UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations 1-1-2004 J R R Tolkien's lecture "On Fairy -Stories": The qualities of Tolkienian fantasy Clyde Bryan Northrup University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/rtds Repository Citation Northrup, Clyde Bryan, "J R R Tolkien's lecture "On Fairy -Stories": The qualities of Tolkienian fantasy" (2004). UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations. 2595. http://dx.doi.org/10.25669/ujjo-sojl This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. 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TOLKIEN’S LECTURE “ON FAIRY-STORIES’ THE QUALITIES OF TOLKIENIAN FANTASY by Clyde Bryan Northmp Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy Brigham Young University 1988 Bachelor of Arts, English University of Idaho 1996 Master of Arts, English University of Idaho 1998 A dissertation submitted in partial fiilfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in English Department of English College of Liberal Arts Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas December 2004 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3176935 Copyright 2005 by Northrup, Clyde Bryan All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3176935 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright by Clyde Bryan Northrup 2005 All Rights Reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dissertation Approval The Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas O ctober 7______ , 20 04 The Dissertation prepared by ________________ Clyde Bryan Northrup Entitled J. R. R. Tolkien's Lecture "On Falrv-Storles” ; The Qualities _____________ of Tolklenlan Fantasy______________________________ is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Examination Committee Chair Dean of the Graduate College Examination Committee Member Examination Committee Member Graduate College Faculty Representative 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyrightowner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lecture “On Fairy-Stories”: The Qualities of Tolkienian Fantasy by Clyde Bryan Northrup Dr. Megan Becker-Leckrone, Examination Committee Chair Assistant Professor of English University of Nevada, Las Vegas Critics of fantasy literature, since the publication of Tzvetan Todorov’s work on the fantastic, defining it in relation to reality, have tended toward defining fantasy literature as it violates reality, reader expectations, or the rules of the fictional world created by the narrative. This move on the part of these critics of fantasy has excluded what J. R R Tolkien wrote and named, “secondary world fantasy,” which is, fantasy that follows the rules established by the work’s author in creating an independent, “secondary world.” This strain of fantasy, called hereafter “Tolkienian fantasy,” has been ignored, for the most part, by the critics, and no critical framework exists for examining this kind of fantasy literature. Further, Tolkien’s 1939 lecture, “On Fairy-stories,” is viewed by fantasy critics as a statement of Tolkien’s aesthetics, rather than a critical framework for interpreting Tolkienian fantasy. This work will attempt to show that this lecture by Tolkien actually creates a framework for interpretation, the four qualities of Tolkienian fantasy, that will be applied later on to four contemporary fantasies by David Eddings, Roger Zelazny, Stephen R. Donaldson, and J. K. Rowling, along with Tolkien’sThe Hohbit andThe Lord o f the iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Rings. After surveying fantasy criticism from George MacDonald’s late 19th Century essay to the present, we look at Sir Philip Sidney’sDefence o f Poesy and his place in fantasy criticism. Following the lead of Italian humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Sidney responds to critics of his day, arguing that the poet should not be subject to the restraints reality, but rather, should be free to go as far as his or her imagination will carry him or her. He also borrows from neo-Platonist ideas as also Aristotle, creating a space for the poet to operate outside of the limits of our world. Joseph Addison’sSpectator essays on the pleasures of the imagination, expands upon Sidney, noticing the power of words to create images of things not present, requiring a reader of equal imagination. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in hisBiographia Literaria, posits that this ability to create on the part of the author is a reflection of the creative act of the divine creator who made man. Oscar Wilde’s essay, “The Decay of Lying,” defends imaginative literature against the reahsts of his day, arguing for a return to the “art of lying,” which is the creation, through art, of “beautifiil, untrue things.” Tolkien seems to respond to Wilde’s challenge, picking of the threads of Sidney and Coleridge to explain his idea of “sub-creation” on the part of the author, who creates through writing secondary worlds that contain fragments of the “truth,” which is, for Tolkien, the truth of his Catholic beliefs in God and his creation of man. If the author does his work well then he creates in the reader “secondary belief’ in the secondary world of the narrative, taking up Addison’s ideas and taking exception to Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief.” The reader believes the created world is “real,” in the sense that it exists while the reader is “inside” the narrative world. These ideas lead Tolkien to give the four qualities of a “fairy-story,” as he names them, iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation. As a quality of the fairy-story, fantasy consists of contrasting aspects—enchantment and ordinariness. The ordinariness of the narrative points back to the primary world of our daily existence, laying the foundation for moments of enchantment, the “magical” or “other-worldly” quality of the fairy-story. These contrasting aspects are shown as they operate within Tolkien’s stories as well as the four contemporary mentioned above. Recovery relates to ordinariness—the things taken for granted as we go about our lives—and these simple things recapture their “magic” by our seeing them within the narrative world. Escape allows us to remove ourselves from the miseries of daily life while at the same time freeing us from the limitations of our primary world. Consolation is the “happy ending” the sudden turn at the end that will not happen again, and in the consolation we see the echoes of primary reality, as we show with Tolkien’s stories, and the four contemporary fantasies. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. üi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................. vii INTRODUCTION TODOROVIAN FANTASTIC VERSUS TOLKEINIAN FANTASY: A SURVEY OF TRENDS IN FANTASY CRITICISM ................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S DEFENCE OF POESY: HIS DIVINE ENTHRONEMENT OF POETRY ................................................................................24 CHAPTER 2 THE EVOLUTION OF ADDISON’S SECONDARY PLEASURES: RECAPTURING THE PLEASURE OF IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE ..................49 CHAPTER 3 IMAGINATION IN COLERIDGE’S BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA 74 CHAPTER 4 WILDE AND THE “DECAY OF LYING ”: CREATING BEAUTIFUL, UNTRUE THINGS .......................................................................................................96