Chapter 1
Tolkienâs Cosmogony and Pantheon
n the beginning, Tolkien created Middle-earth. Yet three years passed between first writing that world into existence in 1916 and devising its creation story, around 1919. Forty-five years later Tolkien recalled writing his âcosmogonical mythâ
1 after the Great War had ended, while employed as an etymological researcher for the
Oxford English Dictionary. Thus, drafts of the stories that eventually became
The Silmarillion already existed prior to creating the creation story. Tolkienâs cosmogony did not make possible the chronologically subsequent narratives of Middle-earth; rather, the existence of those stories necessitated creating an appropriate cosmogony.
To people his creation myth Tolkien developed a pantheon of gods and goddesses reminiscent of the divine beings in Greek and Norse mythology. Yet Tolkien shaped his gods differently from those of authentic pagan myths. Tolkienâs divine beings eschew control of Middle-earthâs residents, and learn to avoid interfering with the decisions of lower beings.2 They avoid the petty wrangling and soap-opera lusts of Greek mythology, and the bitter sense of impotence and impending doom of Norse myth. They are, in Burnsâs words, divine beings that âA man like Tolkien, born in Victorian times,â could feel comfortable with: an âimproved pantheon.â3
In fact, Tolkienâs gods and goddesses arenât really gods and goddesses at all; they lack divinity as an intrinsic element of self-existent natures. Tolkienâs gods remain creatures, the âfirst creationsâ4 of the real god of Middle-earth, Eru IlĂșvatar. Little can be said of Eru; one early text describes him succinctly as an incomprehensible prime mover, though McIntosh argues persuasively that Tolkien viewed Eruâs nature through âthe biblically informed Christian Neoplatonism of ⊠Augustine and Aquinasâ as a âpersonal agentâ rather than a vague life force.5 Eru means the One God; Flieger notes the emphasis on one implies one alone,6 existing in a category separate from all else. IlĂșvatar translates as Allfather, and thus the Elves see Eru as the creator, the source of matter and life. Eru possesses the Flame Imperishable, through which reality can exist independently of Eru, though derived from him. Eru exists outside of time and physical reality, both of which he creates. Yet Elves believe he can enter into his creation, much as a singer might enter his own song, or a storyteller his own story, while simultaneously remaining outside it. Elves describe Eru as beyond measure. Existence stems from Eru, Tolkien explained, and thus is called OienkarmĂ« Eruo, translated by Tolkien as âThe Oneâs perpetual productionâ and âGodâs management of the Drama.â7
Godâs, rather than the godsâ, management forms a bedrock principle of Tolkienâs invented world; Middle-earth is decisively monotheistic. Yet Eru chooses to remain distant and invisible to Middle-earth, leaving his âfirst creationsâ as the visible sources of power; in the apparent absence of Eru IlĂșvatar, the Valar play the role of de facto gods.8 Thus the cosmology of Middle-earth can be described as polytheistic monotheism. Middle-earth is a monotheistic world in which its creator only rarely appears. While Eru may be omnipresent within the world in some metaphysical sense, he rarely reveals himself. Rather, he is mediated through his representatives, creatures bound within the world, yet powerful and holy enough to be called, in one Tolkien name list, pagan gods.9 Residents of Middle-earth learn of Eru IlĂșvatar almost exclusively through the gods. This chapter will examine Tolkienâs creation myth and pantheon to establish the self-contradictory concept of polytheistic monotheism as the groundwork of Middle-earth cosmology.
History parallels music in Tolkienâs imaginary realm. It exists over time, includes overlapping strands, and involves periods of development, punctuated by climaxes. Tolkien uses music as the underlying metaphor of creation in the âAinulindalĂ«,â âone of the most profound theodicies ⊠ever written,â in Williamsâs view.10 According to the âAinulindalĂ«,â Eru IlĂșvatar creates spirit-beings with musical potential, training and instructing them in musical production, then listening to their ensemble performances, all as background to the creation of a reality completely separate from the purely spiritual realm of Eru and his spirit-beings. The idea of music forming creation goes back to Platoâs myth of Er in Timaeus, but especially to Boethiusâs On the Consolation of Philosophy;11 Tolkien directly references the medieval notion of the âmusic of the spheres,â though âimaginatively and selectively,â according to Eden, adapting it to his own purposes, and adding the biblical accounts of creation in both Genesis 1 and John 1.12
Tolkien conceives of creation within his legendarium as a collaborative event encompassed in three distinct but parallel phases:
1. the Music of the Ainur (the Great Music);
2. the Vision of the Ainur;
3. physical creation.
At the same time, the âAinulindalĂ«,â as with most stories of origins, begs the question of what comes before phase 1. The story implies an ex nihilo creation prior to the beginning of Middle-earth. âThere was Eru,â begins the tale, who created the Ainur prior to making anything else.13 Thus in a single sentence, Tolkien establishes the a priori existence of just one creator-god, who then devises spirit-beings possessing rationality as his first creation,14 using a process of pure thought.
While Tolkienâs cosmogony says little about what came prior to the creation of the Ainur, it does offer insight into the Ainurâs activities prior to their collaboration with Eru in creating physical reality. Having thought divine creatures into being, Eru turns to speaking as a means of instructing them. Prior to the Great Music, the Ainur develop their musical skills under Eruâs direction with little knowledge of any purpose behind their training. At first the Ainur sing monophonically. Tolkienâs description of their musical development parallels the history of music within Western culture since the early Middle Ages: monophonic melodies sung solo or by small ensemble, eventually incorporating rudimentary harmony.15 The earliest heavenly music resembles Gregorian chant at least in its limited complexity; the addition of harmony suggests developments such as organum in eleventh-century Europe, which combines a primary melody with a parallel or contrasting melody.
More important than the sound of the Ainurâs first music is its derivative nature. Not just the Ainur, but the musical themes they sing come from Eru, who implements a surprising pedagogical methodology for teaching music. A typical approach for teaching a song to a choir untrained in reading music involves a leader first singing a phrase or melody with the choir repeating it. Yet Eru gives oral direction, âpropounding to them themes,â which they then sing.16 The Ainur, in other words, provide a musical interpretation, not of a written score, but of a spoken description.
The purpose of this early singing of the Ainur remains obscure. Given the impact of their later Great Music, this early singing may be practice, preparation, rehearsal. Yet the text suggests two further dimensions. First, as the Ainur sing before Eru, he expresses satisfaction and joy; this image parallels Christian descriptions of a heavenly host singing praise to God. The singing implies worship as much as aesthetic pleasure.17 Second, the singing connects to a broader education. The thought propounded to each Ainu (Tolkienâs singular form for Ainur) reflects but one facet of the mind of Eru. As the Ainur listen to one another, they learn more of the mind of their creator. This deeper understanding underpins and enables the increasing musical complexity of their output.
Eru apparently intends a further purpose behind this slow musical evolution; gathering together before him all the Ainur, IlĂșvatar âdeclare[s] to them a mighty theme,â containing wisdom he has not yet revealed. The content overwhelms the Ainur, reducing them to reverent silence. Rather than silence, however, Eru desires participation. He instructs them to make âa Great Music,â each Ainu adorning the provided theme.18 The instruction parallels the approach of a jazz ensemble, agreeing on a structure (typically a melody and a harmonic sequence) and who will solo when, but then improvising. Or perhaps more accurately, Eruâs instruction reflects the baroque practice of improvising ornamentation on a prewritten melody, combined with basso continuo accompaniment based on a chart of harmonic progressions. Hart describes such music as âfree and spontaneous ornamentation.â19 Improvisatory musical practices result, in theory, in spontaneous expression such that participants do not know precisely what notes their fellow musicians will play.
Most free improvisation exists within boundaries (limitations of a specific musical instrument; a performerâs ornamentation tendencies; what worked well in rehearsal). Such is the case in the Great Music of the Ainur. The narrator of the âAinulindalĂ«â implies that the singersâ voices possess individual qualities, some sounding like specific instruments, others contributing to a sound like a vocal choir. Furthermore, Eru instructs his Ainur to suggest their own thoughts by means of embellishments. Since each Ainuâs musical expressions reflect some specific and limited part of the mind of Eru, each Ainuâs contribution to the Great Music is idiosyncratic, limited by his or her own experience. The sum total of the singing provides a more complete reflection of the mind of the creator than that available to any one Ainu. Knight calls the Ainur in their singing âcontributors to a great free collective improvisation.â20
Yet to instruct the Ainur to embellish the theme with their individual thoughts implies more at stake than just music. Such a moment foregrounds that music in the narrative serves as metaphor, illustrating a concept that lies beyond the minds of created beings within a space/time continuum. Even given that Tolkienâs is a fictional reality, a secondary world, the Music of the Ainur can hardly be music in the sense that we use the term today (or even in the same sense that Elves or Hobbits use the term in The Lord of the Rings); a later phase of the creation process shows that the Ainur have not yet experienced physical reality. There cannot be music (at least not as a phenomenon Humans can understand) where there is no air (or other physical medium) through which vibrations can transmit. Furthermore, Humans cannot conceive of music without time, and the events of the Singing of the Ainur take place prior to the creation of time (a statement that reveals the limitations of language in describing cosmological reality).21 Thus music functions as a trope for something beyond Human (or Elven) comprehension. Naveh notes that âThe music of the Ainur is clearly supposed to be abstract, celestial music played in the Void and intended for IlĂșvatarâs ears; thus, it certainly does not resemble any music known to humanity today or in any previous era. But despite its abstract nature, the description of the music is full of much more earthly concepts and images.â22
An early version of âThe Music of the Ainurâ suggests a divine being told the creation story to the Elves; one can imagine this divine being describing the experience as music to make the experience comprehensible. Such a supposition foregrounds the inability to authenticate creation tales since, by definition, no storyteller could have been present except for the creator(s). As Nagy observes, in Tolkienâs legendarium, âthe ultimate authenticating force is always only implied: one can never actually reach it in a text, since it is embedded deep in the texture of culture.â23
The extramusical dimension of âThe Music of the Ainurâ reveals Tolkienâs scholarly orientation. As a specialist in languages from Medieval Europe, Tolkien knows the concept of musica universalis, or the music of the spheres. Rather than literal sound, this music serves as metaphor for the harmonious intercooperation of the elements of the universe: the stars, planets, and sun, which were thought to have profound mystical yet mathematical relationships. Tolkienâs friend C. S. Lewis describes the medieval worldview as one in which, celestially speaking, âeverything ha...