Forging Faërie: Sub-Creation, Depth and Mythic Otherworldliness in J
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Forging Faërie: Sub-creation, Depth and Mythic Otherworldliness in J. R. R. Tolkien's Conception of the Fairy-Story by Jonathan Deschene Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (English) Acadia University Fall Convocation 2011 © by Jonathan Edward Deschene, 2011 This thesis by Jonathan Edward Deschene was defended successfully in an oral examination on August 30, 2011. The examining committee for the thesis was: Dr. Shelley MacDougal, Chair Dr. Anna Smol, MSVU, External Reader Dr. Andrea Schwenke Wyile, Internal Reader Dr. Kevin Whetter, Supervisor Dr. Herb Wyile, Graduate Coordinator, Dept. of English This thesis is accepted in its present form by the Division of Research and Graduate Studies as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree Master of Arts (English). iii I, Jonathan Deschene, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis. ______________________________ Author ______________________________ Supervisor ______________________________ Date iv Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgments Introduction . 1 Chapter 1: Sub-creation, Story and Philology . 6 Chapter 2: Depth . 32 Chapter 3: Mythic Otherworldliness . 62 Conclusion . 91 Works Cited . 94 v Abstract In this thesis, I attempt to articulate key features of J. R. R. Tolkien's theory of fiction. I begin by assuming that Tolkien's conception of the fairy-story, in ―On Fairy- Stories,‖ is central to this theory and claim that grasping ―Faërie,‖ on Tolkien's terms, is vital to understanding his fiction. I therefore set out to refute Tom Shippey's influential reduction of Faërie into philology and explore the diversity of ways in which Tolkien writes ―depth‖ – a condition of Faërie – into The Lord of the Rings. I conclude by showing how depth permits the incarnation of mythic otherworldliness within the Primary World of ordinary experience. vi Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity to thank Acadia, and the English Department in particular, for the generous funding provided during the course of my program. I could not have pursued graduate studies without the financial aid awarded to me by the university, and I am therefore very grateful for the funding and the opportunity which it has created. I am also indebted to Summerside's Legion Branch #5 for awarding me its Memorial Bursary. I would also like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read and comment on the following pages. I would especially like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Kevin Whetter, for making this writing opportunity possible and for his interest in, and support for, this project over the past year. Throughout the course of this project Dr. Whetter has allowed me to pursue my own road, while at the same time providing me with the guidance necessary to travel that road. Working with Dr. Whetter on this thesis has been a very rewarding experience. 1 Introduction Scholarship on J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction has considerably broadened in perspective since the 1950s and '60s, when works like Tolkien and the Critics struggled to accommodate The Lord of the Rings within a narrow critical framework (see Isaacs and Zimbardo). Because Tolkien rejected both realist and postmodernist modes of expression in favour of a medieval aesthetic, even critics who liked the work, such as Burton Raffel, were often unwilling to view it as ―literature.‖ By way of compromise, early critics sometimes tried to salvage Tolkien's work at the expense of its imaginative core. Thus Patricia Spacks says, ―although Tolkien's achievement is far outside the central modes of twentieth-century fiction . it demonstrates how even a framework of fantasy can provide a context for the exploration of serious concerns, [and] how moral energy can animate far-fetched fiction‖ (99; emphasis added). Spacks approves of the moral force of the book, despite its less than desirable ―framework.‖ Notwithstanding the broadening of critical perspective, however, many scholars even today seem unwilling to acknowledge Tolkien's ―fantasy as a form of literature,‖ and also seem to lack ―the critical language and vocabulary to write about it‖ (Anderson, ―Mainstreaming‖ 301). And yet, in his essay ―On Fairy-Stories,‖ Tolkien provides just such a theoretical framework for what he refers to as fairy-stories, both in general, and his own work, in particular. Rachel Hart quotes Tolkien saying that he ―'had to think about'‖ the relationship between fairy-stories and adults ―'before he [delivered the] ―Andrew Lang‖ lecture at St. Andrews'‖ in 1939 – later published to a wider Tolkien audience simply as ―On Fairy-Stories.‖ In the relevant letter, he calls The Lord of the Rings ―'a practical 2 demonstration of the views that [he] expressed'‖ in the essay (Hart 3; Tolkien, Letters 310). One of the things Tolkien argues in the lecture, or at least in its printed form, is that fairy-stories are not necessarily – or not merely – for children. Tolkien does not refer to his own fiction in ―On Fairy-Stories,‖ yet the essay nevertheless expresses an approach to narrative art which underlies The Lord of the Rings, as well as other works in his creative corpus. The problem with ―On Fairy-Stories,‖ however, is that it too exists in a kind of theoretical vacuum and Tolkien does some peculiar things in the essay. He confesses, for instance, to ―desir[ing] dragons with a profound desire,‖ and talks about Elves as if they were real (Tolkien, ―OFS‖ 135; Shippey, Road 49). As mentioned above, he also disagrees with the prevailing critical and cultural attitude towards the elements of the fairy-story – one which is still common among literary gatekeepers today – seeing a profound truth value in the phenomenology of successful fairy-stories and believing therefore that the genre belongs primarily to the literary diet of adults rather than of children. At the heart of the unusual claims and style of ―On Fairy-Stories‖ lies the concept of Faërie, on which the fairy-story genre depends (114). Verlyn Flieger, who has written extensively on Faërie and has herself edited an edition of ―On Fairy-Stories,‖ confirms that ―one of the most important words and concepts in Tolkien's lexicon . [is] Faërie, the Otherworld of fairy tales and fantasy‖ (―When‖ 59). In ―On Fairy-Stories,‖ then, Tolkien offers a framework for reading a particular kind of literature which he tried to recreate in The Lord of the Rings, among other works, and the concept of Faërie lies at the heart of this framework. Unfortunately, the tendency in Tolkien scholarship is to either summarize ―On 3 Fairy-Stories,‖ failing to contribute anything beyond what Tolkien has already said in the essay, or fold Tolkien's concept of Faërie into something else, thereby reducing it to something that it is not. Thus we see Tom Shippey fold Faërie into the profession of philology in The Road to Middle-earth, Randel Helms fold it into myth in Tolkien's World and Jane Chance reduce it to Christianity in Tolkien's Art. Verlyn Flieger is perhaps the only scholar who sets out to explore Faërie on its own terms. She fails to do justice to the subject, however, either because her work strays into other matters (A Question of Time), or simply because it is too short (―Allegory versus Bounce‖). As Faërie is central to Tolkien's conception of the fairy-story, it is key to understanding his creative work. Reducing Faërie into something else will inevitably lead to skewed or myopic readings of Tolkien's fiction. Consequently, while ―Tolkien not only wrote the seminal example of a secondary world fantasy, [and] also gave us a critical framework for understanding a Tolkienian fairy-story‖ (Northrop 815-6), that framework has yet to be adequately explained. It is my hope in this thesis to help elucidate the concept of Faërie by showing that a kind of mythic otherworldliness lies at its center, and to explore the ways in which ―depth,‖ and Tolkien's notions of story and sub-creation give rise to this quality. I hope to show that Faërie is found in the enchantment that the experience of mythic otherworldliness engenders and that the fairy-story is a way, however faintly, of producing this experience in literary form. In the following chapter, I will challenge an influential approach to Tolkien's work, making the case that the profession of philology – the study of the history of words and language – does not form the basis of Tolkien's artistic core as Shippey claims in The 4 Road to Middle-earth. I will argue, contra Shippey, that Tolkien was a ―story-maker‖ as well as a philologist and that the artistic, sub-creative nature of fairy-stories is a way of producing, or at least approaching, Faërie. In doing so, I will explore some of the key features of Faërie, such as the importance of its holistic and experiential nature, and the truth value that it possessed for Tolkien. I will also address Tolkien's incorporation of sub-creative elements within ―On Fairy-Stories,‖ arguing that his creative style aspires to produce Faërie and therefore communicate it more fully. Finally, I will look at the manner in which Tolkien's novella, Smith of Wootton Major, parallels and embodies aspects of Faërie, while also critiquing Shippey's reading of this work. This discussion of philology and sub-creation leads into Tolkien's fascination with the ―depth‖ that can be found in ―rooted‖ works of medieval literature, which I explore in Chapter 2. Depth is a key aspect of Tolkien's conception of the fairy-story insofar as it bridges the gap between myth and ordinary experience.