The Mind Behind Middle-earth

“The story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator.' He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside.”
— “On Fairy Stories,” J. R. R. Tolkien

Beginning Paragraph The works of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien have enchanted tens of millions of readers for more than 80 years. In 1938, his first great work, The Hobbit, launched the modern fantasy movement. (True, Robert E. Howard originated the sword and sorcery sub-genre six years earlier with his Conan the Barbarian stories in Weird Tales.) Tolkien spent 15 more years writing his fantasy masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, first published in 1954. The work became a kind of counter-cultural bible of the 1960s and spawned a whole section of bookstore shelves as well as a booming industry in role-playing games, video games, movies, and conventions. Tolkien is the undisputed Father of Fantasy, but what is fantasy? In his essay, "On Fairy Stories," his preface to The Lord of the Rings, and a lengthy letter to a proof reader, Tolkien expresses his clear sense of what fantasy is and what it is not. Thesis Statement For Tolkien, the successful writer of fantasy functions as a sub-creator, fashioning a Secondary World that is sufficiently consistent and wonderful to cast a spell on the reader and let the person live a second life within it.

Topic Sentence Though fantasy deals with the "fantastical," it comes to life not as a kind of delusion or fever dream but rather as an alternate reality that the reader experiences in contrast to the Primary World. In "On Faerie Stories," Tolkien argues that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are not actually fantasy because they are framed by a dream.  Everything in Wonderland is unreal, and the reader knows that it is. Also, Gulliver's Travels is not fantasy because the tiny people and giants Gulliver encounters are in the Primary World, simply removed by distance (5). Tolkien argues that if the reader confuses the Secondary World with the Primary World, the result is not fantasy but delusion. In The Hobbit, Bilbo and the dwarves fall for this very delusion in Mirkwood Forest, spotting a Faerie feast taking place just off the path and being lured to it, only to have it vanish and reappear deeper in the forest. Source Quotation As Tolkien puts it, fantasy "does not seek delusion nor bewitchment and domination; it seeks shared enrichment, partners in making and delight, not slaves" ("Faerie" 18). The writer of fantasy hopes to create a Secondary World that is all the more wonderful and "real" because it is not the Primary World:

Source Excerpt Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion ("Faerie" 18).

So the reader must always know that the fantasy is not real, but must also sense that it is a true Secondary World that they can live within. The reader doesn't "willingly suspend disbelief" as if constantly skeptical, but rather steps into the fantasy world as a genuine place without ever forgetting that it is not the Primary World.

How does Tolkien (or any effective storyteller) cast this magic spell on readers? It all begins with language:

How powerful . . . was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faerie is more potent. And that is not surprising: such incantations might indeed be said to be only another view of adjectives, a part of speech in a mythical grammar. The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water ("Faerie" 8).

Transition As if to demonstrate the magic of language, Tolkien created his own languages for elves, dwarves, and orcs. Indeed, from youth he had created languages as a diversion, long before any of these languages spawned Middle-earth (Doughan). In this way, Tolkien's own work embodies the interplay between language and mythmaking, which he refers to as the "Soup." Language forms myth and myth shapes language in an ongoing process with many "chefs," whose millennium-long activities create a potent and ancient cultural stew. Peter Jackson captures this mythmaking soup in his screenplay for Fellowship of the Ring, in which Galadriel describes the legend of the Ring: “And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth.” Language naturally transmutes history into legend and myth, so that the stew that results contains what is truest for the culture that produced it. In that way, myth itself is bigger than the mythmakers. Historical Connections Tolkien experienced this phenomenon himself when his nature-centric novel was pirated and became a kind of bible of the countercultural 1960s. "On the one hand, he was extremely flattered, and to his amazement, became rather rich. On the other, he could only deplore those whose idea of a great trip was to ingest The Lord of the Rings and LSD simultaneously" (Doughan). Again, fantasy is fantasy only when it is clear-headed and free of delusion.

Middle Paragraphs So, the writer of fantasy uses language to cast a spell on readers, creating a fully immersive Secondary World that exists as a kind of sub-creation of the Primary World, but why? Readers of The Chronicles of Narnia by Tolkien's friend C. S. Lewis might guess that fantasy writers are creating allegories. Tolkien disagrees: "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of the reader" (Fellowship 7). The point of a fantasy is not to represent the real world in veiled terms. For that reason, Tolkien places allegorical "beast stories" such as Aesop's Fables and the "Three Pigs" outside of the realm of fantasy. In them, animals are simply stand-ins for humans rather than being creatures in their own rights, with their own voices and worldviews.

Instead, fantasy should satisfy the primordial human desire to truly speak with nonhuman entities ("Faerie" 5). In The Hobbit, the chapter "Riddles in the Dark" lets readers witness a discussion between a hobbit and the craven creature Gollum, and the chapter "Inside Information" lets readers participate in a discussion with the ancient dragon Smaug. In Fellowship of the Ring, the Lady Galadriel does more than just speak with Frodo and his companions, actually communing mind to mind. Sam recalls, "She seemed to be looking inside me and asking me what I would do if she gave me the chance of flying back home to the Shire . . . ' All of them, it seemed, had fared alike: each had felt that he was offered a choice between a shadow full of fear that lay ahead, and something that he greatly desired" (373). This communion with nonhuman minds not only fulfills a primal longing in the reader but also poses the universal question: What would you do? By avoiding allegory, in which one character or action in the Secondary World represents one specific thing in the Primary World, Tolkien creates fantasy that connects to thousands of situations and tens of millions of readers.

Thematic Connection What other primal human desires should fantasy fulfill? Tolkien speaks of a profound yearning to "survey the depths of space and time" ("Faerie" 5). Anyone who has studied one of Tolkien's maps of Middle-earth understands his commitment to exploring the depths of space. In a letter to a proof reader, Tolkien writes, "I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances). The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case it is weary work to compose a map from a story" ("Dear Mrs. Mitchinson"). In fact, as the reader journeys with the nine Companions of the Ring, the reality of the world constantly pushes back. One comes to believe it must be a real place because it takes so long to go from place to place. Anyone who has studied Tolkien's Silmarillion also knows his dedication to the depths of time. The Silmarillion begins with the creation of the world and runs through thousands of years of deep history, ending in a three-page summary of the War of the Ring. Tolkien developed The Silmarillion first, starting in the trenches of World War I in 1914, but publishers believed it too arcane to appeal to most readers. Even so, this epic work provides the millennial "soup" of mythology that underlies The Lord of the Rings. Throughout the latter novel, Tolkien gives glimpses of the ages before, the time of the Valar elves, the time of the Númenórean kings of men. One sees the magnificent Third Age even as it is passing away and meets the elves only as they abandon Middle-earth for Valinor across the sea. The grand sweep of space and time in The Lord of the Rings awakens a deep longing to remain in this Secondary World, even as it vanishes.

In addition to allowing readers to dwell in a Secondary World, commune with nonhuman beings, and survey the depths of space and time, fantasy allows readers what Tolkien calls "recovery." In its simplest terms, recovery means simply experiencing the mundane world with fresh eyes.

We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses—and wolves. This recovery fairy-stories help us to make. In that sense only a taste for them may make us, or keep us, childish. Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view ("Faerie" 19).

Recovery is perhaps the most important feature of fantasy, the reason readers must always be able to tell the Secondary and Primary Worlds apart. Readers must be able to dwell fully and happily in the Secondary World, but also must be able to return to the Primary World and see it anew. In addition to seeing mundane things—green, blue, dogs, horses—anew, the reader also experiences moral recovery. Instead of dwelling forever in an ethically gray world, readers can live for a while where right, beauty, truth, courage, and valor are aligned against wrong, ugliness, lies, cowardice, and treachery. After spending time in such a Secondary World, readers can return to the Primary World with new eyes, to recognize and oppose what is wrong.

Tolkien takes the notion of recovery one step further, focusing on the "happy ending" inherit in most faerie stories. The moment of greatest darkness and despair often transforms into the moment of transcendent joy. Tolkien coined the term eucatastrophe—or "good catastrophe"—to describe this transformation:

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief ("Faerie" 22).

When Tolkien refers to "evangelium" and a "Joy beyond the walls of the world," he is drawing inspiration from his devout Catholicism. Many points in The Lord of the Rings demonstrate this eucatastrophic model: the fall of Gandalf the Gray and the return of Gandalf the White, the dark night at Helms Deep followed by the bright dawn of the fifth day, Frodo's calamitous battle with Gollum at Mount Doom followed by the happy "End of All Things." In each of these occasions, doom and despair are broken apart by sudden grace and joy, helping readers recover the childish sense of hope that can keep them going.

Ending Paragraph Readers of The Lord of the Rings come away with the overwhelming sense that the world it describes is real. They do not confuse this Secondary World with the Primary World, but they have a sense that Middle-earth exists as a true sub-creation of its own. It takes up too much space not to be real. It takes too much time. Its hobbits and elves and dwarves and orcs and dragons speak in their own voices and live in their own self-consistent realms. By creating such an extensive and true place, Tolkien invites readers to dwell for a time among fantastical creatures, in a world of magic and moral recovery. Afterward, readers return to the Primary World to see it with new eyes and hope. The "escape" provided by fantasy breaks through mundane despair and teaches the reader how to see past the "walls of the world" to find joy. In this way, Tolkien's definition of fantasy cleaves very close to the definition that Thomas Bulfinch offers of mythology: "Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness" (v).

Works Cited

Bulfinch, Thomas. Mythology. Grammercy Books, 1979, p. v.

Doughan, David. “J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch.” The Tolkien Society. 10 Feb. 2018. https://www.tolkiensociety.org/author/biography/. Accesed 30 Apri.2018.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Directed by Peter Jackson, extended edition DVD, New Line Cinema, 2001.

Tolkien, J. R. R. "Dear Mrs. Mitchinson." The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, HarperCollins, 2016.

---. “On Fairy Stories.” Verlyn Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson, eds. HarperCollins, 2014.

---. The Fellowship of the Ring. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986.

---. The Hobbit. Ballantine Books, 1966.

---. The Silmarillion. George Allen and Unwin, 1977.