These are the archives from 2010-2018 for the discussion forum hosted by the UNM Hobbit Society at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, USA. The purpose of our group is to meet and associate with others interested in Tolkien, and to learn more about the author, his written works, and his sources through discussion, guest lectures and academically oriented activities. This blog is intended to expand discussion among UNM Hobbit Society members beyond what meeting times allow.
Click on the Comments link below to enter your "On Fairy-stories" freewrite from class. If you wish to comment on someone else's freewrite, please include that person's pseudonym in your response. For example-- "In Butterbur's freewrite, he said..."
In my free-write, I wrote about the second section and focused mainly on Tolkien's comments about art. In particular, he uses the analogy of art being leaves in the forest. "Each leaf, of oak and ash and thorn, is a unique embodiment of the pattern, and for some this very year may be the embodiment, the first ever seen and recognized, though oaks have put forth leaves for countless generations of men." (Tolkien 76) In a world driven by the pursuit of knowledge, there is a great pressure to be original in our work. I believe that this fear of unoriginality has prevented many from expressing themselves through art. Art and fairy-stories in particular, allow a glimpse of the magical and fantastic that can help us regain the awe of childhood.
That is an awesome reflection on Tolkien's comments about art and it intertwined with fantasy. I agree with you for it has always seemed to me that fantasy remained to smell of a genre. I have always felt through my life that there weren't enough fantasy authors of exceptional calibur like Tolkien. I have come across a nice list of fantasy authors if you ever crave more of the fantastically wonderful genre of fantasy.
In my free-write, I wrote about the Fantasy section. The concept I covered was the importance of imagination in myth-making. The ability for fantasy to arise is through an active imagination. In Tolkein's works it's evident that his imagination of how elves, dwarves, men and other creatures interact in his universe is critical for the success of his stories. Imagination does not just drive the creation of myths and fantasy however. Imagination drives humanity forward. The ability to think about ideas in different ways or to think of a new machine to use pushes us forward. The magic involved in fantasy not all different from technologies we have created over the centuries. The imagination of people is so important to drive humans forward and is so evident in fantasy worlds being created by people like Tolkien.
For my freewrite, I discussed Tolkien's concept of Recovery from the section titled Recovery, Escape, Consolation. Tolkien describes Recovery as a means of allowing a reader to review his own world from the perspective of another reality so as to change his undisputed assumptions about the world he lives in. In "On Fairy-Stories", Tolkien illustrates this concept by saying it is similar to sitting in a coffee shop and watching the world outside go by, looking through a freshly cleaned window as opposed to a dirty window which hasn't been Windexed in a while (I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the gist).
I think a more apt description for Recovery, especially as it pertains to Tolkien's mythmaking efforts in Middle-earth, is not sitting in a coffee shop in your own world watching your own reality whiz past you. Instead, it is sitting in Bilbo's armchair in Bag-End and seeing not rolling hills and Hobbits tending to their gardens, but a modern reality bustling with activity and an intense tilt towards industrial productivity one might not have thought about too closely if it had not been for the fact that the reader had looked out the window and seen how absurd their own world appeared in comparison to Tolkien's secondary world. In this scenario, the reader is seated comfortably in a secondary world but his unquestioned assumptions are recovered and changed when the reader is shown the contrast between their reality and the secondary world.
For our freewrite in class last week, I wrote on the Recovery, Escape, Consolation section in Tolkien's "On Fairy-stories". I wrote: For myself, I believe the most important aspect in this section is the escape part. I personally have used fantasy as an outlet to not escape this world so much, but to escape my own misery and depression caused by the physical world we live in. My fantasy worlds I live in and the real one are just as real to one another to me even though all but one exists solely in my mind. Tolkien says that, "one of the main functions of fantasy is 'escape', Today, Fantasy is the most obvious and outrageous forms of 'escapist' literature material." I would wholeheartedly agree with Tolkien and that very quote is what had me playing Dungeons and Dragons by the time I was 10. That eight years of reading fantasy and playing D&D really gave me an escape from the realism of being outcast in school and bullied much through my schooling years. I believe that my "escape" into my fantasy life helped me better handle the hard times I was dealing with in school. It made me refuse to be victimized or to be a victim. I gave my bullies no satisfaction in their actions towards me and I became stronger, dreaming I was the hero who would not quit, no matter what. So, this "escape" factor of what fantasy brings one is what I have related to for over 40 years now. An escape, but always a return back to our physical world, stronger and better than before.
5 comments:
In my free-write, I wrote about the second section and focused mainly on Tolkien's comments about art. In particular, he uses the analogy of art being leaves in the forest. "Each leaf, of oak and ash and thorn, is a unique embodiment of the pattern, and for some this very year may be the embodiment, the first ever seen and recognized, though oaks have put forth leaves for countless generations of men." (Tolkien 76) In a world driven by the pursuit of knowledge, there is a great pressure to be original in our work. I believe that this fear of unoriginality has prevented many from expressing themselves through art. Art and fairy-stories in particular, allow a glimpse of the magical and fantastic that can help us regain the awe of childhood.
That is an awesome reflection on Tolkien's comments about art and it intertwined with fantasy. I agree with you for it has always seemed to me that fantasy remained to smell of a genre. I have always felt through my life that there weren't enough fantasy authors of exceptional calibur like Tolkien. I have come across a nice list of fantasy authors if you ever crave more of the fantastically wonderful genre of fantasy.
In my free-write, I wrote about the Fantasy section. The concept I covered was the importance of imagination in myth-making. The ability for fantasy to arise is through an active imagination. In Tolkein's works it's evident that his imagination of how elves, dwarves, men and other creatures interact in his universe is critical for the success of his stories. Imagination does not just drive the creation of myths and fantasy however. Imagination drives humanity forward. The ability to think about ideas in different ways or to think of a new machine to use pushes us forward. The magic involved in fantasy not all different from technologies we have created over the centuries. The imagination of people is so important to drive humans forward and is so evident in fantasy worlds being created by people like Tolkien.
For my freewrite, I discussed Tolkien's concept of Recovery from the section titled Recovery, Escape, Consolation. Tolkien describes Recovery as a means of allowing a reader to review his own world from the perspective of another reality so as to change his undisputed assumptions about the world he lives in. In "On Fairy-Stories", Tolkien illustrates this concept by saying it is similar to sitting in a coffee shop and watching the world outside go by, looking through a freshly cleaned window as opposed to a dirty window which hasn't been Windexed in a while (I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the gist).
I think a more apt description for Recovery, especially as it pertains to Tolkien's mythmaking efforts in Middle-earth, is not sitting in a coffee shop in your own world watching your own reality whiz past you. Instead, it is sitting in Bilbo's armchair in Bag-End and seeing not rolling hills and Hobbits tending to their gardens, but a modern reality bustling with activity and an intense tilt towards industrial productivity one might not have thought about too closely if it had not been for the fact that the reader had looked out the window and seen how absurd their own world appeared in comparison to Tolkien's secondary world. In this scenario, the reader is seated comfortably in a secondary world but his unquestioned assumptions are recovered and changed when the reader is shown the contrast between their reality and the secondary world.
-Varda*
For our freewrite in class last week, I wrote on the Recovery, Escape, Consolation section in Tolkien's "On Fairy-stories". I wrote: For myself, I believe the most important aspect in this section is the escape part. I personally have used fantasy as an outlet to not escape this world so much, but to escape my own misery and depression caused by the physical world we live in. My fantasy worlds I live in and the real one are just as real to one another to me even though all but one exists solely in my mind. Tolkien says that, "one of the main functions of fantasy is 'escape', Today, Fantasy is the most obvious and outrageous forms of 'escapist' literature material." I would wholeheartedly agree with Tolkien and that very quote is what had me playing Dungeons and Dragons by the time I was 10. That eight years of reading fantasy and playing D&D really gave me an escape from the realism of being outcast in school and bullied much through my schooling years. I believe that my "escape" into my fantasy life helped me better handle the hard times I was dealing with in school. It made me refuse to be victimized or to be a victim. I gave my bullies no satisfaction in their actions towards me and I became stronger, dreaming I was the hero who would not quit, no matter what. So, this "escape" factor of what fantasy brings one is what I have related to for over 40 years now. An escape, but always a return back to our physical world, stronger and better than before.
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