Nostalgia for Paradise: Exile and Redemption in the Mythology of J. R. R. Tolkien

Abstract

This article examines nostalgia for Paradise as one of the central themes in J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology. Drawing on the methodological framework proposed by José Miguel Odero, which reclaims the author's own voice as a legitimate hermeneutical key for interpreting his work, the study first analyzes the core concepts of Tolkien's poetics —subcreation and verisimilitude— as a way into his thought. It then argues that the mytheme of Paradise Lost takes two distinct forms in Tolkien's legendarium, depending on the race involved: among the Elves, as nostalgia for a physical place, Valinor, from which they are exiled through a historical, though not ontological, fall; among Men, as nostalgia for a pre-Fall state of incorruptibility, lost when death ceased to be a freely accepted passage and became an imposed, inescapable fate, whose true recovery lies in the transcendence of the circles of the world. Finally, the article shows how this twofold image of Paradise Lost reflects the author's own religious convictions, revealing the anthropological and existential value of his literature beyond its entertainment dimension.