One thing I found incredibly intriguing about Tolkien’s Creation Story for Middle-Earth is how he chose to have a pantheon of Gods—who each sing a different part, and each of these parts of their symphony creates each part of the world—rather than a one true God, like he might have if he had followed his own religious views when writing his creation story. I find it very interesting that he decided on a multi-god model, just like the pantheon’s he’d have studied in school, instead of a one-god one, and I wonder why he made this choice.
Perhaps he might have thought or seen it as blasphemous to model his invented creation story after his religious beliefs. It would probably be much easier to model it off something viewed as literature, like the ones with a pantheon of gods. This thought is extremely fascinating to me, as Tolkien’s creation story is so well written that I could see it being placed alongside the creation stories of ancient religions and being read the same way. It comes off as a religion worshipped, at one time, just as much as any of those I’ve studied that really were.
An interesting question posed about the creation story in our discussion was why Tolkien created fourteen gods and divided these into equal portions male and female. One thing that came to mind, when further pondering this question afterwards and our discussion about this sense and need for balance, is how each pair of male and female of this set of gods, for the most part, are stated to be married to each other, bringing an even further sense of harmony and balance by having them tied together. Then Tolkien sort of shatters this equilibrium by going on to have nine gods that are the most powerful and revered; restoring this slightly by remarking one’s no longer a part of their group, so there are eight. This disparity in the equality might be a hint at a reason for disquiet in the world, that balance must be obtained for there to be peace.
As you say, if Tolkien's Creation Story were subtly placed in a world religion class, I feel like students would be none the wiser (Silmarillion readers excluded, of course)! While Tolkien would have certainly considered it badly if he had gone full allegory like his friend Lewis, he does give his fair share of a nod to his own religion. However, as you point out, he skillfully blends the monotheistic with the polytheistic, crafting a creation story that is not entirely Christian, or Greek, or Nordic, or any other European religion. As for the seemingly Jungian numerology in the work, along with the significant number fourteen possibly being due to it being 7 couples (with 7 being quite the important number in many religions), your observation of the significance of the odd number 9 in relation to disquiet in the world is so awesome. It is funny to think about, but it makes sense given that the numbers 3 and 6 are both symbolic in their own right. Why not continue with the multiples of 3(Part of me jokingly hopes that was Tolkien's mindset when choosing the number)?
ReplyDeleteI respectfully disagree with your observation that Tolkien created a multi-god, polytheistic world. At the very beginning of Ainulindale, Tolkien describes Iluvatar as "the One" who then created the Ainur, some of whom then went to Arda and there were called the Valar. These are whom the men of Middle-Earth called "gods" but while they possessed great power, the Valar were not original but had been created themselves. Thus, I do not think Tolkien intended for them to truly be gods but rather servants of Iluvatar.
ReplyDeleteThe story is undoubtedly influenced by legends and myths from many cultures, but I do think that Christianity is the chief inspiration for this story, and thus a monotheistic world was the basis for the story. Tolkien's Men misinterpreted the Valar believing them to be that which they were not, but that alone does not make Tolkien's creation story a polytheistic one.