On fairy stories
On Fairy-Stories is an essay by the writer and philologist J. RR Tolkien from 1939. In a lecture on March 8, 1939, Tolkien gave a lecture on fairy-stories (fairy tales, fantastic stories) as a form of literature and what defines these stories .
background
The essay was originally entitled Fairy Stories and was written as a contribution to the series of lectures named after Andrew Lang at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. In 1947 the work was first published in a somewhat modified form in print in a commemorative essays Presented to Charles Williams , in the essays by other authors such as Clive Staples Lewis , Warren Hamilton Lewis , Dorothy Leigh Sayers , Arthur Owen Barfield and Gervase Mathew contained . Charles Williams, like the Lewis and Tolkien brothers, was a member of the Inklings , who regularly met for a literary discussion group at Oxford University in the 1930s . The presentation of the essay volume was planned after the return of Williams at the end of the Second World War . However, since Williams died on May 15, 1945, the book was published in his memory.
On Fairy-Stories was published in The Tolkien Reader in 1966 and in 1964 with Leaf by Niggle in Tree and Leaf .
content
Tolkien's treatise on the meaning of fairy tales met with great interest. In it he compares the role of the narrator of the "fairy-stories" and the fictional worlds with the creative power of God. In his opinion, the essence of fantastic stories or legends rested on the narrator's "sub-creation". This “sub-creation” allows the visions of the imagination to take effect. In the lecture Tolkien also coined the term " eucatastrophe ". This describes the turn of an action for the better, ie the "happy ending" of a story.
In the lecture, Tolkien summarized his own knowledge of the fantastic literature and aspects of mythology. One of his theses said that "fairy-stories" are not generally designed as fairy tales for children. The narrator creates a parallel world, as it were, as a "co-creator" for the audience. The listener or reader can enter this fantastic environment in their own thoughts. Everything there appears real and tangible as long as he moves in this room, everything appears natural and is not questioned by the audience.
Tolkien himself said, according to a statement in Humphrey Carpenter's biography:
“What really happens, […] is that 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. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. "
“What actually happens […] is that the narrator proves to be a successful 'co-creator'. He creates a secondary world that our mind can enter. What he says is 'true' in it: it conforms to the laws of that world. So we believe it as long as we are in some sense of it. As soon as unbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather the art, has failed. And then we are back in the primary world and look at the small, unsuccessful secondary world from the outside. "
The “sub-creation” shows a dependence of the fantasy on the real world, since the author always has to fall back on what is known to him, even if he wants to describe something completely unknown. Hence Tolkien used the concepts of a primary and secondary world here. In Tolkien's view, a creation or creation, regardless of whether it is a piece of music, a picture, a plastic work of art or a "fairy story", must lay claim to truthfulness or truth for itself, otherwise it is untrustworthy . In his definition of what constitutes a “fairy story”, he claimed to be credible.
Tolkien's definition of the fairy story
Tolkien first dealt with the question of the term “fairy-stories”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , it is "a children's tale about magical and imaginary beings and lands", a story for children about magical and imaginary beings and lands. Just as this entry seemed unsuitable to Tolkien, so was the term "fairy", a small, unreal creature in a human-like form that possesses magical powers and appears predominantly as a female species. Fairy tales have been defined as follows since an entry from 1750: Either a story or legend about fairies or an unreal, unbelievable story up to untruth, so to speak a fairy tale.
Tolkien referred here in particular to the first aspect, which he wanted to see more broadly, as the definition of the lexicographical entry was too closely related to the concept of fairies as “supernatural beings of small size who, in popular belief, have magical powers and great influence for better or for worse about human affairs ”seemed connected. With an excerpt from the ballad about Thomas the Rhymer , he tried to express that the road to fairy land is neither a road that leads to heaven nor to hell.
| Thomas the Rhymer | German translation |
|---|---|
|
O see ye not yon narrow road |
Oh, don't you see this narrow path |
He was also concerned with the question of why fairies were often described as short beings. In the stories about the land of "Fairie" there have always been dwarfed inhabitants, who hardly fall under the term diminutive and the dwarfism was not a characteristic feature of this human race. Tolkien therefore suspected that the image of these beings that had spread in England was a product of the literary imagination of the narrator. In normal English usage, "fairy-stories" are not stories about fairies or elves, but about "fairy" or "faerie", an empire or state where fairies are native. In the land of "Faerie" there are elves and fairies, for example dragons, witches, giants, trolls, wizards and dwarves. There are just such seas, a sun, the moon or heaven and earth and also people, if they let themselves be enchanted by this land or are enchanted themselves.
Tolkien consciously used the terms “fairy-story” and not “fairy-tale” (fairy tale) in his lecture. He described what, in his opinion, cannot be considered a "fairy story". How good a “fairy story” is depends on whether the audience has doubts about the credibility of the events. As soon as the disbelief spreads, the reader is inclined to return to the primary world and dismiss the whole thing as humbug, otherwise he will remain in the secondary world and follow the course of the story.
Differentiation of the fairy story from other fantastic narratives
Tolkien distinguishes between “fairy-stories” that tell of “Faerie” and stories such as the trip to Liliput (A Voyage to Liliput) , which is told in Andrew Lang's Blue fairy book , as their protagonists live in the primary world. According to Tolkien, it was included in the "Twelve books of twelve colors" because the residents of Lilliput are characterized by their small stature. But this smallness is only a genetic variant in “Faerie”, just like in the real world. In his opinion, pygmies are no closer to fairies than, for example, the inhabitants of Patagonia . Tolkien excluded such narratives from the concept of "fairy-story" and assigned them to a different literary type such as satire ( The Adventures of the Baron von Münchhausen ) or fantastic travelogues. Even if they tell of many wondrous things, they always tell of events that could take place in the mortal world; at any time or place in the real world.
Tolkien did not count children's fairy tales such as Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood among the “fairy stories”, but characterized them as fairy tales , since they often do not contain fairies and the fantastic aspect is mostly missing. Stories that use satire as an essential characteristic or that hold up a mirror to real behavior are not included, nor are dream stories (for example Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland ).
Origins of the fairy story
Another point that Tolkien dealt with in the essay in the "Origins" section was the sources of the narratives. He dealt in particular with the origin of the fairy tale elements and the question of the origins of their language and the intended effect. Where do the fairy tale elements come from, such as removable hearts ( The Cold Heart ), robes made of swan feathers ( Swan Maiden ), magic rings, arbitrary prohibitions or tasks, evil stepmothers ( Snow White , Cinderella) or the fairies ( Sleeping Beauty ) themselves. The purely scientific view, how they are made by folklorists or anthropologists , led, in Tolkien's opinion, to misinterpretations, since the stories are not viewed in their original use, but interpreted in the direction of one's own area of interest. It would often be assumed that, for example, stories in which the same elements occur, which have a very similar folk motif or are made up of combinations of these, are based on an identical story. It was described in treatises that Beowulf was merely a variant of Dat Erdmänneken or that the story Black Bull of Norroway was identical to Beauty and the Beast . However, he did not consider the question of the origins to be a major issue in his lecture. In addition, in his opinion, three points came together here that led to the creation of the "fairy story". The independent invention of the author, the passing on and the change or mixing in the distribution have an influence on the final story, which is difficult to fathom in retrospect. Of these origins, he saw the invention as the most important but also the most mysterious.
Tolkien therefore saw three things as important prerequisites for a "fairy story". The inventive spirit ("incarnate mind"), the language ("the tongue") and the narrative ("the tale") itself, as equal parts or parts that exist side by side. The human mind is endowed with the gift of abstraction and unification. In this way, he takes in several pieces of information at the same time and combines them into one image. The adjective green turns grass into green grass and Tolkien said that adjectives can be compared with magical formulas in the realm of "Faerie", since they act like parts of a mythical grammar in a story. If the narrator takes the green of the grass and uses it to color a person's facial features, he creates a horror figure, for example, or he lets a blue moon shine over a forest with silver-leafy trees. With these small changes, what is called fantasy begins and creates new shapes. There Tolkien saw the beginning of what constitutes “Faerie” and the people, the narrator to the “sub-creator”, as creators of new forms and stories.
Function of the fairy story
Other important aspects that Tolkien addressed in the lecture were the target audience and the purpose the stories should serve. He asked whether "fairy-stories" are generally aimed at children and tried to show that, from his point of view, this is not the case.
"What, if any, are the values and functions of fairy-stories now "
"What, if anything, are the values and functions of the fairy-stories?"
Although children were considered a suitable audience for fairy tales, Tolkien countered that adults might read them for their own enjoyment. Tolkien saw the connection between children and "fairy-stories" as a kind of mistake in one's own history ("an accident of our domestic history"). These fairy tales have been banished to children's rooms, but it is not the children who choose these stories for themselves. Among them, as with adults, there are only a few who have a certain predilection for “fairy stories”, which, however, is not dominant. While there are certainly stories that have been tailored or adapted for children, Tolkien said:
“Fairy-stories banished in this way, cut off from a full adult art, would in the end be ruined; indeed in so far as they have been so banished, they have been ruined. "
“If fairy stories are banned in this way, completely cut off from an adult art, they would end up being ruined; in fact, to the extent that they have been so exiled, they have been ruined. "
One reason that "fairy-stories" are often associated with children could, in Tolkien's opinion, be the assumption that the story-maker deliberately aims at their gullibility and the lack of experience with which real facts can be distinguished from fiction. Because an important characteristic is apparently the belief that something could exist or similarly occur in the primary world. Tolkien described this state of mind as "willing suspension of disbelief" (a willful suppression of unbelief). Tolkien doubted this and saw in the inventor the creator of a secondary world that could be entered in the spirit. Within this world, however, what the narrator reports is "true". Tolkien himself did not remember that while reading or while listening he felt a “wish to believe”, but rather that he felt more about what afterwards. The sense of the "fairy-stories" is not primarily designed to represent something possible, but something desirable. If the stories arouse and fulfill desires, while these longings often seem unbearable, then, in Tolkien's opinion, they have served their purpose.
Middle-earth, Tolkien's fairy story
Tolkien's claim to truthfulness is also evident in his works around Middle-earth. Although it is very rare in the real world, in the story The Lord of the Rings it is quite realistic that a hobbit like Bilbo Baggins celebrates his 111th birthday there. As long as the reader is mentally within the secondary world of Middle-earth, it is "true", even if it never actually happened in the primary world. It is credibly conveyed that it happened there in the year 3018 of the third age. How truthful Tolkien's representations were, especially in the Lord of the Rings, is perhaps shown by the fact that he was often said to have incorporated his own experiences from the First World War into the War of the Ring or tried to symbolize it with them. Tolkien always rejected this kind of allegorizing his stories with the real world. Middle-earth, with all the similarity to the real world, represents its own universe with its own creation mythology and its own history stretching over millennia. The world of Arda has its own geography and is inhabited by a wide variety of peoples, plants and living beings. These have different development phases and characteristics as well as their own languages and scripts. The stories about Middle-earth thus meet the demand for an independent creation that neither presents itself as a pure dream world nor serves a satirical purpose or wants to hold up a mirror to the primary world. In contrast to fairy tales, it should not offer any lessons for real life.
Tolkien's works around Middle-earth have sometimes been associated with the term escapism ( escape from reality). It was criticized that it led readers to escape from the real world. In a good fantasy tale, however, a writer does not indiscriminately combine magical elements and call them a "world". Rather, authors like Tolkien or CS Lewis created a secondary world with its own internal consistency. In Tolkien's opinion, creating such a world required more skill and insight than writing a novel about actual events. True fantasy is a very demanding form of art that requires a high degree of precision and imagination. The more perfected it is, the more awe and amazement it arouses, not only for the secondary world, but also for the primary world. Fairy-stories have the gift of sharpening our view of our own world and looking at it from a new perspective, as if it were being seen for the first time. The stories about the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo are filled with seemingly random turns for the better, which result, for example, from the small mistakes that Bilbo makes. However, these are pale in comparison with that fateful event at the end of the Lord of the Rings . The moment when Frodo fails to throw the ring into the fires of Mount Doom and it is only destroyed because Gollum tries to bite the ring from his finger and falls into the ravine with the ring. This is what Tolkien called a eucastrophe.
Literature and publications
- CS Lewis: Essays presented to Charles Williams. William B. Eerdmans Pub., Grand Rapids 1947, ISBN 0-8028-1117-5 .
- JRR Tolkien: Tree and Leaf. George Allen and Unwin, London 1964, ISBN 0-04-824014-1 .
- JRR Tolkien: Tree and Leaf. (Translation of the 1964 edition by Wolfgang Krege and Margaret Carroux ). Ullstein, Frankfurt / Main; Berlin; Vienna 1982, ISBN 3-548-39039-0 .
- JRR Tolkien: The Tolkien reader. Ballantine Books, New York 1966, ISBN 0-345-34506-1 . (includes Tree and leaf. and other works)
- Guido Schwarz: virgins in nightgowns, blonde warriors from the west. A motivational-psychological-critical analysis of JRR Tolkien's mythology and worldview. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2619-5 .
- JRR Tolkien, Verlyn Flieger, Douglas A. Anderson: Tolkien on fairy-stories. HarperCollins, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-00-724466-9 .
Web links
- On fairy-stories (PDF) at brainstorm-services.com
- On Fairy-stories. on simplerpastimes.wordpress.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Frank Weinreich : About fairy tales - Tolkien's view of the fantastic on polyoinos.de.
- ^ On fairy stories. on tolkiengesellschaft.de.
- ↑ John Ronald Reuel Tolkien - His work and work. on tolkiengesellschaft.de.
- ^ Humphrey Carpenter: Tolkien. A biography. (translated from English by Wolfgang Krege ) Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-12-901460-8 , p. 273.
- ^ Humphrey Carpenter: Tolkien. A biography. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1977. ISBN 0-395-25360-8 , p. 187.
- ↑ fairy-story on oxforddictionaries.com.
- ↑ a b c d On fairy-stories on brainstorm-services.com (PDF, pp. 2–5.)
- ↑ 367. Thomas the Rhymer on bartleby.com.
- ^ Andrew Lang: The blue fairy book. Hesperus Minor, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-84391-477-8 .
- ↑ On fairy-stories at brainstorm-services.com (PDF, pp. 6–8.)
- ↑ On fairy-stories at brainstorm-services.com (PDF, pp. 11–13.)
- ↑ Louis Markos: On Fairy-stories at thegospelcoalition.org.