J.R.R. Tolkien’s sub-creation theory: literary creativity as participation in the divine creation

Abstract

J.R.R. Tolkien is recognized as one of the great literary creators of fantastic worlds. The English author added to his literary work a reflection on the role of the fantasy writer in his theory of sub-creation. This literary theory –exhibited mainly in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’ and in his letters– is based on the author's own cosmovision, clearly influenced by his Catholicism, and contemplates literary creation as an analogy of divine creation. This article deals with the Christian foundation present in the idea of participation in Creation that we find in Tolkien's theory of sub-creation. It proposes an overview of the main theological questions that support this participation, taking especially into account the contribution that John Paul II makes on this issue in his ‘Letter to Artists’.

Keywords:

• Literature
• creation
• sub-creation
• Tolkien
• artistic creation
• John Paul II

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although the author himself has expressed the strong influence of Christianity on his work, there are also some studies and criticisms that seem to deny or contradict the idea of a Christian content in his works. For an approach to this question, see Pearce (2000, chapter 7) and Coutras (2016, 7–10).

2 Avoiding a naïve concordance, which Tolkien himself rejected as part of his literary style (Tolkien and Humphrey 2000, 262), we can find numerous theological studies which analyse the elements of the Catholic Creed glimpsed in the Middle-Earth through the veil of fiction. Thus, for example, Caldecott (2015) and McIntosh (2017) have analysed Creation in Tolkien’s work; McGrath (2001) and Gunton (2001) look at the elements referring to the Passion and Redemption, and Coulombe (2001) at the ecclesiological and sacramental vision in The Lord of the Rings.

3 In his prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien stated that allegory and applicability start from opposite points, although they often seem to be confused: the former is due to the author's intentional dominion, while the latter lies in the reader's freedom (Tolkien 1968, 11).

4 Odero points out that this is how Guardini and Moeller understood it, convinced that if, as John Paul II affirms, ‘man is the way for the Church’ (1997, 4-III, 43), the theologian cannot refrain from discovering those paths revealed in literature (Odero 1998, 31–32).

5 Many of these works address Tolkien's concept of sub-creation from a theology of the arts. See, for example, Kelly (2002) or from an aesthetic approach to theology in dialogue with von Balthasar's ideas see Coutras (2016) and Morrow (2017).

6 The text of the essay, originally conceived as a lecture given at the University of St Andrews in 1939, has subsequently been published alongside other writings by the author in Tree and Leaf. In this article I will quote the text from the Harper Collins digital edition (Tolkien 2012).

7 ‘Specifically J. R. R. Tolkien’s word for: the action or process of creating a fully realized and internally consistent imaginary (or ‘secondary’) world’ (Oxford English Dictionary). https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/subcreation

8 I will not dwell on the literary differences between fairy-stories, fantasy and mythology. Although Tolkien's general ideas about literary creation can be understood in a broad sense – if we understand that all good literary works create in some way a plausible world – Tolkien is explicitly referring to works of a particular genre. Works belonging to the genre of fairy tales, as he understands them, share certain similarities, especially an action set in an imaginary world and a story with a happy ending or euchatastrophe.

9 For a structured development on this question framed in the perspective of the metaphysics of creation, see (Sanz Sánchez 2007).

10 Later, in the section on the writer’s vocation, we will develop this idea of the ‘echo of the evangelium’ to which Tolkien refers in his text.

11 A synthesis of the various interpretations can be found in Ruiz de la Peña (1988, 41–44).

12 The translation of Sanz’s text is mine.

13 Gutiérrez’s article may shed some light on this issue. Although it focuses on audiovisual fiction, it points to the metaphysical and epistemological foundations present in fiction. See (Gutiérrez Delgado 2018).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

María Del Rincón Yohn

María Del Rincón Yohn has a Doctorate in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Navarra, and graduated in Theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. She is a professor of Communication at the International University of La Rioja, and guest grofessor at the University of Navarra. Her scientific research has focused on film theory, narrative and audiovisual aesthetics; its informative interest regards identity in relation to culture and the humanities.