Chapter VII, an Epilogue to the book, consists of a very short introduction to the Ainulindalë – the cosmogonic myth opening The Silmarillion. This myth can be interpreted as Tolkien’s archetypal and most elaborate reflection on the problem of the relation of Art and Primary reality. According to this myth, Eru created the world, employing the collaboration of the Ainur, invited to adorn His music with their “own thoughts and devices”. Eru is not merely a passive, detached observer, but constantly participates in the process of sub-creation, by continuing to inspire and correct the Ainur’s sub-creating activities, harmonising them with each other, and maintaining the freedom to introduce “new and unforetold” entities into the eventual unfolding of their Music, which remains under His ultimate control. As Eru says to the rebellious artist Melkor, in a passage encapsulating Tolkien’s vision of the mystery of literary creation: “no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite”.

Chapter III focuses on another key feature of Tolkien’s literary technique, namely the lavish use of omissions, allusive language, and, more specifically, the deletion of (almost) all the explicit references to the hidden ‘divine narrative’ underlying the story; these are scattered throughout the book, but always in a ‘hidden’ or ‘glimpsed’ form. The second part explores the theoretical implications of this poetics of ‘cloaking’ or ‘glimpsing’. This technique evokes in the reader a “heart-racking” longing for something unattainable. This is not just a (well-paralleled) strategy: rather, literature for Tolkien does not just come from the human mind, since human beings are only sub-creators, and the light that their works refract comes from a higher Light: incompleteness and cloaking are thus means by which Tolkien acknowledges the mysterious origin of his sub-creations, and at the same time expresses God’s high concern for freedom, His own and that of the human sub-creators and their readers.