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1 results

  • V - Gandalf’s Fall and Return

  • Giuseppe Pezzini, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
  • Book:
    Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation
    Published online:
    17 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025, pp 271-318

  • Summary

    Chapter V develops the analyses of Chapters III and IV through a close reading of one of the most problematic passages of The Lord of the Rings, namely the fall of Gandalf in Moria and his following return. With the help of Tolkien’s own (elusive) exegesis of the passage, the chapter reveals that this narrative event embodies two key meta-literary motives recurrent in his mythology. First is sub-creative submission, featuring the sub-creator’s humble decision to hand over their sub-creations to the supreme “Writer of the Story” (the Godhead Eru) and affirm their “naked hope” in Him. This is followed by the direct, miraculous intervention of Eru, which interferes with the ontology of sub-creations, disrupting “the Rules” of their secondary world; in this particular, Eru’s intrusion transcends the intentions of Gandalf and his divine authorities – the Valar, the archetypical secondary sub-creators – and results in the enhancement of their plans, and their eventual integration within a higher creative project.