The fairy-stories in The City of God: literary theory by J. R. R. Tolkien and Saint Augustine s cardinal virtues Diego Klautau*

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1 The fairy-stories in The City of God: literary theory by J. R. R. Tolkien and Saint Augustine s cardinal virtues Diego Klautau* Abstract: This article deals with J. R. R. Tolkien s literary concepts of fairy-stories, fantasy, sub-creation, and eucatastrophe. Trough the poem Mythopoieia (1930), the essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (1936), and the essay On Fairy-Stories (1939) we can weave a literary theory that understands its goal as a religious expression, searching for similarities with Saint Augustine s thought, mainly in the four cardinal virtues expressed in the works The City of God (426) and On Free Choice of the Will (388), as well as the glory of pagan nations and the presence of virtues which would justify elements of the truth in a pagan people. Just as old roman virtues could be examples for Christians, also in the Scandinavian myths, such as Beowulf, one could find virtues pertinent to the Christian revelation. In the end, the sub-created fairy-stories can and must also echo elements from the Christian Gospel. Keywords: Literature, Christianity, virtues. But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam s plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue. (Tolkien, 2005, p. 934). Tolkien and his literary theory From the experience of folklorists from Great Britain, such as George MacDonald1 and Andrew Lang,2 J. R. R. Tolkien3 produced his legendarium4, a cycle of writings on the universe of the Middle-earth, where he developed a whole fantasy reality, with intelligent and magic beings, dreadful and angelical creatures, demigods and demons. Through a literary creation involving several books, poems and tales, Tolkien proposed a conception of fantasy literature that retook perspectives in pre-modern narrative environments, basically the Greek, Roman, and Scandinavian mythological narratives, the epic poems, and the biblical narratives. Among the legendarium s various works considering the ones published in his life or posthumously are The Hobbit (1937), the three parts of The Lord of the Rings ( ), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1934), The Silmarillion (1977), Other Verses from the Red Book (1962), The Last Song of Bilbo (1974), Unfinished Tales (1980) and the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth ( ). Among the various academic publications, especially his analysis of Beowulf,5 in the conference Beowulf, The Monsters and the Critics (1936), held in Oxford, his work of greater academic, philological, and literary consistency, Tolkien always expressed the need for understanding legends and myths6 as important elements of language and religion. His famous poem Mythopoieia (1930), published in the work Tree and Leaf (1964), reflects the discussion between Phylomythus (the one who loves myths) and Mysomythus (the one who hates myths). Such discussion was a repercussion of the dialogues between Tolkien, a stanch Christian, and his colleague, Oxford professor, C. S. Lewis,7 who was extremely materialistic at the time. The poem had the contents discussed between the professors. Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme of things not found within recorded time. It is not they that have forgot the Night, or bid us flee to organized delight, in lotus-isles of economic bliss forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss (and counterfeit at that, machine-produced, bogus seduction of the twice-seduced). (Lopes, 2006, p. 157) 10

2 The reference to the world beyond what is seen, present in the Greek mythological thought in the case expressed by the relation between Circe and the islands of Lotus in Homer,8 in Odyssey, and also in the Platonic tradition,9 as in the myth of the cave in Republic and also in the Christian thought about transcendence, refuses materialism based in the quest for profit and industrial production, and machines, as absolute development. Such critique10 of Tolkien to what he considered to be alienation and a deviation from the true purpose of knowledge indicates his religious tradition. In that sense, this passage of the poem reflects his concern for poets as researchers beyond the material world. His regard for mythology, for legends, and for the poets who created them indicates the refusal of the time he lived in between world wars, and of industrialization, which constantly threatened to destroy the rural world where Tolkien himself was raised.11 In fact, in Tolkien religion was always important. The reflection on the religious truth is present in the production of his legendarium and also in his theoretical writings. The very research of the medieval poem Beowulf goes toward the relation between the Christian tradition, understood as truth of faith, revealed and received, and the pagan productions of mythology and the legends, that exalted virtues and values of a certain culture Scandinavian in the case of Beowulf. The most important essay in this area is On Fairy- Stories (1939), a lecture held at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, on March 8, This is considered Tolkien s most extensive and thorough essay, where he displays all his vision about the works of folklorists, mythologists, and philologists. In this essay, Tolkien seeks to present fundamental concepts in his literary theory. Valorizing the legends, narratives, and mythologies, the writer presents a new and non analytical view of such productions; an incentive and an apologia to such literature, a stimulus to writing and reading; it is not only an academic presentation, but that of an admirer and performer of the art of writing. The first important concept is presented in the very title of the lecture. The fairy-stories are object of reflection for Tolkien. Fairy-stories are different from fairy-tales.12 Such difference is intentional in Tolkien s thought. By differentiating between history, stories and tales, Tolkien actually wants to establish the difference between the three: History is the reality we live in the world where the facts we are used to see happen. It is the place where the purely daily, human, and natural dramas occur. Stories are the narratives that show that the human being does not define the real. There are other dimensions of thought and reality. They are the legends, the myths, and the narratives that show mankind was always bond to a world that is mysterious, transcendent to the human and the supernatural. Tales are those narratives that are used as fables, with no intension to demonstrate and investigate anything. These are, indeed, the children s tales for simple entertainment. This first definition of Tolkien s, establishing the difference between fairy-stories and fairy-tales, marks his object. The fairy-tales are narratives with minute fairies, who are normally considered naïf and graceful. The fairy-stories are about a place, the Enchanted Kingdom, or Faerie, where human beings penetrate and live their own literary experiences. The human beings adventures in Faerie are the fairy-stories. These always deal with the human beings relation with themselves, with nature, and with the transcendent mystery. These are the desires satiated in Faerie: the observation of the depths of time and space. The other is the communion with all living things. In its levels of questioning and of deepening, the fairy-stories bring the reflection of Faerie that will lead the human experience towards the unknown and unpredictable. According to Tolkien himself, the nature of Faerie is indescribable, yet not imperceptible, and no Cartesian-type analysis13 will be able to unveil its secrets. Thus, the fairy-stories have a tradition of their own, that relate to persons, places, and creatures found in several times and places. The fairystories elements are mixed in the great kettle of stories, where the poets and writers make their soups: the narratives that are built along time and space. The rings of power, the hidden hearts, the scepter, the star, the crystal, the sword, the dragon, the knight, the wizard, the monsters are all of them constitutive elements of the fairy-stories. This is precisely where Tolkien answers his second question: What is the origin of the fairy-stories? Making a comparison with Philology,14 there are three research methodologies regarding the elements that compose the fairy-stories, whether through the independent evolution, through diffusion, or through lega- 11

3 cy. For Tolkien, the element with the most difficult approach is that of independent evolution, since it deals with invention. The search for diffusion propagation in space or for legacy propagation in time only dislocates the question of origin towards a more complex debate and with more elements. Thus, Tolkien affirms the analytical scientific method s inability to unveil the origins of Faerie; at the most, it dissects its elements and makes certain archaeology of the characters, objects, and places common to the fairy-stories. However, although researching the bones, vegetables, and further ingredients of a soup, what matters most is how it is served and if it really is tasty and nutritious. Thence Tolkien s concern with the functions and uses of the fairy-stories. In a dialog with Max Müller,15 he disagrees that mythology is an illness of the language; on the contrary: it is an essential part of the human communicating experience. It would be the same as considering thought an illness of the mind. Basically, the fairy-stories origins are associated with the mythological and religious thought. At the same time, the human being begins his reflection on the surrounding world and acknowledges his own condition, he questions the validity of his life, while investigating the world that transcends what he sees and himself, going towards the deep mystery he recognizes and cannot explain. In On Fairy-Stories Tolkien claims that: Yet these things have in fact become entangled or maybe they were sundered long ago and have since groped slowly, through a labyrinth of error, though confusion, back towards re-fusion. Even fairy-stories as a whole have three faces: the Mystical towards the Supernatural; the Magical towards Nature; and the mirror of scorn and pity towards the Man. The essential face of Faerie is the middle one, the Magical. But the degree in which the others appear (if at all) is variable, and may be decided by the individual story-teller (Tolkien, 1997, p. 125). To Tolkien, the fairy-stories are essentially about Nature. That corroborates the idea of Tolkien s concern with the modern condition and with the exploration of nature by science and capital. The fairy-stories resistance towards materialism is expressed by the care for Nature. Thence the reflection of myth as an element from nature: Thor is the Thunder, but he is also the sullen blacksmith, a typical figure of the Scandinavian. The fairy-stories also have their elements of reflection about the human being, as condition and destiny, and about mystery, centre of religion. Both the human being and mystic may be present in fairy-stories, yet their basis is magic, the representation and acknowledge of Nature. We now come to Tolkien s third question. The use of fairy-stories is precisely to provide a new look into the world. Due to dealing with a place, with an encounter between human beings and something beyond them, yet present in their desire, these stories are a place of novelty, astonishment, and surprise. It is the space where mystery presents itself with new images, where the human dramas are re-visited and re-used and acknowledged. This is Faerie, once again re-enchanting itself16 with the quotidian of nature. This new look promoted by the fairy-stories regarding nature is the basis of their existence. What preserves the fairy-stories are their virtues and values, present in them and scattered and disseminated in all those who adventure themselves in Faerie; thence the association of fairy-stories with children. Although Tolkien disagrees of such immediate association, he says that its basis is children s ability to believe in new things, which is also present in adults, yet in a more damaged fashion, mainly in the scopes of machines and materialism. Such belief ability is expressed because fairy-stories are not concerned with the possibility thence the unreal, the supernatural, and the superhuman, but rather with the desirability of splendid and transcendent things. These virtues, present in those splendid things, are also brought by the fairy-stories through fantasy, which is the imaginative ability to form mental images that are not present: escape, transport outside the world where we are imprisoned in matter; recovery, element that retakes the condition of communion with the living things and of human entireness; and consolation, that allows the human being to expect something beyond his/her limited vision due to the human condition itself. Such uses of the fairy-stories are gathered in a central concept of Tolkien s: the sub-creation. The main way for the fairy-stories to attain their purposes, the encounter with Faerie, is the creation of a fantasy world. Each sub-creator uses elements from the kettle of stories, and serves his soup with some already existing elements. However, it is thanks to the sub-creator s artistic activity that one achieves the measure by which the fairy-stories means are able to bear fruit. Fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation are achieved only when the correct measure is attained. In the case, sub-creation is such measure. Sub-creation is made when one manages to produce a secondary belief, in which the reader allows himself be- 12

4 lieving in something verisimilar, coherent, even if in an environment of superhuman creatures, in a supernatural environment, with divinities and beings much beyond the material reality. Such correspondence with creation,17 the world we live in, passes by the reality of the creating divinity. It is the virtues promoted by religion that establish the correspondence, for God indicates us how to act correctly. In sum, there may even exist a world with a green sun, yellow trees, yet it should obey a parameter that allows an explanation that God, or his avatars, created a green sun in order to express the gratefulness for the grass, and the yellow trees in order to show the protection of fire when used to warm up the human beings. Thus, as in the religion of the primary world, in creation, the sub-creative art shows the care of God with nature and human beings, and in that there is the real religious logic of the primary world. Just like human beings of flesh and bone do it in the primary world, in the same way, human beings made of iron, in a sub-created world, must follow the virtues proposed by religion, since honor and courage are important both in the primary world, in creation, and the secondary worlds. If, on the contrary, the human beings of mud are traitors and liars, they will be condemned in the secondary world, just like treachery and deceit are condemned in the primary world. Only thus will be possible to establish a connection between the desire of human beings and the sub-creative art. In Mythopoieia, Tolkien writes: The heart of Man is not compound of lies, but draws some wisdom from the only Wise, and still recalls him. Though now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed, Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned, his world-dominion by creative act: not his to worship the great Artifact, Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind. Though all the crannies of the world we filled with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build Gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sowed the seed of dragons, twas our right (used or misused). The right has not decayed. We make still by the law in which we re made. (Lopes, 2006, p. 155) In this passage of the poem, Tolkien retakes the vision of sub-creation as correspondence of religious truth. In spite of the human fall, the description of the banishment of man and woman from God s paradise made in the biblical report, in the book of Genesis, the human being is still son of God, his creature. Thus, although disgraced, the human being still carries in himself the royalty of God. By refusing the artifact-god, Tolkien again criticizes materialism and the technology of modern science. The ability of comprehension and of intellectual and spiritual development of the human being is immense, as the lights that refract in various shades, but unity is again rescued in the white. Finally, the apologia that the fairy-stories, with elves, dwarves, gods of darkness and light, dragons, are part of God s legacy to man, the ability of imaginative creation. In the scope of consolation of the fairy-stories, there is a fundamental ramification, and we arrive at the central concept in Tolkien s religious thought, the eucatastrophe. Eucatastrophe means good catastrophe, the turning that allows the virtues existing in the primary world to prevail in the secondary world. The sub-creation in the correct measure happens the more verisimilar the eucatastrophe is. The happy ending is not something romantic, foolish or incoherent, but an integrant part of life and of the human experience. There are losses, confusion, deaths and suffering, and many times such eucatastrophe is not exactly how we would like it to be. There are changes and, many times, things follow courses never imagined. Yet, what the eucatastrophe reveals is that the virtues are always rewarded and no sacrifice will ever be useless. There must be a plausibility, a tension that already exists in the primary world, and thus establish the connection between the primary and the secondary world. Just as in creation, many times, we think virtues are unreal and useless but we must keep them in order to manage to understand how valid they are, also in the secondary world the same happens. To affirm such concept, Tolkien presents the greater fairy-story he knows, the Gospels, with the narrative of Jesus Christ s life, teachings, passion, death, and resurrection. Thus Tolkien writes, in the final part of On Fairy-Stories: It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any especially beautiful fairystory were found to be primarily true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the turn in fairy-story gives: such joy 13

5 has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is pre-eminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. Because this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused (Tolkien, 1997, p. 156). In this passage Tolkien expresses his angelical vision of the fairy-stories. The idea of eucatastrophe is placed beside resurrection. The difference between fairy-stories, history and legend is abolished. The Gospel is the life of Jesus Christ, who initiates in history as man, nature and mystery. However, it is precisely the breaking of those boundaries that orientates the Christian faith. Resurrection is true, hence historical. The natural world is conquered by the miracles, healings, and wonders Jesus Christ makes, and finally the Christian Gloria is the joy of the encounter with a God who is Father. In that sense Faerie is a glimpse of the Kingdom of God in the world, nostalgia of the lost Paradise in the biblical account. Faerie is the place of reencounter of the human being with the angels, and with the elves. Thus, eucatastrophe is the characteristic that differentiates the fairy-stories from other narrative genres: tragedy, drama, comedy. It is that great turn, when everything seems lost, that resembles with the Gloria of resurrection. And it is together with the concepts fairy-stories, narrative of the human experience in the Dangerous Kingdom, Faerie, associated with the one of sub-creation, that such Dangerous Kingdom is the reflex of the human being s original choices. It is the Gospel that gives meaning to all other fairy-stories. In a certain sense, the evangelical drama, with eucatastrophe, is what initiates and redeems all other fairystories. For Tolkien, the Gospel is the Fire that nourishes the Kettle of Stories, from where all portions of the Soup appear, which traces the difference between Primary World and Secondary World, which justifies all sub-creators, from every time and place. Augustine and the virtues In order for us to deepen the relation Tolkien establishes between the virtues and the fairy-stories, it is necessary the Christian understanding of virtues. For that, the philosophy of Saint Augustine18 is the source where Tolkien understands his virtues. In The City of God,19 Augustine discourses on how the Roman Empire was grand due to the gifts it received from God. Even without having the revelation of the One God, the Romans truly sought the virtues as centre of their glory and, thus, they managed for the greatest empire of the ancient world to be granted to them by God. Thus, Augustine opens the discussion on God s action over the pagans, who, even not knowing the monotheist and Christian revelation, could follow the virtues as path for the encounter with truth. And what is meant by seeking the attainment of glory, honor, and power by good arts, is to seek them by virtue, and not by deceitful intrigue; for the good and the ignoble man alike desire these things, but the good man strives to overtake them by the true way. The way is virtue, along which he presses as to the goal of possession namely, to glory, honor, and power. Now that this was a sentiment engrained in the Roman mind, is indicated even by the temples of their gods; for they built in very close proximity the temples of Virtue and Honor, worshipping as gods the gifts of God. Hence we can understand what they who were good thought to be the end of virtue, and to what they ultimately referred it, namely, to honor; for, as to the bad, they had no virtue though they desired honor, and strove to possess it by fraud and deceit (Augustine, 1991, pp ). Augustine s vision on the virtues as God s gifts demonstrates that the Romans achieved their success in the world because of the search and veneration of those virtues, even as goddesses in themselves. Deluded for not knowing the truth of Christian monotheism, they were able to enjoy the gifts of virtues. In the case, the goal is glory, honor and power, that is: the acknowledging of victory among one s pairs, such victory considered to be fair and respectable, and, finally, the power of command among human beings and the State derived from that glory and honor. That is why the existence of the Roman Empire is explained as a gift from God to the Romans. The very existence of human beings craving for those virtues and not possessing them shows, although with effort, that they betrayed the virtues themselves, it reveals the condition of gratuity of those virtues. Only the correct path could grant those virtues and, still, the way and to whom it was granted in a correct fashion was a mystery. Thence Augustine s conclusion on God s concession. Again, in The City of God, Augustine defines the virtue and expresses how its quest may objectively grant happiness, that is: the full accomplishment of the human being in his enjoyment of life. Virtue, indeed, is defined by the ancients as itself the art of living well and rightly. Hence, because virtue is called in Greek arete, it has been thought the Latins 14

6 have derived from it the term art. But if Virtue cannot come except to the clever, what need was there of the god Father Catius, who should make men cautious, that is, acute, when Felicity could confer this? Because, to be born clever belongs to felicity. Whence, although goddess Felicity could not be worshipped by one not yet born, in order that, being made his friend, she might bestow this on him, yet she might confer this favor on parents who were her worshippers, that clever children should be born to them (Augustine, 1991, p. 169). The art of living well and rightly, the arete, is virtue. Being an art, there are those who do it right and those who do not. Even the clever, the intelligent, who can more easily approach felicity, must seek such felicity, the ultimate goal of virtue. Every virtue exists and is granted by the search of felicity. Felicity is living well and rightly, virtue is the art through which one finds such life. Even those who have not the ability of cleverness and intelligence must seek such life in order for their relatives surrounding them, whether parents or children, may by chance achieve such happiness. Also the conception that it is something that must be searched and not something innate to human being, the virtue must always be understood as a quest. Hence, Augustine puts the question that, if virtue was something inseparable from the spirit, there would be no need for gods, that is: of something beyond the human being, something that would grant it. In spite of the discussion20 between will and grace in Augustine, we can establish the condition that virtue is something that must be sought through will, yet is granted by divine grace. Thus, the difference Augustine establishes between will, power and doing imposes itself as an expression of the search for virtue in order to attain happiness, that is: living well and right. For that, the virtues of the pre-christian world, researched by Augustine, show this reality: just like God revealed himself to the Hebrews, also for the pagans there were paths indicating Christ s presence. By identifying the Roman goals of felicity such as glory, honor, and power, Augustine retakes the person of Jesus Christ as central expression of those qualities. In On Free Choice of the Will21 Augustine defines Jesus Christ as the Power and Wisdom of God. Such definition may be framed in the characteristics of the Roman glory, honor, and power. Thus, the very person of Jesus Christ is in himself the most glorious, honored, and powerful; the power and glory are exclusive of the Son of God. Behave with viril mood, and persevere believing the truth you believe in, for nothing is more advisable than believing, although keeping hidden the reason why (such truth) is as such, to have the highest degree of devotion towards God. Well, no one believes he is omnipotent, and that neither for a minute parcel (of his nature) is he subjected to change. Neither (is believed) that he is the creator of all good things, which he exceeds. That he also is the fairest conductor of all things he created. And also that he was not helped in creation by any other being, as if he would not suffice by himself. Thence he created all things from nothing and that, proceeding from himself, have not created but generated one who would be to him alike, that who we profess to be the only Son of God, and to whom, if we wish to name him more accessibly, we call Power and Wisdom of God, through whom he made all things, which were made out of nothing. These truths established, let us address our efforts, with God s help and by the following way, for the intellection of the matter on which you interrogate me (Augustine, 1986, pp ). Here, Augustine expresses the coherence between believing in God s omnipotence and his characteristic of Creator. Besides being the original power, the creator of everything, he is also the just judge who determines and condemns everything that happens in the world. He also demonstrates the generation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, as Lord and Organizer of the world. Whereas God is creating and regulating power, Jesus Christ is the Organizer of the world, that is, the one who dominates the paths of life, of the good and right life, ultimately, of felicity. And thus he expresses the fundaments of divine Power and Wisdom. Those same characteristics valorized by the Romans are ascribed to Jesus Christ by Augustine. The characteristics of God s Power and Wisdom are firstly expressed by Saint Paul (1Cor 1,22-31), when he states that Jesus Christ transforms the notion both of Jews and Greeks in the quality of values of Power and Wisdom. In John s Gospel, the presentation of Jesus Christ is made through the Word of God (Joh 1,1-18), who is the means through which everything was made, where one finds life as light that dissipates darkness, which is turned towards God and is God himself. It is also revealed in the incarnation of the Word, as a man who came to show, teach, and donate the human ability of loving as God himself loves. For such donation, Augustine reflects on virtue as being part of such donation of love. Although there is difference between the revelation of Jesus Christ, his life and resurrection, the other human virtues presented in the course of history are also found, as gifts from God, in the person of Jesus Christ. Thus is specified by the professor Antônio Soares Pinheiro, translator into the Portuguese language and commentator of the edition we adopted of On Free Choice of the Will, what was objectively understood as virtue: 15

7 Latin had the substantive virtus (virtue), but it did not possess the correspondent adjective. One of the expressions one would resort to in order to make up for such lack was the adjective justus, and that contributed that one of the meanings of the word justitia (justice) would become virtue. On the other hand, both justus and justitia were applied now and then to a certain virtue, or to the regular possession of all, or to its possession in the supreme degree of perfection. Together with those meanings, justice also designated what we understand of it today, that is: the virtue that obliges giving each one what belongs or what is due to us (Pinheiro, 1986, p. 52). According to such definition, virtue could then be understood through the conception of a certain virtue, or as the possession of all virtues in a certain degree, or the ultimate dominion of certain virtue. The relation, therefore, between virtue and justice is expressed in an intimate fashion. The fact that justice and just are associated to the fundament of virtue can make the virtuous and the just be confounded. Here is necessary, then, to differentiate what is precisely justice in the terms of Augustine. Virtue is the art of living well and rightly, which is felicity. Hence, virtue is the art of achieving happiness. Yet there are several virtues as paths towards such goal. Virtue may be understood both as the virtuous life and a certain virtue or the supreme dominion of perfection. Thus, it is necessary to understand how Augustine comprehends those virtues, besides justice, that expresses its more intimate fundament. For such, in the very On Free Choice of the Will there is a definition of such virtues, which are retaken throughout the entire work of Augustine, even in The City of God. [ ] prudence is the knowledge of what to seek and what to avoid. [ ] Fortitude is that afficiency22 by which we despise all inconveniences and losses of assets, which are not in our possession. [ ] Temperance is the afficiency that constrains and repels the will for the things that one degradingly craves. In what regards justice, what shall we say of it than the virtue by which is given to each what is his? (Augustine, 1986, pp ) It is those four virtues that Augustine defines as the fundaments of felicity. All the pagan empires somehow managed to attain their power, honor and glory through those four virtues. They are designated as cardinal, because they point towards the good and righteous life, felicity. When approaching the term virtue of justice, it is also necessary to point the other three virtues, in order to be clear that the virtuous is not only the just, but the one who seeks the three other virtues. Thus, by designating Jesus Christ as the Power and Wisdom of God, Augustine also presents the human virtues that Christ himself possessed and granted. Power is fortitude, as the overcoming of losses and damages we suffer material, psychic or social, and justice is the human and social ability for the distribution of material, psychic and social assets. Whereas for wisdom one assumes temperance as self-control and discernment also material, psychic and social, and prudence as knowledge of what moves the human being, whether for good or evil, and the ability of distinguishing both. Augustine s thought on the virtues is then expressed as a fundament of connection with God. Virtue is the path to happiness, and such happiness is the union with God, it is its fruition,23 understood as the joy, the pleasure of being with God. That is the path the Christian, when following Christ, must embrace. The virtues are God s gifts as well as the very union with God. The basic virtuous path is the following of Jesus Christ in his teachings and practices. It is the life of Jesus Christ that demonstrates true happiness, which is the joy of resurrection, the glory, as truth for the love of God and the human possibility of being united to that God. Beowulf and the virtues After we define Tolkien s literary concepts, and Augustine s definitions of virtue, we now retake how Tolkien evaluates the poem Beowulf. In his essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (1936), Tolkien seeks to understand that text narrating the adventures of the prince of the Geats, people from the present Sweden, in the 4 th century, who leaves to Heorot, the hydromel saloon of king Hrothgar, from the Danes. In search for glory, prince Beowulf, from the Geats, discovers that Heorot is constantly attacked by Grendel, anthropomorphic monster who devours king Hrothgar s greatest warriors. After fighting and killing the monster, Beowulf also defeats Grendel s mother, returning to his land as an honored and glorious hero. After many years, now as king of the Geats, Beowulf faces his ultimate battle standing against the dragon that is attacking his people. Thanks to the help of his kinsman Wiglaf, and with the sacrifice of Beowulf himself, the dragon is killed. However, Beowulf s funeral presages the time of sadness for the 16

8 Geats, since the greatest of their warriors and their very king is dead. By studying the poem, Tolkien casts seven keypoints in his comprehension. It is those points that enable us to make an approach between Tolkien s literary thought expressed in On Fairy-Stories and Augustine s philosophy on the virtues. That poem was analyzed by Tolkien in his essay as a poem. Here is the first important point: the literary value in terms of beauty and creative power. Tolkien emphasizes that point precisely because he wishes to delimitate his critique between understanding Beowulf as a historical document or as a theological treaty. He precisely wants to make what he considers the middle-term between both. It is not something theoretical philosophical or conceptual; it is a poem written to portrait beauty, enchantment and art, at the same time that it is not a historical document, because it does not exactly deals with the documental or administrative history of any institution or bureaucratic body. It is myths and legends of a people. Here, we approach his concept of sub-creation. The importance of a poem is bigger than its aesthetic value. It is not because it is beautiful, but because it is good and true. Tolkien s concern in affirming that his study is about the poem, and not about its concepts or about its historical context, is in order to emphasize that the poem itself, as art, expresses concepts and a context, yet that is not the most important. Important is precisely the impact the poem has upon the reader; beyond the reflections that may or may not possess the applicability in other times and other thoughts. It is precisely that second point that Tolkien deepens in his essay. It establishes the difference between allegory and myth. For Tolkien, allegory possesses a direct meaning from the significant. What is represented may be explained without further difficulties through what it represents. It is not thus that Tolkien studies in Beowulf: The myth has other forms than the (now discredited) mythical allegory of nature: the sun, the seasons, the sea, and such things... The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by allegory, and, what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected (Tolkien, 1997, p.15). Tolkien s critique regarding analytical reasoning is founded in the rescue of the mythic thought. The comprehension of myths as allegories of nature phenomena the ancient did not understand is not accepted by Tolkien, to whom myth is alive and it is easier for a poet than for a modern scientist to comprehend it. Such conception once again corroborates his concept of sub-creation, and even the one of eucatastrophe. By being alive, the myth produces feelings and reality that analytical reasoning cannot explain. Only poetry can approach such explanation, that truth the poet can express based in the world of history and geography, that is: in the time and in the space that can be comprehended by his pairs. That does not mean the myth itself is imprisoned in this time and space, however it is the way the poet expresses such mythic reality that cannot be explained even if allegorically. In the same way, when reflecting on Augustine s philosophy, the same virtues that are found in the various peoples are independent of time and space. Jesus Christ is atemporal, and although his revelation happens in a certain time in history that does not mean the other times did not have virtues that reflected his path. The relation Tolkien makes towards the primary world, and thence the comprehension of virtues, may be widened towards the fairy-stories, and thence the understanding of myth as an echo from the Gospel, independent of time and space. The symbolical importance is expressed in the third point of Tolkien s analysis regarding Beowulf. The dragon is the evil. That symbol24 is present in several cultures, whether it is the evil serpent in the Genesis account (3,1-14), or the serpent of Midgard,25 from Scandinavian mythology, that encircles the world and awakes in the Ragnarok, the end of times. Whether it is the dragon confronted and killed by king Beowulf, who dies on account of the wounds, or the dragon with fiery colors from the Christian Revelation (Rev 12,1-18). For Tolkien, the dragon is absolute evil, death as the ultimate ending. In the Scandinavian mythology, Ragnarok finishes with all gods defeated, but with the giants dead, and Surtur, the great demon of fire, burns everything and it is the end of times. For Beowulf, what matters in order to attain glory, honor and power is the ability of resisting the appeals of cowardliness and of weakness of decision. The after-death world also did not grant eternal rest, since the great warriors also would only live just to fight in the end of times, when everybody would be defeated, the gods included. Here we establish the fourth point of Tolkien s study, and the fundamental one regarding Augustine s virtues: the dogma of courage in the Scandinavian 17

9 mythology. The main virtue brought by the narrative of Beowulf echoes the mythological fundament of Ragnarok. What matters is not giving up. There is no hope for victory, not even with the gods help because the gods themselves are destined to die. Although it is a text bringing Grendel and his mother as anthropomorphic monsters and devours of human beings, both are descendants of the Cain from the Hebrew literature. Thus, the presence of Christianity in the text is clear, and also in the values the kings take upon them. Power and wisdom are the fundamental marks in the ideals proposed in the kings, just as Augustine portrays the person of Jesus Christ. Both Hygelac, king of the Geats, Beowulf s uncle and his predecessor in the throne, and Hrothgar and Beowulf himself as king turn in that tension between power and wisdom. While Hrothgar, king of the Danes, is wisdom, monotheist, welcomer and donor of rings,26 already old though, and without the strength to face Grendel, who threatens his people; whereas Hygelac is the valorous king of the brave Geats, the people of Beowulf himself, the king who dies in battle invading other peoples, Beowulf is presented as the one who manages to have the wisdom and power during his youth and hero time by killing Grendel, and rules his people with wisdom when he becomes king, and does not flee from the battle against the ultimate enemy, the very symbol of evil, the dragon. Although all those symbols possess concomitancy between the Gospels and Augustine s philosophy regarding power and wisdom, and to the Scandinavian mythology, Tolkien presents the formulation proper of Beowulf s text as the vision of courage typical of Scandinavian virtue. So regarded Beowulf is, of course, an historical document of the first order for the study of the mood and thought of the period and one perhaps too little used for the purpose professed by historians. But it is the mood of the author, the essential cast of his imaginative apprehension of the world, that is my concern, not history for its own sake; I am interested in that time of fusion only as it may help us to understand the poem. And in the poem I think we may observe not confusion, a halfhearted or a muddled business, but a fusion that has occurred at a given point of contact between old and new, a product of thought and deep emotion. One of the most potent elements in that fusion is the Northern courage: the theory of courage, which is the great contribution of early Northern literature (Tolkien, 1997, p. 20). Here, Tolkien shows his basic concern: the imaginative apprehension of the poet who wrote Beowulf. In fact, the concept of fairy-story as a sub-creation also is presented in Beowulf. The primary world is described, yet with elements that are present in the kettle of stories. Dragon, Cain, Grendel and his mother are fighting figures of kings and heroes who are marked out in Augustine s virtues. The theory of courage, or the dogma, that Tolkien presents in his essay, shows us how important such fundament is in Beowulf s narrative. In the same way that the Romans received their Empire as a gift from God through virtues, the Scandinavian also kept their culture and their tradition through the gift of courage. It is possible to trace parallels with the virtues of fortitude, justice, temperance, and prudence through the dogma of courage. And this is the fifth point that Tolkien presents in Beowulf. Such fusion point between Christianity and the pagan thought is what is presented in the poem. Not something mixed in a disordered fashion, but coherence and harmony that produce a poem with value in itself. In this point, by understanding Beowulf s pagan thought and at the same time expressing Hrothgar s monotheism and Grendel s ascendancy up to Cain, the Gospels become present. In the Scandinavian mythology there is no salvation, not even of the strongest. Ragnarok will consume everything, including the gods. The battle, then, becomes spiritual, since it is no longer possible to retreat due to one s own honor. Resistance becomes perfect because it is without any hope at all. It is the notion that it is possible to seize victory for the willfulness in keeping on fighting even without hope. By attaining such dogma, Beowulf s paganism approaches the Passion of Jesus Christ, described in the Gospel of John (Joh 18,1-40), who presents it in a different fashion from the other synoptic Gospels, where Jesus sweats blood (Luk 22,35-53), asks his Father to take that cup away from him (Mar 14,32-42), or even doubts of the Fathers presence in his agony upon the cross (Mat 27,45-51). In the Gospel of John, whom Tolkien, because he also was named John, considered as his patron,27 Jesus Christ is presented without fear of his martyrdom and of his cross; a Jesus Christ who seeks to exactly fulfill God s plan without any doubt. It is the will overcoming any feeling of weakness. The sixth point of Beowulf s study is the presentation it does of the Northern mythology in comparison to the Southern mythology. For Tolkien, the European continent much valued the Southern gods, understood 18

10 as the Mediterranean, specifically the Greek-Roman world, and it should better acknowledge the contributions which were made in its culture and formation originated in the North, specifically from Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxon. In his essay, Tolkien makes a comparison between the gods and the monsters in Virgil s28 Aeneid, in Homer s29 Odyssey, and in Beowulf. The conception of the cyclop as a son of the gods that the human beings must deceive because they invaded his home and, thus, inside a game of the gods themselves, to manage to get back safe and sound to their homes completely diverges from the view of Grendel, his mother, and the dragon. In Beowulf the monsters are the evil. The gods are allies of the human beings in their desperate attempt to fight a pointless fight, but that it is the only option for human beings who deserve to be called so, based in glory, honor, and power. Like the Roman goals in their city. The relations between the gifts of virtues are fundamental in the analysis of the monsters and the gods. Even condemning the Roman gods as demons and illusions, Augustine saw in the virtues the means by which Jesus Christ could manifest himself in worlds that did not knew him yet. That reflects much more the descriptions of the monsters and giants (Gen 6,1-8) as God s adversaries in the Genesis. The approach is more direct between Beowulf and the Christian Gospels. In the same way, Tolkien interprets the poem Beowulf with such emphasis. In Beowulf we have, then, an historical poem about the pagan past, or an attempt at one literal historical fidelity founded on modern research was, of course, not attempted. It is a poem by a learned man writing of old times, who looking back on the heroism and sorrow feels in them something permanent and something symbolical. So far from being a confused semi-pagan historically unlikely for a man of this sort in the period he brought probably first to his task a knowledge of Christian poetry, especially that of the Caedmon school, and specially Genesis Secondly, to his task the poet brought a considerable learning in native lays and traditions (Tolkien, 1997, pp. 26-7). Such conception of the feeling of sorrow and heroism of a pagan people, probably from the same tradition and culture of the learned human being, is the main link between the writer of Beowulf and Augustine. In the same way that the bishop of Hippo, a master of Roman culture, a scholar of Rome s myths and legends, seeks in the past of his civilization, and even in the cults of gods, the thing for which God granted certain virtue, so does the Anglo-Saxon text. To feel something of permanent and symbolic, the truth, expressed in verses and lines that echo the theory of courage, the dogma of the hopeless fight, of God s power and wisdom, Jesus Christ, is foolishness for the Greeks and scandal for the Jews (1Cor 1,23). Here are the kings that must be followed, those to whom God granted the virtues that indicate his predilection and his path towards the truth of law written in the hearts. It is that same writing that reflects the fairy-stories. The Gospel justifies Beowulf, Aeneida, Odyssey, Genesis; and also the elves and hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, from Silmarillion, and from The Hobbit. The fact that the human being may create fairy-stories means the fact of wanting to investigate the primary causes of his conduct and of his virtues. Because being just, prudent, tempered, and strong is what he seeks to respond in the fairy-stories. And it is precisely the Gospel that allows such cravings to be bearers of that revealed truth. Finally, the seventh point that Tolkien rescues in Beowulf is the building of the thought from the text and not of its history. Tolkien wishes to find that which remains as truth, specifically expressed in the virtues, presented through the symbolic narratives of monsters and heroes. The conflict against evil, symbolized by the dragon, is precisely the same conflict of the Christian Revelation. It is the inhuman character of the monsters that extrapolates the reflection of historical nature and of register. It is precisely the battles against superhuman and supernatural beings that remit the investigation and the thought about the natural reality. The cosmic discussion on the fate of human life, his efforts and his virtues. The fairy-stories have the reflection on nature as their centre. It is the human being facing what he can and cannot. His boundaries facing the mystery, and his conquests and discoveries facing creation. It is just because the main foes in Beowulf are inhuman that the story is larger and more significant than this imaginary poem of a great king s fall. It glimpses the cosmic and moves with the thought of all men concerning the fate of human life and efforts (Tolkien, 1997, p. 33). Far beyond the political discussion, whether glorious, or honored, the fairy-stories deal with the destiny and sense of the human beings. The virtues, the king s example, are not fundamental on their own, only towards the mystery of the superhuman. Thus, the approach between the permanence of the virtues present in the fairy-stories, the mythological stories and the invented ones is the permanence of God s eternity. 19