Editing Valinor (section)

== Analysis ==

=== Paradise ===

{{further|Death and immortality in Middle-earth|Cosmology of Tolkien's legendarium}}

[[File:Pearl Poet.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Earthly Paradise]]: Eldamar has been compared to the place dreamed of in the [[Middle English]] poem ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]''.{{sfn|Drout|2007}} Miniature from [[Pearl Manuscript|Cotton Nero A.x]] shows the Dreamer on the other side of the stream from the Pearl-maiden.]]

Keith Kelly and Michael Livingston, writing in ''[[Mythlore]]'', note that [[Frodo Baggins|Frodo]]'s final destination, mentioned at the end of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', is Aman, the Undying Lands. In Tolkien's mythology, they write, the islands of Aman are initially just the dwelling-places of the Valar (in the Ages of the Trees, while the rest of the world lies in darkness). The Valar help The One, [[Eru Ilúvatar]], to create the world. Gradually some of the immortal and ageless Elves are allowed to live there as well, sailing across the ocean to the West. After the fall of Númenor and the reshaping of the world, Aman becomes the place "''between'' (sic) Over-heaven and Middle-earth".{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} It is accessible only in special circumstances like Frodo's, allowed to come to Aman through the offices of the Valar and of Gandalf, one of the Valar's emissaries, the [[Istari]] or Wizards. However, Aman is not, they write, exactly [[paradise]]. Firstly, being there does not confer immortality, contrary to what the Númenóreans supposed. Secondly, those mortals like Frodo who are allowed to go there will eventually choose to die. They note that in another of Tolkien's writings, "[[Leaf by Niggle]]", understood to be a journey through [[Purgatory]] (the Catholic precursor stage to paradise), Tolkien avoids describing paradise at all. They suggest that to the Catholic Tolkien, it is impossible to describe Heaven, and it might be sacrilege to make the attempt.{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} The Tolkien scholar [[Michael D. C. Drout]] comments that Tolkien's accounts of Eldamar "give us a good idea of his conceptions of absolute [[beauty]]".{{sfn|Drout|2007}} He notes that these resemble the paradise described in the [[Middle English]] poem ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]''.{{sfn|Drout|2007}}

{| class="wikitable" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;"
|+ Cosmogonies of Tolkien, Catholicism, and Medieval poetry{{sfn|Drout|2007}}{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}}
! Tolkien !! [[Catholicism]] !! ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]'', [[Paradiso (Dante)|Dante's ''Paradiso'']]
|-
| "that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be"<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955}}, book 6, ch. 4 "The Field of Cormallen"</ref> || [[Heaven]] || [[Paradise|Celestial Paradise]], "beyond"
|-
| Undying lands of Aman, Elvenhome in Valinor || [[Purgatory]] || [[Earthly Paradise|Earthly Paradise, Garden of Eden]]
|-
| [[Middle-earth]] || [[Earth]] || [[Earth]] 
|}

The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] adds that in 1927 Tolkien wrote a poem, ''The Nameless Land'', in the complex stanza-form of ''Pearl''. It spoke of a land further away than paradise, and more beautiful than the Irish [[Tír na nÓg]], the deathless otherworld.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=324–328}} Kelly and Livingston similarly draw on ''Pearl'', noting that it states that "fair as was the hither shore, far lovelier was the further land"{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} where the Dreamer could not pass. So, they write, each stage looks like paradise, until the traveller realises that beyond it lies something even more paradisiacal, glimpsed and beyond description. The Earthly Paradise can be described; Aman, the Undying Lands, can thus be compared to the [[Garden of Eden]], the paradise that the Bible says once existed upon Earth before the [[Fall of Man]]. The Celestial Paradise of Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle" lies "beyond (or above)", as it does, they note, in [[Dante]]'s ''[[Paradiso (Dante)|Paradiso]]''.{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} [[Matthew T. Dickerson|Matthew Dickerson]] notes that Valinor resembles the [[Garden of Eden]] in having two trees.{{sfn|Dickerson|2007}}

[[File:Fates of Elves and Men.svg|thumb|center|upright=3|Fates of Elves and Men in [[Tolkien's legendarium]]. Elves are immortal but can be killed in battle, in which case they go to the [[Halls of Mandos]] in Aman. They may be restored by the Will of the [[Valar in Middle-earth|Valar]], and then go to live with the Valar in Valinor, like an [[Earthly Paradise]], though just being in the place does not confer immortality.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=269-272}}{{sfn|Drout|2007}}{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} Men are mortal, and when they die they go beyond the circles of the world, even the Elves not knowing where that might be.]]

=== Good against evil ===

{{further|Christianity in Middle-earth#Light}}

The scholar of English literature [[Marjorie Burns]] writes that one of the female Vala, Varda (Elbereth to the Elves) is sung to by the Elf-queen of Middle-earth [[Galadriel]]. Burns notes that Varda "sits far off in Valinor on Oiolossë",{{sfn|Burns|2005|pp=152–154}} looking from her mountain-peak tower in Aman towards Middle-earth and the [[Barad-dûr|Dark Tower]] of [[Sauron]] in [[Mordor]]: she notes [[Timothy O'Neill (camoufleur)|Timothy O'Neill]]'s view that the white benevolent feminine symbol opposes the evil masculine symbol. Further, Burns suggests, Galadriel is an Elf from Valinor "in the Blessed Realm",{{sfn|Burns|2005|pp=152–154}} bringing Varda's influence with her to Middle-earth. This is seen in the phial of light that she gives to [[Frodo Baggins|Frodo]], and that [[Sam Gamgee|Sam]] uses to defeat the evil giant spider [[Shelob]]: Sam invokes Elbereth when he uses the phial. Burns comments that Sam's request to the "Lady" sounds distinctly [[Roman Catholic|Catholic]], and that the "female principle, embodied in Varda of Valinor and Galadriel of Middle-earth, most clearly represents the charitable Christian heart."{{sfn|Burns|2005|pp=152–154}}

=== Original sin ===

[[File:2017 Notre-Dame de Paris P52.jpg|thumb|The strife among the Elves and their resulting exit from Valinor has been compared to the Biblical [[fall of man]].<ref name="Letter 131" group=T/>{{sfn|Gallant|2014|pp=109–129}} The [[Serpent (Bible)|serpent]] tempts [[Adam (Bible)|Adam]] and [[Eve]] to eat the forbidden fruit, [[Notre Dame de Paris]]]]

The scholar of literature Richard Z. Gallant comments that while Tolkien [[Paganism in Middle-earth|made use of pagan]] Germanic heroism in his legendarium, and admired its [[Northern courage in Middle-earth|Northern courage]], he disliked its emphasis on "overmastering pride". This created a conflict in his writing. The pride of the Elves in Valinor resulted in a fall, analogous to the biblical [[fall of man]]. Tolkien described this by saying "The first fruit of their fall was in Paradise [Valinor], the slaying of Elves by Elves"; Gallant interprets this as an allusion to the fruit of the biblical [[tree of the knowledge of good and evil]] and the resulting exit from the Garden of Eden.<ref name="Letter 131" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#131 to [[Milton Waldman]], late 1951 }}</ref>{{sfn|Gallant|2014|pp=109–129}} The leading prideful elf is Fëanor, whose actions, Gallant writes, set off the whole dark narrative of strife among the Elves described in ''The Silmarillion''; the Elves fight and leave Valinor for Middle-earth.{{sfn|Gallant|2014|pp=109–129}}

=== ''Beowulf'' ===

{{further|Old Straight Road}}

The passage at the start of the [[Old English]] poem ''[[Beowulf]]'' about [[Scyld Scefing]] contains a cryptic mention of ''þā'' ("those") who have sent Scyld as a baby in a boat, presumably from across the sea, and to whom Scyld's body is returned in a [[ship burial|ship funeral]], the vessel sailing by itself. Shippey suggests that Tolkien may have seen in this both an implication of a Valar-like group who behave much like gods, and a glimmer of his [[Old Straight Road]], the way across the sea to Valinor forever closed to mortal Men by the remaking of the world after Númenor's attack on Valinor.{{sfn|Shippey|2022|pp=166–180}}

=== Lost home ===

{{further|Decline and fall in Middle-earth}}

Phillip Joe Fitzsimmons compares ''The Silmarillion's'' faraway Valinor, forbidden to Men and lost to the Elves, though it constantly calls to them to return, to Tolkien's fellow-[[The Inklings|Inkling]], [[Owen Barfield]]'s "lost home". Barfield writes of the loss of "an Edenic relationship with nature", part of his theory that man's purpose is to serve as "the Earth's self-consciousness".{{sfn|Fitzsimmons|2016|pp=1–8}} Barfield argued that rationalism creates individualism, "unhappy isolation ... [and] the loss of a mutual relationship with nature."{{sfn|Fitzsimmons|2016|pp=1–8}} Further, Barfield believed that ancient civilisations, as recorded in their languages, had a connection to and inner experience of nature, so that the modern situation represents a loss of that state of grace. Fitzsimmons states that the lost home motif recurs throughout Tolkien's writings. He does not suggest that Barfield influenced Tolkien<!--cf Lewis's "bandersnatch" ... nobody did that-->, but that the ideas of the two men grew from "the same time, place, and even social circle".{{sfn|Fitzsimmons|2016|pp=1–8}}

=== Atlantis, Babel ===

{{further|Tolkien and the classical world}}

Kelly and Livingston state that while Aman could be home to Elves as well as Valar, the same was not true of mortal Men. The "prideful"{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} Men of Númenor, imagining they could acquire immortality by capturing the physical lands of Aman, were punished by the destruction of their own island, which is engulfed by the sea, and the permanent removal of Aman "from the circles of the world".{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} Kelly and Livingston note the similarity to the [[ancient Greek myth]] of [[Atlantis]], the greatest human civilisation lost beneath the sea; and the resemblance to the biblical tale of the [[Tower of Babel]], the [[hubris]]tic and "[[Sacrilege|sacrilegious]]" attempt by mortal men to climb up into God's realm.{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}}

[[File:La navigation de St Brendan, Image du Monde.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Scholars<!--e.g. Garth--> have compared Tolkien's Valinor to the "Land of Promise" in Celtic ''[[Immram|imrama]]'' tales.{{sfn|Kocher|1974}} Here, [[Saint Brendan]] sails the seas looking for the Land of Promise. [[Gautier de Metz]], c. 1304]]

=== Celtic influence ===

{{further|Tolkien and the Celtic}}

The scholar of English literature [[Paul H. Kocher]] writes that the Undying Lands of the Uttermost West including Eldamar and Valinor, is "so far outside our experience that Tolkien can only ask us to take it completely on faith."{{sfn|Kocher|1974}} Kocher comments that these lands have an integral place both geographically and spiritually in Middle-earth, and that their closest literary equivalents are the ''[[Immram|imrama]]'' Celtic tales from the early Middle Ages. The ''imrama'' tales describe how Irish adventurers such as [[Saint Brendan]] sailed the seas looking for the "Land of Promise". He notes that it is certain that Tolkien knew these stories, since in 1955 he wrote a poem, entitled ''Imram'', about Brendan's voyage.{{sfn|Kocher|1974}}{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=324–328}}