Forget what I wrote earlier, here I am again! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
I don't know what it's worth to this subject as you conceive it, davem, but here is a long list of quotes from the letter (131, To Milton Waldman) which Sophia quoted above. ([brackets] and bold texts are my alterations)
Quote:
(...)Anyway, all this stuff*[ie. Tolkien's mythology] is mainly concerned with Fall, Mortality, and the Machine.(...)With Mortality, especially as it affects art and the creative (or as I should say, sub-creative) desire(...). This [subcreative]desire is at once wedded to a passionate love of the real primary world, and hence filled with the sense of mortality, and yet unsatisfied by it. It has various opportunities of 'Fall'. It may become possessive, clinging to the things made as 'its own', the sub-creator wishes to be the Lord and God of his private creation. He will rebel against the laws of the Creator - especially against mortality. Both of these (alone or together) will lead to the desire for Power,(...)
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*It is, I suppose, fundamentally concerned with the problem of the relation of Art (and Sub-creation) and Primary Reality.
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Later in the same letter:
Quote:
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Their [Elves'] 'magic' is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations(...) And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation.(...)The Enemy in successive forms is always 'naturally' concerned with sheer Domination [ie. Power](...)
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In a side note:
Quote:
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(...)the Beginner of Evil: his was a sub-creative Fall, and hence the Elves (the representatives of sub-creation par excellence) were peculiarly his enemies, and the special object of his desire and hate - and open to his deceits. Their Fall is into possessiveness ans (to a lesser degree) into perversion of their art[ie. sub-creation] to power[ie. domination]
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And finally:
Quote:
By the making of gems[the Silmarils] the sub-creative function of the Elves is chiefly symbolized, but the Silmarilli were more than just beautiful things as such. There was Light.(...)*
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*(...)The Light of Valinor (derived from light before any fall) is the light of art undivorced from reason, that sees things both scientifically (or philosophically) and imaginatively (or subcreatively) and 'says that they are good' - as beautiful.(...)
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So,
#1: Sub-creation, as Tolkien conceived it, wasn't bounded solely on "creation of 'Secondary World' in the mind"; he used the concept in far wider scale and so should we too.
#2: Sub-creation as Elves' Art is basically good but still "has various opportunities for 'Fall'". Elves', more specifically the Noldor's, Fall is a result from their sub-creative desire, which eventually led to the desire to possess, to dominate. Melkor truly knew what strings to pull for he was the first Sub-creator!
#3: I would assume when facing this evidence that Tolkien didn't want to represent any of the characters of LOTR as 'Great Sub-creators', that is, as rebels against the Creator etc. The Elves' (Noldor) great subcreating acts had formerly led to their downfall: and I think they learned from that. Galadriel is an example of this: she passed her test, the temptation of the Ring (one great sub-creation in the wider context of the word, I'd say) and thus was allowed to return.
And now I'll shut up.