The Silmarillion

From the  letters by J.R.R. Tolkien to Milton Waldman, 1951.

Capa da edição brasileira publicada pela editora WMF Martins fontes.

“For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‘real’ world. (I am speaking, of course, o four present situation, not of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days. And I will not repeat what I tried to say in my essay, wich you read)”. Trecho extraído do livro The Silmarillion, p. XI.

About Allegory

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. ;)

“I dislike Allegory – the conscious and intentional allegory – yet any attempt to explain the support of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language. (And, of course, the more life a story  has the more readily will it be susceptible of allegorical interpretations: while the better a deliberate allegory is made the more nearly will it be acceptable just as a story.) Trecho extraído do livro The Silmarillion, p. XII-XIII.

The doom of the Elves...

O reino oculto de Gondolin

“These are the First-born, the Elves; and the Followers Men. The doom os the Elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of the world, to bring it to full flower with their gifts of delicacy and perfection, to last while it lasts, never leaving it even when ‘slain’, but returning – and yet, when the Followers come, to teach them, and make way for them, to ‘fade’ as the Followers grow and absorb the life from which both proceed. The Doom (or Gift) of Men is mortality, freedom from the circles of the world. Since the point of view of the whole cycle is the Elvish, mortality is not explained mythically: it is a mystery of God of which no more is known than that ‘what God has purposed for Men is hidden’: a grief and an envy to the immortal Elves.” Trecho extraído do livro The Silmarillion, p. XV.

“After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of ‘truth’, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode”. Trecho extraído do livro The Silmarillion, p. XVI.

The main body of the Tale...

Capa da editora Harper Collins.

“the Silmarillion proper, is about the fall of the most gifted kindred of the Elves, their exile from Valinor (a kind of Paradise, the home of the Gods) in the furthest West, their re-entry into Middle-earth, the land of their birth but long under the rule of the Enemy, and their strife with him, the Power of Evil still visibly incarnate. It receives its name because the events are all threaded upon the fate and significance of the Silmarilli (‘radiance of pure light’) or Primeval Jewels.” Trecho extraído do livro The Silmarillion, p. XVI.

“But the chief artificer of the Elves (Fëanor) had imprisoned the Light of Valinor in the three supreme jewels, the Silmarilli, before the Trees were sullied or slain. This Light thus lived thereafter only in these gems. The fall of the Elves comes about through the possessive attitude of Fëanor and his seven sons to these gems. They are captured by the Enemy, set in his Iron Crown, and guarded in his impenetrable stronghold (...)

The Silmarillion is the history of the War of the Exiled Elves against the Enemy, which all takes place in the North-west of the world (Middle-earth). Several tales of victory and tragedy are caught up in it; but it ends with catastrophe, and the passing of the Ancient World, the world of the long First Age. The jewels are recovered (by the final intervention of the gods) only to be lost for ever to the Elves, one in the sea, one in the deeps of earth, and one as a star of heaven.” Trecho extraído do livro The Silmarillion, p. XVII.

A luta entre Melkor, aquele que se ergue em poder, e Fingolfin, filho de Finwë; diante dos portões de Angband.