Eä
The World That Is; the Universe
Definition
Eä is the Quenya word for “the world” or “the universe” — “Eä, that is, the world (‘the Universe’) in the Elvish tongue”. In the Ainulindalë it is the name Eru gave to all that he made when he spoke the great word of creation: “Eä! Let these things Be!” The World of the tale is thus bounded, finite, and set within the Void — the emptiness that surrounds it.
Creation
In the
Ainulindalë: 1. The Ainur sang the Great Music before Ilúvatar — the The Music of the Ainur — of which the world was the vision or “the theme made manifest”. 2. When the Music reached its height, Eru “caused to be seen a vision of the world” among them, and they perceived it made visible; and “the One… commanded in the name of the most holy: Eä! Let these things Be! And I will send forth into the Void the Flame Imperishable, and it shall be at the heart of the World, and the World shall Be.” 3. At that word “the Ainur beheld a new thing made… and they saw the world, and it had a light, for it was filled with the Flame Imperishable”; and those of the Ainur who desired it entered the world and shaped it —.
Within
Eä: Arda
Within Eä the central object of interest is Arda, “the Kingdom”, the habitation of the Children — the sphere of the world properly so called, around which move Sun and Moon. The earlier cosmology makes the world flat, bounded by the Walls of the Night and the Door of Night (through which Morgoth was cast); the later (after the Ambarkanta) and the Akallabêth) make the world round, Arda being “cloven” — the detailed shapes are treated under Arda and in the shaping texts. Eä is time-bound: “the world is aged”; nothing within it is outside Time save the Valar’s council… The Ainur who entered “become subject to time” — Tolkien’s later notes: the “Isle of Eä” is real & temporal, and its history is a single tale that runs from the Music to the Dagor Dagorath.
In the Texts
The word Eä (and its nature) is told in the Ainulindalë and elaborated in the Ambarkanta (Shaping of Middle-earth) and the cosmological essays in Morgoth’s Ring. Christopher Tolkien’s commentary stresses that “Eä” is the Elvish name of the universe, pronounced eh-ah, and that the famous “Eä!” is the moment the mythology’s metaphysics are fixed — the whole world “is” by eternal fiat.