Reconstructing Arda: of Feanor and the Unchaining of Melkor.(Critical essay)

ALTHOUGH J.R.R. TOLKIEN IS BEST KNOWN for having written The Lord of the Rings (and to a lesser extent, The Hobbit), The Silmarillion [Silm.] is arguably his most important work. He began working on the stories that provided the basis of what would become The Silmarillion in 1917, while he was fighting in World War I, and he continued revising them in some context or another throughout the rest of his life, until his death in 1973. These stories originally stemmed from two main sources: his interest in inventing languages, and his desire to create a mythology for England (Letters 144, 230-231). However, they eventually became the vehicle for his most profound reflections on such themes as death and immortality, and the perils of timeless beauty; pride and hubris, and the struggle between good and evil (as symbolized by the Silmarils, the holy jewels that alone preserved the "pure" Light, yet also generated so much of the strife described in these tales); and perhaps most importantly, the tension between fate and free will. Even more than The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion reflects the melding of Tolkien's abiding Catholic faith with his deep knowledge of and respect for ancient pagan myth (and language).

Unfortunately, however, Tolkien never completed this work. He left behind a complex array of interrelated texts, none of which could be considered "finished." In addition to the Quenta Silmarillion (the History of the Silmarils) itself, there were also closely related texts that were written in annal form (a short chronological record of the events of successive years, although they often were extended into longer narrative passages). There were also a number of essays, commentaries, and other works that further developed what became known as Tolkien's legendarium, including extended prose and verse versions of the three "Great Tales" which formed the core of the mythology: the tales of Beren and Luthien, "The Fall of Gondolin," and "The Children of Hurin." (2) These works were left in varying states of completion. The earlier portions of the narrative underwent a significant amount of revision after The Lord of the Rings was published in the mid-1950s, whereas some of the later portions were never updated after 1930, or even earlier. Moreover, towards the end of his life, Tolkien contemplated a vast reworking of many critical elements of his mythology, but he never carried through on this plan.

After Tolkien's death, it was left to his son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien (for ease of reference, I will from here on refer to him as "Christopher," while continuing to refer to his father as "Tolkien"), to attempt to publish The Silmarillion. The factors described above made that a particularly daunting and difficult task.

In most of the 12-volume work The History of Middle-earth, Christopher documents in amazing detail the development of the work of his father that would become The Silmarillion (four volumes trace the history of the creation of The Lord of the Rings). However, save for an occasional hint here and there, he mostly does not show the final step: his actual creation of the published work, with the assistance of Guy Gavriel Kay (who was then a graduate student but would later go on to become a successful fantasy author in his own right).

Many readers of The Silmarillion have developed the impression that it was essentially written by the editor from the author's notes. Christopher himself calls this "a serious misapprehension to which my words have given rise" (Book of Lost Tales, Vol.1 [BoLT 1] 6-7). Other readers make the assumption that they are basically reading what Tolkien himself wrote, with only minor editorial interference. This assumption is equally mistaken.

As Christopher states in the Foreword to The War of the Jewels [WotJ] (the second of the two volumes of The History of Middle-earth that covers the "later Silmarillion"), "the published work is not in any way a completion, but a construction devised out of the existing materials. Those materials are now made available [...] and with them a criticism of the 'constructed' Silmarillion becomes possible. I shall not enter into that question" (WotJ x). This paper is an attempt to "enter into that question" for one particular story: to document the major changes, omissions, and additions that were made to Tolkien's work by Christopher (and Guy Kay) in preparing The Silmarillion for publication, and to trace how the disparate source materials were used to create what is in essence a composite work.

Anyone who has read The Silmarillion ...