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On Fairy-Stories
Essay by J. R. R. Tolkien
On Fairy-Stories
"On Fairy-Stories" is a 1947 essay by J. R. R. Tolkien which discusses the fairy story as a literary form. It was written as a lecture entitled "Fairy Stories" for the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, on 8 March 1939. The essay is significant because it contains Tolkien's explanation of his philosophy on fantasy, and his thoughts on mythopoeia and sub-creation or worldbuilding. Alongside his 1936 essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", it is his most influential scholarly work. Several scholars have used "On Fairy-Stories" as a route to understanding Tolkien's own fantasy, The Lord of the Rings, complete with its sub-created world of Middle-earth. Clyde Northrup contends that in the essay, Tolkien argues that "fairy-story" must contain four qualities, namely fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation. Derek Shank argues that while Tolkien objects to structuralism in the essay, Tolkien also proposes that a secondary world must have a structure with coherently...
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