Editing Fëanor (section)

=== Pride in sub-creation ===

[[File:The surprizing life and death of Doctor John Faustus Fleuron T182305-1.png|thumb|Fëanor's self-destructive pride in his own creation has been likened to that of [[Thomas Mann]]'s "Doctor Faustus", in the person of the fictional 20th century composer [[Adrian Leverkühn]], a reworking of the [[Faust]] legend.{{sfn|Ellison|2003}} 1740 English print of [[Faust|Doctor Faustus's]] pact with the Devil.]]

The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] comments that Fëanor and his Silmarils relate to ''The Silmarillion''{{'}}s theme in a particular way: the sin of the Elves is not human pride, as in the [[Fall of man|Biblical fall]], but their "desire to make things which will forever reflect or incarnate their own personality". This Elvish form of pride leads Fëanor to forge the Silmarils, and, Shippey suggests, led Tolkien to write his fictions: "Tolkien could not help seeing a part of himself in Fëanor and [[Saruman]], sharing their perhaps licit, perhaps illicit desire to 'sub-create'."{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=273–274}}

John Ellison, writing in [[the Tolkien Society]]'s journal ''[[Mallorn (journal)|Mallorn]]'', draws a comparison between Fëanor and the [[Faust]] legend, in particular [[Thomas Mann]]'s version in his 1947 novel ''[[Doctor Faustus (novel)|Doctor Faustus]]''. In Ellison's view, the life history of both characters is of "genius corrupted finally into insanity; the creative drive turns on its possessor and destroys him, and with him a good part of the fabric of society."{{sfn|Ellison|2003}} He describes as parallel Mann's depiction of his Faust character Leverkühn in a collapsing Nazi Germany and Tolkien's starting his mythology amidst the collapse of pre-1914 Europe in the [[World War I|First World War]]<!--: he likens the "Good German" narrator Zeitblom (who does not support the Nazis) to one of "the Faithful" (like [[Elendil]]) among the gone-bad [[Númenórean]]s-->. Fëanor is, he writes, not an exact equivalent of Doctor Faustus: he does not make a [[pact with the devil]]; but both Fëanor and Leverkühn outgrow their teachers in creative skill. Ellison calls Leverkühn "a Fëanor of our times", and comments that far from being a simple battle of good versus evil, Tolkien's world as seen in Fëanor has "the creative and destructive forces in man's nature ... indivisibly linked; this is the essence of the '[[fall of man|fallen world]]' in which we live."{{sfn|Ellison|2003}} He adds that Fëanor is central to the whole of [[Tolkien's legendarium]], "the hinge on which the whole great Tale ... turns."{{sfn|Ellison|2003}}

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto;"
|+ John Ellison's analysis of Fëanor's resemblance to Leverkühn<br/>in [[Thomas Mann]]'s version of the [[Faust]] legend{{sfn|Ellison|2003}}
|-
! scope="col" style="width: 225px;" | Tolkien's Fëanor 
! scope="col" style="width: 225px;" | Mann's Leverkühn 
|-
| colspan=2 | {{center|"genius corrupted finally into insanity"}}
|-
| colspan=2 | {{center|"creative drive turns on its possessor and destroys him", and much of society}}
|-
| Tolkien sees England's "green country ruined and despoiled by industrial or commercial development"
| Mann sees early 20th century Germany "about to slide into barbarism"
|}

Like Shippey, Ellison relates Fëanor's making of the Silmarils to what he supposes was Tolkien's own belief: that it was "a dangerous and impermissible act" that went beyond what the Creator had intended for the Elves.{{sfn|Ellison|2003}} Further, Ellison suggests that while Fëanor does not directly represent Tolkien, there is something about his action that can be applied to Tolkien's life. Tolkien calls Fëanor "[[wikt:fey|fey]]"; Ellison notes that Tolkien <!--mistakenly, but that's not the point here--> analysed his own name as ''tollkühn'', with the same meaning. Further, Tolkien seems, Ellison writes, to have felt a conflict between his own "sub-creation" and his Catholic faith.{{sfn|Ellison|2003}}

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