physically compressed form, the Jewels of Light. Anal­ native one that we had first thought. Furthermore, we ogy is also an important critical term for describing can clarify Tolkien’s view of the connection between Tolkien’s use of nostalgic and elegaic elements in Elf history and myth, and say something about his place history; analogy is by definition sentimental since its in the Romantic tradition of myth-making. use presumes continued identity of the parts with their original nature, with an originating wholeness: If we examine the structure of The Silmarillion, as the Elves remember the light of Valinor long after its published, we find several accounts of "creations" reconstitution is possible, regretful memories of past (the Ainulindale, the Valaquenta, the Akallabeth), and glory that turn up in wistful songs and tales in the a history of the creation and destruction of Arda or Trilogy. Middle-earth in the First Age, that of the Elves. In his essay, "On Fairy Stories," Tolkien tells us that the If we try to characterize Tolkien’s fantasy world vital creative act iB that of the imagination which structurally, noting his use of analogous incidents and perceives ultimate truth. Its vehicle is Secondary characters, and, at the same time, the breakdown of Creation, the fantastic breaking through the limita­ such tropeB into increasingly diminished and fragmen­ tions of preconceived response, and revealing an tary parts of The Silmarillion, we can describe this essentially sacred reality. The fantasist has the aim of structural process as degenerative recurrence with helping human beings achieve "freedom from observed world-creation leading inevitably to world-destruction. fact" through "the making or glimpsing of Other- Fragmentation and diminution are built into creation; worlds." Such an aim is moral as well as perceptual, a whatever is created is dependent on its creator, and Romantic vision thematically and structurally, with its its distance from the originating source makes it less existence upon an ideal reality against which the in power, more vulnerable. The history of all such actuality of time and space is to be Judged. In the creations must be inevitable, and recurrence, which Quenta Silmarillion, the making of the world involves a would seem to promise continuance through repetition, fall into time and space, the consequence of division only moves diminished beings and events away from of the originating power’s deific unity. Consequently, their source. For Tolkien, such historical development the narrative develops movement away from totality is moral in its implications: the choices permitted through increasing fragmentation of creation into Elves and Men are gradually restricted and the reductive and conflicting divisions. Mythic history increased moral distance from beginnings is repre­ metaphorically describes the turning away of created sented in pride, in jealousy, in the traditional Chris­ beings from light toward darkness, toward opacity, a tian vices signaling alienation from the godhead. The movement away from expansion toward contraction and physical world becomes a series of exempla in limitation. Steiner’s sense, contracting into kingdoms and bodieB to be destroyed. The original vision of light becomes a In this version of world-creation, development of view of darkness, a vision of limits. In the determinis­ the secondary World is not organic but cellular, con­ tic history of The Silmarillion, degenerative recurrence tracting into smaller units, narrower perceptions, a is inevitable. In The Lord of the Rings, these analo­ degenerative process of divisions leading to further gies become creative and only there can Tolkien’s divisions and to the narrowing of perception in important concept of Recovery be fulfilled. In fact, it created beings. This, in turn, creates corresponding is this deterministic and sentimental view of history reduction in the reader’s ability to "see" the increas­ which makes the history of the Elves an inferior fan­ ingly distant ideal world with which Eru, the One, tasy, taking its true imaginative value from its com­ begins. Historical process for Tolkien, then, is also plementary fiction, the later story of the One Ring. cellular and spiral in its structure, a deterministic account of creation as an inevitable Fall and a We can note these structural principles at work in consequent "blindness” to original light and whole­ The Silmarillion, beginning with creation itself: ness. Such history is also analogical in its structure, fragmentation is built into the creative act in what Page 6 MYTHLORE 51: Autumn 1987 can be called an example of narrative delegation.2 Not or The One Ring. In terms of the narrative structure only does Iluvatar delegate creative power in the of The Silmarillion, the "possessiveness" carried as an making of Arda to the Ainur, but Tolkien represents adjunct to creation, is represented in the downward creation through the trope of Music, the art of time, spiral of power delegation as Elves and Men succumb with its potential for modulation. The Ainur are shown to the lure of the Jewels and the power they symbol­ visions but not their fulfillment, darkness but not its ize. meaning. They participate in the divine music without knowing its purposes, and give form without knowing We are also talking here about the way Tolkien consequences, so that creativity, by analogy, will makes images like the Jewels into metaphors for power always be ambiguous
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