“On Fairy-Stories,” Part 2: The Purpose

Consider this: “It may be better for [children] to read some things, especially fairy-stories, that are beyond their measure rather than short of it. Their books like their clothes should allow for growth, and their books at any rate should encourage it” (138).

At our age, it’s generally not a good idea to buy clothes that allow for too much growth (I’m looking at you, stretchy pants), but when is the last time you and I read a book that encouraged our growth? I’ll admit that for me it’s not as often as I’d like. But this essay certainly counts as one that encourages growth, as I hope you’ll see in today’s post. Let’s tackle this next section as we examine the value and function of fairy-stories!

The Value of Fairy-Stories

Last week we defined our terms, and this week we begin by asking, “So what’s the value of a fairy-story, anyway?” Sure, it may be entertaining or amusing, but does it have any real benefit? Tolkien makes a helpful observation on this point: “If written with art, the prime value of fairy-stories will simply be that value which, as literature, they share with other literary forms” (138). The qualifying statement here is that the story must be “written with art.” If it adheres to that standard, then you can gain as much from reading that fairy-story as from any other well-written literature.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, not all literature is “written with art” or attention to skill, beauty, and the achievement of what the writer imagined. In fact, a lot of books are just plain awful in style and content. A fairy-story that seems slapped together probably was, and the same goes for romance novels, historical fiction, teen fiction, etc., regardless of its cult following. But don’t get me started on this. Today, we’ll just leave it at the fact that an artfully-written fairy-story is worth reading for its own sake.

The Function of Fairy-Stories

Now that we’ve seen the value of these stories, what about their function, or purpose? I think this is where Tolkien hits his stride in the essay, getting down to the meat of what he really intended to say all along. He asserts that the purpose of fairy-stories is fourfold: fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation. Because it’s so chock-full of goodness, we’ll only be tackling the first one today.

The Difficulty of Fantasy

Again, Tolkien is dissatisfied with modern connotations of English words. He chooses “Fantasy” to mean the sub-creative Art that depicts the Imaginary in words. …Wait, what? Ok, so basically Tolkien wants to make clear that Imagination is something that happens in the mind. We can imagine things from the primary world—that is, the world that exists around us. We can also imagine things outside of the primary world—things that we sub-create using a combination of things from the world around us. Now, Art takes these Imaginations and puts them into words so that everyone can “see” them. This, Tolkien says, is Fantasy.

His definition seems pretty complex at first, but I think that’s part of his point. One of the essential drawbacks of Fantasy, he says, is that “it is difficult to achieve” (139). Because it’s hard to give an imaginary world the “inner consistency of reality,” many fantasy writers tend to leave their stories and their worlds undeveloped. That’s because writing this kind of a story “will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks” (140).

An Expert in His Field

I can’t help but smile at those last two sentences. Can’t you see him coyly tooting his own authorial horn? “It isn’t just anyone who possesses the skill and discipline to create worlds as I have done, you know,” he would say as he smugly puffs his pipe. But in reality, he wrote this essay two years after the publication of The Hobbit but long before The Lord of the Rings was written. I doubt that he had even decided to tackle a trilogy of that caliber yet.

But even if he had, there is one thing we can say in defense of Tolkien: he practiced what he preached. By the time The Hobbit was published, he’d already been writing his elvish languages and Middle Earth mythologies for 20 years! Please excuse me while I go rethink my desire to write and publish a fantasy novel of my own.

Hung, Drawn, and Quartered

Now here comes one of the most controversial aspects of his essay: Tolkien believes that Fantasy should remain a verbal art, not a visual one. “But wait,” you say. “Peter Jackson directed six movies based off of Tolkien’s fantasy books!” Yes, you are correct. “But wouldn’t that have made Tolkien mad?” Yes, I believe it would. But why was Tolkien so loath to display a work of Fantasy visually? He gives two main reasons.

First, when Tolkien wrote this essay, movies were still in their infancy. There were no special effects or CGI like we see today. Most visual art of this sort took place on the stage of a theater, which meant that every part had to be acted out by people in costumes. Regarding this, Tolkien observes that “men dressed up as talking animals may achieve buffoonery or mimicry, but they do not achieve Fantasy” (140). In fact, in reference to a play where an ogre turned into a mouse, he says, “Though [it was] done with some ingenuity of lighting, disbelief had not so much to be suspended as hung, drawn, and quartered” (141). Our minds do a much better job of envisioning a story if left unhindered by clunky costumes and quoted lines.

One World Too Many

Second, he believes that a visual drama already presents a secondary world that it asks you to believe in. In order to enjoy a play or even a movie, you have to believe in the characters and lose yourself in that secondary world. But by introducing elements of the fantastic into this secondary world, you are asking the audience to enter into a tertiary world! You are now watching people pretend to pretend that they’re in a Fantasy world. In Tolkien’s mind, this strains credulity beyond its breaking point.

Besides, trying to wrangle a true Fantasy book into stage or movie form is sure to compromise the quality of the book itself. We can all think of several examples here, I’m sure. But writing a Fantasy book with a stage or movie adaptation in mind would be equally harmful. They are separate arts, Tolkien asserts, and should not be confused. If you judge books by dramatic standards, “you are…likely to prefer characters, even the basest and dullest, to things. Very little about trees as trees can be got into a play” (142). And we all know how Tolkien feels about trees.

In Conclusion

Well, that’s all the time we have for today, folks! Tune in next time to learn about Recover and the cryptic term “Mooreeffoc.”

Today’s Question: If Tolkien were alive today and could see the realism of our movies, do you think he would change his mind and support the visual display of Fantasy on the screen?

Check out the next post here!

Source:
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. London, Harper Collins, 2006.