User:LorenzoCB/Sandbox

Varda rejecting Melkor. Illustration by Marya Filatova

Things I can't get

• The Happy Mariners poem, version of June 1920, in The Stapeldon Magazine
• All three poems in A Northern Venture

Christian essays and articles

• Arda Philology 3
  • Petri Tikka, "God's names in Elvish"
• Mythlore 127
  • Cami Agan, "Hearkening to the Other: A Certeauvian Reading of the Ainulindale"
• Tolkien the Medievalist
  • John William Houghton, "Augustine in the cottage of lost play: the Ainulindalë as asterisk cosmogony"
  • Bradford Lee Eden, "The 'music of the spheres': relationships between Tolkien's The Silmarillion and medieval cosmological and religious theory"
  • Jonathan Evans, "The anthropology of Arda: creation, theology, and the race of Men"
  • Michael W. Maher: "'A land without stain', medieval images of Mary and their use in the characterization of Galadriel"
• Tolkien Studies: Volume 10
  • Claudio A. Testi, "Tolkien's Work: Is it Christian or Pagan?: A proposal for a 'synthetic' approach"
• Tolkien Studies: Volume 6
  • Verlyn Flieger, "The Music and the Task: Fate and Free Will in Middle-earth"
• Tolkien Studies: Volume 12
  • Carrol Fry, 'Two Musics about the Throne of Ilúvatar': Gnostic and Manichaean Dualism in The Silmarillion
• Tolkien Studies: Volume 13
  • John D. Rateliff, "'That Seems To Me Fatal': Pagan and Christian in The Fall of Arthur"
• Tolkien Studies: Volume 14
  • H.L. Spencer, "The Mystical Philosophy of J.R.R. Tolkien and Sir Israel Gollancz: Monsters and Critics"
• Tolkien Studies: Volume 15
  • Chiara Bertoglio: "Dissonant Harmonies: Tolkien's Musical Theodicy"
• Proceedings of the 2nd Mythgard Institute Mythmoot
  • Kevin R. Hensler, "God and Ilúvatar Tolkien’s Use of Biblical Parallels and Tropes in His Cosmogony"

Tolkien the Christian

"I am a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories), and in fact a Roman Catholic."

― Letter 213

Tolkien's life

Spiritual life and spiritual recommendations

(Rejection of liturgical reform)

Tolkien's works

Invented languages

Symbolum Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum in Latin, transcribed by Tolkien with Tengwar

The early Qenya Lexicon (written in 1915, before Tolkien had written any of the Lost Tales) included a remarkable set of religious words, not only related with the later stories (like Vala, Ainu), but also with explicit Christian themes. Thus we have evandilyon ("gospel"), tarwe ("crucifix"), valmandui ("heaven and hell"), anusta ("monastery"), among others. We can't know if he ever used this vocabulary or if it was just composed as an expression of his own daily life. In the later years, his Elvish languages focused only on his stories, so this vocabulary was left behind.

However, years later, when he invented the Tengwar script in early 1930s, he enjoyed transcribing poems and texts, including many excerpts from the Roman Missal and other prayers.

He used again his invented languages with religious purposes in the decade of 1950, when his languages were more mature, as he had finished The Lord of the Rings. Translating directly from the Latin versions, he made Quenya translations of Our Father (Átaremma), the Ave Maria (Aia María), Sub tuum praesidium (Ortirielyanna) and Gloria in excelsis (Alcar mi tarmenel). Other unfinished translations are the Quenya Litany of Loreto and the Sindarin Ae Adar Nín.

Fiction theology

Tolkien explained he pretended to make a 'new' mythology, but like all mythologies it had to include many elements from other places. Thus, the stories of the Legendarium were founded with Christian elements since its beginning. The early Music of the Ainur

Themes

Hope

Letter to G.S. Rigby Jr

Christian figures

Tolkien gave Kilby a lecture which describes the biblical figures in TLOTR (Frodo the self-sacrificed priest, the prophet Gandalf or the “Much of this is true enough -except, of course, the general impression given (almost irresistibly in articles having this analytical approach, whether Christians or not) that I had any ‘scheme’ in my conscious mind before or during the writing.” p. 56

History of the Ainulindalë manuscripts

Manuscript	Year of composition	Publication	Notes
The Music of the Ainu draft	Between November 1918 - Spring 1920	LT1, pp. 60-61	Erased draft, only given with notes.
The Music of the Ainur	Between November 1918 - Spring 1920	LT1, pp. 52-60	Clean manuscript, improving the previous one. Links the tale with "The Cottage of Lost Play".
Ainulindalë A	Late 1930s	LR, pp. 164-166	Rough manuscript, only given with notes. Follows closely the Lost Tale, but now as a separate work.
Ainulindalë B	Late 1930s	LR, pp. 156-164	Clean copy of the previous one.
Ainulindalë B copy	1946	MR, p. 4	Copy, lost apart from a single torn sheet, so it is only mentioned.
Ainulindalë C*	1948	MR, pp. 39-44	Experimental 'Round World Version' of Ainulindalë B, only given with fragments and notes.
Ainulindalë C	Late 1948	MR, pp. 8-22	New version of Ainulindalë B, rejecting the innovations of Ainulindalë C*.
Ainulindalë D	1951	MR, pp. 29-37	New version of Ainulindalë C, beautifully scripted, only given with fragments and notes.
Ainulindalë D copy	Unknown	MR, p. 39	Typescript copy, so it is only mentioned. Includes a couple of interesting notes.
Ainulindalë chapter	1977	The Silmarillion	Christopher's edition based on Ainulindalë D.