David Thornton - Fairy Stories

Lewis’ fiction reveals the unique and significant idea of myth mediating and communicating truths of reality. A discussion of Lewis’ proposal of the symbolic role of myth in revealing glimpses of reality or the primary world will be analyzed ontologically which looks at what is real. Ontology is the study of being/Being, the investigation of what is or isn’t. Tolkien refers to “mythopoeia” in describing how a poet creates a myth where “subcreation” occurs in which the created begin to create myths that portray important and valuable truths through symbolism. This is significant because subcreation portrays the construction of something in the phenomenal world, while basically doing that of the primary world in its own fashion. Tolkien also defines “Faerie” as “the realm or state in which fairies have their being.” (Tolkien 42) In other words, the realm of the primary or noumenal world, that is independent of human senses. Though objective, its truths may be communicated through myth and story. Tolkien writes, “Most good ‘fairy-stories’ are about the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon its shadowy marches. Naturally so; for if elves are true, and really exist independently of our tales about them, then this also is certainly true: elves are not primarily concerned with us, nor we with them” (Tolkien 42). Tolkien makes the point that the fantastical idea of an elf illustrates the relationship of the objective noumenal world to the world of phenomenon. Personally, I think I’ve tended in the past to discredit the fantastical stories and description of imaginative people. But, I have learned that Myth is powerfully able to communicate that which is real through the Tolkien’s and Lewis’ ideas of fairy stories.