The Fundamental Religiosity of Tolkien's Work

In our last class, Professor Fulton-Brown asked the question: “Where are you now in your thinking about Tolkien?” In this last blog post I suppose I’ll try to answer that question for myself. Coming in to this class, I obviously had my own thoughts and feelings about the Lord of the Rings and the greater universe of Middle-Earth, that mostly centered around specific characters of the books and their individual relationships. My favorite two characters in the series are Legolas and Gimli, who begin as fierce enemies, yet over the course of the tale they overcome the history of their two peoples and become close friends, a smaller plotline that is still very endearing. However, as we journeyed through the various other works and letters of Tolkien, I found my view of the Legendarium expanding quite a bit.

As a fan of Tolkien I’d of course always known that Tolkien was deeply religious and I could see that in some aspects of the Silmarillion (his version of the Creation story for one), but to be honest I wasn’t expecting, or rather I’d just never seen the deep religiosity that permeates through all of the Lord of the Rings. And, to be perfectly honest, I really like this aspect of Tolkien’s work. While there are instances of the author writing their own ideals into their stories which turn out to be pretty bad (insert J.K. Rowling here), I think that Tolkien’s expression of his religion and devotion in his work is pretty awesome, to be frank (though I may be biased because I too am religious). And the themes of religion and spirituality in the Lord of the Rings are more than just a reflection of the author’s own life and experiences, they’re also Tolkien sending a deliberate message in his work, one that is fundamentally religious, and also fundamentally hopeful.

A passage in “The Return of the King” that we read in class I think speaks to this point very well, when Sam sees a star in Mordor: 

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. (Return of the King 211).

Even in the darkest, most hopeless part of their journey, Sam sees the beauty of a star and is reminded that there is still good in this world. And the wisdom of that is, I think, something deeply religious/Christian. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross forgave humanity for their sin, and in doing so gave us all hope for a world free of it. Because of the crucifixion, mankind was saved, and even in the darkest of times, there is a higher power, a Good that watches over us and can never be extinguished.

This is exemplified in Tolkien’s deeply religious concept of the ‘eucatastrophe’ from his essay “On Fairy Stories.” According to Tolkien, the eucatastrophe “denies...universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief” (On Fairy-Stories 86), and in Letter 89, he says that the Resurrection of Christ is the greatest eucatastrophe because “[it] produces that essential emotion: Christain joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow.” There are many moments near the end of the Lord of the Rings that I think would qualify as a eucatastrophe (Sam carrying Frodo up Mt. Doom for one), but I suppose the point I’m trying to make here is that this concept of the eucatastrophe being such a fundamental part of the fairy-store and thus of the Lord of the Rings, is part of what makes this tale very fundamentally religious and also so incredibly hopeful. This whole idea of good always triumphing over evil in the end, the idea of eucatastrophe, is deeply rooted in Tolkien’s religious beliefs, subsequently shaping the entire story of the Lord of the Rings and the Legendarium as a whole.

Sam carries Frodo, by Lorna-Marie

To that end, I have found that the fundamental religiosity of Tolkien’s work has changed the way I read and understand his stories, but in a very good way. Of course, the Lord of the Rings was still very meaningful to me before I gained a deeper understanding of Tolkien and his religious beliefs and how his work expressed them, but in learning about these things and appreciating them, I’ve found that the text resonates even more with me and the way I interact with it. My takeaways from the text before were ideas about character relationships and constructing a complex high fantasy world, and now adding this new perspective of religion has solidified the message that I think Tolkien is impressing upon us in my own mind: that despite the darkness that exists in and around us, there is always good in the world, and there is always hope for a better future.

-CR