What's the opposite of escapism?

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Urdlen's best boy

Urdlen's best boy

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Yesterday I saw the last Dune movie with my gf. Very nice. Main actor's a little one note & cut a touch confused but what can you do. Great props, great shots, pretty good cast, so solid on all the other fundamentals.

So this morning I watched this video comparing Herbert & Tolkien :


The main thrust she has is that Tolkien believed deeply in escapism whereas Herbert believed in ... social realism/critical realism applied to made up stories, I guess? I see exactly what she means, but I'm not sure we've got a word for it. I hesitated to say "grittiness", but I'm not sure that works - I tend to think "gritty" is a word that indicates a form of close-to-life horror, but it isn't exactly the opposite of escapism, is it?

So escapism, the opposite of escapism (social/critical realism ?), grittiness... what do you think they mean in the context of SF/Fantasy?
 
Kitchen-sink drama strikes me as the direct opposite of escapism, very grounded, unglamorous and unpleasant. Of course in the a roleplaying context, kitchen-sink means something eniterly different.

Personally I'd still rank Dune as escapist. The characters are a more morally ambiguous than Lord of the Rings, but it is still ultimately an escapist fantasy; the exploration of an fantastical universe with lots of action and adventure.
 
I think this is a false dichotomy. Just because Dune veers into sociopolitical commentary doesn't mean it is not also escapist. I think romances are inherently escapist, regardless of what else they might be trying to achieve.
 
As I often want something else (or something more?) than escapism when gaming, I tend to refer to what I want as exploratism. However, I haven't given it much though if that would fit other thing than role-playing.
 
Outside of heavy handed plots and railroads I’m not sure how you work the twist of Dune
The savior really isn’t
into a game.

You can play in the universe but players aren’t going to care about high level background politics the GM narrates if they are just smugglers or mercenaries or even members of a minor house.

I think Dune is an interesting universe and has potential to play in but I don’t think a RPG is a good medium to tell the story the novels do, they are too wide reaching.

On the other hand I think you can more easily capture the themes from LotR in a game, maybe because they don’t require plot twists and long periods of time to play out.
 
Urdlen's best boy said:
Yesterday I saw the last Dune movie with my gf. Very nice. Main actor's a little one note & cut a touch confused but what can you do. Great props, great shots, pretty good cast, so solid on all the other fundamentals.

So this morning I watched this video comparing Herbert & Tolkien :


The main thrust she has is that Tolkien believed deeply in escapism whereas Herbert believed in ... social realism/critical realism applied to made up stories, I guess? I see exactly what she means, but I'm not sure we've got a word for it. I hesitated to say "grittiness", but I'm not sure that works - I tend to think "gritty" is a word that indicates a form of close-to-life horror, but it isn't exactly the opposite of escapism, is it?

So escapism, the opposite of escapism (social/critical realism ?), grittiness... what do you think they mean in the context of SF/Fantasy?
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Not sure if this is covered in the video (sorry, not going to watch a video with those thumbnails) but Tolkien's definition of escapism is idiosyncratic and doesn't fit the everyday meaning that the average person means when they use the term.

His defintion is more romantic and idealistic, perhaps a touch utopian with a mild streak of reactionary sentimentalism.

I think presenting Herbert's Dune as some kind of foil to that notion isn't that convincing to me. For one thing, Dune has an essentially tragic view of human nature that is more in line with much of Tolkien's view than one may first think.
 
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On romances, fair enough.

On Tolkien's idiosyncrasy, fair enough too.

I do think it might be just romantism vs cynicism? or that the deeper divide is simply that Tolkien had sympathies for the past and it's societies and fears for the future, whereas in Dune, it seems that humanity operates more on fixed patterns that make past and future somewhat irrelevant

Idk honestly. Interesting thoughts here.
 
Herbert was a profoundly secular author whose fictional work was grounded into what were then widely accepted bona fide theories in ecology, psychology and social science. His view of religion in particular is nuanced and swings from the cynical to the philosophical in surprising ways. His views of gender didn't age well, politically speaking, and his takes on psychology sometimes veer into pseudoscience -- but still make for a compelling tale IMHO. And the political analogy that launched off the series still holds water almost 60 years on, which is honestly downright haunting if you ask me.

Tolkien was an Anglo-Catholic gentleman professor steeped in myth and legend by way of language, and this heady mix of pre-Vatican II Catholic mores and pagan imagery preety much innaugurated the genre of high fantasy as far as I'm concerned. Where Herbert highlighted the role of organized religion, Tolkien prety much ignored it -- there is plenty of mythology in Middle-Earth, but little or no mention of rites, sacraments, priests or temples, which I find a fascinating contradiction that smacks of Northern European paganism and/or proto-Indo-European "sacral kingship" -- but the moral framework of his universe smacks of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas every bit as much of his worldbuilding was indebted to Beowulf or Völsunga saga. Dude's swapping out the Communion wine for mead and fuck it we've been drinking it up for close to 100 years now.
 
Generally I would consider the antonym of escapism to be immersion. As all fiction and games would be escapist. But that doesn’t quite fit this context.

As for describing your flavor of escape? Tolkien would obviously be fantastical (hence fantasy) while Dune could be cynical, grim, dystopian, political, etc. depending on which aspect you want to emphasize.
 
The Butcher said:
Herbert was a profoundly secular author whose fictional work was grounded into what were then widely accepted bona fide theories in ecology, psychology and social science. His view of religion in particular is nuanced and swings from the cynical to the philosophical in surprising ways. His views of gender didn't age well, politically speaking, and his takes on psychology sometimes veer into pseudoscience -- but still make for a compelling tale IMHO. And the political analogy that launched off the series still holds water almost 60 years on, which is honestly downright haunting if you ask me.

Tolkien was an Anglo-Catholic gentleman professor steeped in myth and legend by way of language, and this heady mix of pre-Vatican II Catholic mores and pagan imagery preety much innaugurated the genre of high fantasy as far as I'm concerned. Where Herbert highlighted the role of organized religion, Tolkien prety much ignored it -- there is plenty of mythology in Middle-Earth, but little or no mention of rites, sacraments, priests or temples, which I find a fascinating contradiction that smacks of Northern European paganism and/or proto-Indo-European "sacral kingship" -- but the moral framework of his universe smacks of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas every bit as much of his worldbuilding was indebted to Beowulf or Völsunga saga. Dude's swapping out the Communion wine for mead and fuck it we've been drinking it up for close to 100 years now.
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I've read a few essays and one light biography on Tolkien but can't recall if he ever explained the absence of religion in LotR (its absence in The Hobbit is less notable to me).

I've read somewhere the idea that struck me as plausible but speculative that Tolkien shied away from depicting the divine directly in LotR as he may have thought it was impious.

But to me that seems a bit too Protestant a take for the Catholic Tolkien. As you no doubt know, Catholic doctrine is much more relaxed in matters of iconography and other depictions of the divine.

He was certainly critical of the clumsy Christian allegory of Lewis' Narnia but that always struck me more a criticism of craft and taste rather than a moral or theological charge.
 
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Urdlen's best boy said:
On romances, fair enough.

On Tolkien's idiosyncrasy, fair enough too.

I do think it might be just romantism vs cynicism? or that the deeper divide is simply that Tolkien had sympathies for the past and it's societies and fears for the future, whereas in Dune, it seems that humanity operates more on fixed patterns that make past and future somewhat irrelevant

Idk honestly. Interesting thoughts here.
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I may just be being contrarian but the more I think on it the more similarities I detect between them.

For instance, Tolkien and Herbert are both leery of power and those who wield it. They both view human nature as essentially flawed and vulnerable to corruption.

The LotR is also not the last word from Tolkien, although there is a strong mix of Christian pessimism and optimism in LotR, the Silmarillion strikes a decidedly different note imo than LotR.

Much of the Silmarillion shows where the Christian and Pagan views of the tragic nature of life meet.
 
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Urdlen's best boy said:
...So escapism, the opposite of escapism (social/critical realism ?), grittiness... what do you think they mean in the context of SF/Fantasy?
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Not at all. They are not opposites in my view, and we do the work of those who would denigrate the genres (as they use "escapism" in the pejorative sense). It's a false dichotomy that only serves the purposes of those who would rather you read about infidelity in Middlesex, albeit with the most delicious adjective salad thrown in.

Tolkien "escapism" is just a much a commentary on the evils of turning away from nature, and the desire for power (it's very much a social criticism of industrial society), as Dune when machines are outlawed we will make humans in machines, and this is the danger of/for messiahs.
Tolkien is far more hopeful (in his way) as it shows the common salt-of-the-earth man (hobbit) triumphing although at a price...while although commenting on different issues, Dune is also about triumphing at a price, also for a protagonist who did not ask to be the messiah or even have that power but doing it anyway the best they can and at a price.

In my view they are very much getting at the same thing. Tolkien set out to create a myth, a language, to infuse his work with beauty to look back to set a moral tale to show a moral path, and Herbert it is more of a "what if" and what is the best moral path given what besets Paul along the way, how do you make those choices and should he continue. There any many ways Frodo and Paul are parallel in what they are called to do and how they approach. One thing that for me sets Tolkien above is he does not follow the "chosen one" journey, as Paul is very much a "chosen one." Yet unlike Star Wars, I believe Herbert is verry much questioning the "chosen one" literary arch type and poking at it.

In the end though, both books I believe are pointing out dangers to us that need to be avoided for a better world. To any extent literature is to inspire us to act, to continue to act, to avoid making the world a worse place, then it is not "escapism" pejorative sense, it is liberating.

I'd say 1984 is also a very liberating book, and of the same as LoTR. It is trying to get us to the same thing, albeit by a very, very different means. Well almost different, because the destruction of the Shire is meant to shock us, to indeed worry about evil and the harm it can do, to not get complacent. 1984 shocks us right out of the gate and doesn't stop and is a warning if you go down the authoritarian road, this is what can happen so don't get complacent.
 
xanther said:
Not at all. They are not opposites in my view, and we do the work of those who would denigrate the genres (as they use "escapism" in the pejorative sense). It's a false dichotomy that only serves the purposes of those who would rather you read about infidelity in Middlesex, albeit with the most delicious adjective salad thrown in.

Tolkien "escapism" is just a much a commentary on the evils of turning away from nature, and the desire for power (it's very much a social criticism of industrial society), as Dune when machines are outlawed we will make humans in machines, and this is the danger of/for messiahs.
Tolkien is far more hopeful (in his way) as it shows the common salt-of-the-earth man (hobbit) triumphing although at a price...while although commenting on different issues, Dune is also about triumphing at a price, also for a protagonist who did not ask to be the messiah or even have that power but doing it anyway the best they can and at a price.

In my view they are very much getting at the same thing. Tolkien set out to create a myth, a language, to infuse his work with beauty to look back to set a moral tale to show a moral path, and Herbert it is more of a "what if" and what is the best moral path given what besets Paul along the way, how do you make those choices and should he continue. There any many ways Frodo and Paul are parallel in what they are called to do and how they approach. One thing that for me sets Tolkien above is he does not follow the "chosen one" journey, as Paul is very much a "chosen one." Yet unlike Star Wars, I believe Herbert is verry much questioning the "chosen one" literary arch type and poking at it.

In the end though, both books I believe are pointing out dangers to us that need to be avoided for a better world. To any extent literature is to inspire us to act, to continue to act, to avoid making the world a worse place, then it is not "escapism" pejorative sense, it is liberating.

I'd say 1984 is also a very liberating book, and of the same as LoTR. It is trying to get us to the same thing, albeit by a very, very different means. Well almost different, because the destruction of the Shire is meant to shock us, to indeed worry about evil and the harm it can do, to not get complacent. 1984 shocks us right out of the gate and doesn't stop and is a warning if you go down the authoritarian road, this is what can happen so don't get complacent.
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I agree with a lot of what you say here and I would add that much of the appeal of Dune is its mythopoetic resonance, even as Herbert sets out to critique the romance of the 'chosen one.'
 
Simlasa said:
To my thinking, the opposite of 'escapism' is the thing you're trying to escape... real life.
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Here is Tolkien's famous aporism on escapism:

"I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home?"
 
The Butcher said:
Where Herbert highlighted the role of organized religion, Tolkien prety much ignored it -- there is plenty of mythology in Middle-Earth, but little or no mention of rites, sacraments, priests or temples, which I find a fascinating contradiction that smacks of Northern European paganism and/or proto-Indo-European "sacral kingship" -- but the moral framework of his universe smacks of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas every bit as much of his worldbuilding was indebted to Beowulf or Völsunga saga. Dude's swapping out the Communion wine for mead and fuck it we've been drinking it up for close to 100 years now.
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Yes, that's something I actually just noticed but Tolkien does not in fact have real religions in his works.
Voros said:
I've read a few essays and one light biography on Tolkien but can't recall if he ever explained the absence of religion in LotR (its absence in The Hobbit is less notable to me).

I've read somewhere the idea that struck me as plausible but speculative that Tolkien shied away from depicting the divine directly in LotR as he may have thought it was impious.

But to me that seems a bit too Protestant a take for the Catholic Tolkien. As you no doubt know, Catholic doctrine is much more relaxed in matters of iconography and other depictions of the divine.

He was certainly critical of the clumsy Christian allegory of Lewis' Narnia but that always struck me more a criticism of craft and taste rather than a moral or theological charge.
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Pure speculation, but I would more easily beleive something to the tune of he didn't feel capable of doing it justice, perhaps because he didn't trust himself to extract himself from his own framework enough to make something else than a christian alegory. That somehow seems more fitting, but then again, no way to actually know.

I do agree that there are similarities in the treatment of power, though "power corrupts even the best" isn't that unusual. THough there's also something to be said in that Tolkien also has these repeating patterns of history, but things repeat as lesser versions of their previous equivalent.
xanther said:
Not at all. They are not opposites in my view, and we do the work of those who would denigrate the genres (as they use "escapism" in the pejorative sense). It's a false dichotomy that only serves the purposes of those who would rather you read about infidelity in Middlesex, albeit with the most delicious adjective salad thrown in.

Tolkien "escapism" is just a much a commentary on the evils of turning away from nature, and the desire for power (it's very much a social criticism of industrial society), as Dune when machines are outlawed we will make humans in machines, and this is the danger of/for messiahs.
Tolkien is far more hopeful (in his way) as it shows the common salt-of-the-earth man (hobbit) triumphing although at a price...while although commenting on different issues, Dune is also about triumphing at a price, also for a protagonist who did not ask to be the messiah or even have that power but doing it anyway the best they can and at a price.
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Just for clarification, I don't think it was meant pejoratively in the vid, and it certainly wasn't by me. I have a lot of respect for Tolkien, and some of it comes from his endearing form of rebelliousness against modernity.

So that said, I think that's spot on. It is a very accute statement.

I will say though, it seems to me that there might lie a disagreement in the form and nature of strength in enduring and the form overcoming takes. Perhaps enough to make Tolkien displeased. Tolkien's descriptions are closer to the christian suffering of saints, litterally bearing the burden of Evil to cast it into the flames. Whereas Dune has a more Nitschean* view of partly embracing "evil" and power as a necessity to become strong, but also as the amoral motor of change.

Edit : *buddhist? I'm not as familliar with Herbert as Tolkien, definetly a philistine move on my behalf to watch the movie before reading the books lol :facepalm::facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:
 
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hmmmm

classifying fantasy/sf authors by their view of cyclical history? I feel in terms of the meta commentary it often ends up related to that
 
Lundgren said:
As I often want something else (or something more?) than escapism when gaming, I tend to refer to what I want as exploratism. However, I haven't given it much though if that would fit other thing than role-playing.
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I think this nails it. Some players want their games to be as far as possible from reality and it's issues, while others like to use their games to (between other goals) explore those issues. Escapists vs Explorers seems a good way to put it.

That said, I know nothing of Tolkien and only read Herbert, so I could be missing something here.
 
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Tolkien used allegory and symbolism plenty. Much of it the same type of allegory and symbolism used in Dune.

The criticism seems pretty simple on its surface. I didn’t watch the video (despite the topic, I get the impression ai won’t like the presentation) so perhaps this is elaborated upon.

If there is some form of merit to the criticism, perhaps it’s that Tolkien’s characters seem more like characters from a fairy tale than they do real people, for the most part. Where as, despite the fantastic elements of Dune, the characters seem much more grounded and real. More relatable. Again, generally speaking.
 
hawkeyefan said:
If there is some form of merit to the criticism, perhaps it’s that Tolkien’s characters seem more like characters from a fairy tale than they do real people, for the most part. Where as, despite the fantastic elements of Dune, the characters seem much more grounded and real.
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Another point of dissimilarity is that the characters in Tolkien have hope and faith, whereas the characters in Herbert see nothing beyond what can be realistically expected of their situations. Even the ones with prescience face only invidious choices.

Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, Arwen, Galadriel, and Éowyn in particular explicitly face moments where they see no way to succeed and try anyway. Aragorn and Arwen, and Galadriel, state outright that they see a dichotomy between the growing darkness of the East and the failing light of the West and reject both. But Paul Atreides chooses the least of available evils. He accepts the invidious choice.
 
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Agemegos said:
Another point of dissimilarity is that the characters in Tolkien have hope and faith, whereas the characters in Herbert see nothing beyond what can be realistically expected of their situations. Even the ones with prescience face only invidious choices.

Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, Arwen, Galadriel, and Éowyn in particular explicitly face moments where they see no way to succeed and try anyway. Aragorn and Arwen, and Galadriel, state outright that they see a dichotomy between the growing darkness of the East and the failing light of the West and reject both. But Paul Atreides chooses the least of available evils. He accepts the invidious choice.
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I think this is likely due, at least in part, to the role of faith to both men.

Tolkien’s story draws many parallels from his faith, and has a very altruistic idea that evil can in fact be defeated and good can triumph.

Herbert takes a more nuanced approach. There are certainly examples of good and evil within his works, but things are generally a bit more mixed than that. This is a big part of many of the main characters’ struggles… that there is no perfect solution.
 
Urdlen's best boy said:
The main thrust she has is that Tolkien believed deeply in escapism whereas Herbert believed in ... social realism/critical realism applied to made up stories, I guess? I see exactly what she means, but I'm not sure we've got a word for it. I hesitated to say "grittiness", but I'm not sure that works - I tend to think "gritty" is a word that indicates a form of close-to-life horror, but it isn't exactly the opposite of escapism, is it?
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well first off, I think her hypothesis is wrong, and kinda simplistic. Simplistic really doesn't work for authors whose work is famous for it's depth and nuance.
The very idea that LOTR = escapism vs Dune = social/critical realism is, frankly, kinda nonsense. What is clear is that the underlying commentary on the human condition of both works come from two very different perspectives on humanity (which is also why the Peter Jackson films, while undeniably great films, fail as adaptations after Fellowship, which was a fantastic adaptation of Ralph Bakshi's LOTR cartoon).

Both Dune & LOTR are undeniably escapism (saying that as someone who thinks people who use "escapism" as a derogatory term are pretentious fops who have never dealt with any real struggle in their life and are hollow soulless parasites incapable of producing art on any level besides the most basic bitch...and/or Boomers).

Likewise both Dune & LOTR tackle incredibly complex moral and philosophical issues.

There is one huge difference between them, and it's not genre or escapism vs realism, or anything like that.

Dune is cynical.
LOTR is hopeful.


Urdlen's best boy said:
the opposite of escapism?
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that would be nonfiction, nonhistorical, noncomedy.

The opposite of escapism is

234237-1.jpg
 
Ursula K LeGuin has an essay, I'll have to dig up. She makes an interesting argument for Frodo being very much a realistic character transplanted into fairy land. A drown trodden fellow bearing a heavy burden, just doggedly trudging on against all odds and without hope.

Dune doesn't have one of those. I'm told Herbert saw Dune as high camp rather than serious deep water. I think it fits but he failed in that goal.

I'm glad to have them both.

I think the opposite of Escapism is stuff like The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire and The Death of a Salesman that exist to tell us everyone sucks and everyone's life is empty and hopeless and one day your English teacher will be laughing at you as you burn in hell for ever hoping it could be anything else.
 
TristramEvans said:
well first off, I think her hypothesis is wrong, and kinda simplistic. Simplistic really doesn't work for authors whose work is famous for it's depth and nuance.
The very idea that LOTR = escapism vs Dune = social/critical realism is, frankly, kinda nonsense. What is clear is that the underlying commentary on the human condition of both works come from two very different perspectives on humanity (which is also why the Peter Jackson films, while undeniably great films, fail as adaptations after Fellowship, which was a fantastic adaptation of Ralph Bakshi's LOTR cartoon).

Both Dune & LOTR are undeniably escapism (saying that as someone who thinks people who use "escapism" as a derogatory term are pretentious fops who have never dealt with any real struggle in their life and are hollow soulless parasites incapable of producing art on any level besides the most basic bitch...and/or Boomers).

Likewise both Dune & LOTR tackle incredibly complex moral and philosophical issues.

There is one huge difference between them, and it's not genre or escapism vs realism, or anything like that.

Dune is cynical.
LOTR is hopeful.



that would be nonfiction, nonhistorical, noncomedy.

The opposite of escapism is

View attachment 79188
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That's one setting I'm strangely comfortable leaving up to the 2d20 crowd...:gooseshades:
 
The lich lord was towering above us, sat in his throne of bones.
"Muhahaha, there is nothing you can do to stop me, puny mortals!"
"Care to explain this discrepancy in your 1219 income declaration, mister lich?"
"I cast Detect offshore accounts!"
"Surrender, foul creature! Or we reveal the extent of your wrongdoing to the Interpol!"
"Noooooooooo.... My yaaaaaaatch!... I relent.... you... you brutes! Plunder my belongings like the wretched thieves you are!"
TristramEvans said:
Both Dune & LOTR are undeniably escapism (saying that as someone who thinks people who use "escapism" as a derogatory term are pretentious fops who have never dealt with any real struggle in their life and are hollow soulless parasites incapable of producing art on any level besides the most basic bitch...and/or Boomers).
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Preemptively disarming the boomer accusation I see...:devil:
(clarification, just in case : escapism here = the feeling that a fairy story should emulate according to Tolkien. Also no one here's bashing escapism, if anything, Tolkien-senpai is doing the bashing)

Now both authors are made up story authors, but there's clearly a difference in how they set up humanity/society/history.

So I see your point, but I still thinks she's got one too. The end of LOTR is litterally people avoiding (escaping) the cold rationalism of modernity. In Dune, there's no escape, because it's just human nature to be kinda assholes, killing each others over ideas, titles and ressources is clearly ad vitam, regardless of gadgetry - she quotes:

oiuoi.jpg

and compares to :

uiuyiyuiy.jpg

I think you're at least partly right with the hopeful/cynical opposition, but consider the following :

huihuiu.jpg
ergr.jpg
That partially points to the fact that it's SF vs fantasy (though, how much that tells us is not much ; Star Trek is obviously SF yet it's fundamentally about a better future where some limitations of human nature have been treanscended), but more importantly that there's a fundamental difference in premise, goal and method - it's not just that Herbert lacks or missed something, or just cynicism. It made me think of Zola's "scientific" approach to society and social patterns, so "social realism" came to mind. Social ecologism?

Just throwing things on the board but at any rate, there's some sort of distinction in approach to the made up - at least made up societies/histories.
 
"What's the opposite of escapism?"

Non-fiction.

I think mere "escapism" is a mischaracterization of Tolkien's work. Idealism and romanticism better capture what set his books apart from someone like Herbert's. Or perhaps an even stronger term is called for, like anti-modernism.
 
Thinking more on it, is Tolkien that hopeful? The story is, but the reason he wants to tell it that way isn't. After all he compares himself to being imprisoned.

On the other end, if the other approach is more "ecological", can it even be cynical or pessimistic? Is the entomologist cynical and pessimistic when he rejects ascribing morality to dragonflies?

Anyway there are some interesting quotes in the essay (thanks robertsconley robertsconley )
It is at any rate essential to a genuine fairy-story, as distinct from the employment of this form for lesser or debased purposes, that it should be presented as "true." The meaning of "true" in this connexion I will consider in a moment. But since the fairy-story deals with "marvels," it cannot tolerate any frame or machinery suggesting that the whole story in which they occur is a figment or illusion. The tale itself may, of course, be so good that one can ignore the frame. Or it may be successful and amusing as a dream-story.
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Actually the question: What is the origin of the fairy element? lands us ultimately in the same fundamental inquiry; but there are many elements in fairy-stories (such as this detachable heart, or swan-robes, magic rings, arbitrary prohibitions, wicked stepmothers, and even fairies themselves) that can be studied without tackling this main question. Such studies are, however, scientific (at least in intent); they are the pursuit of folklorists or anthropologists: that is of people using the stories not as they were meant to be used, but as a quarry from which to dig evidence, or information, about matters in which they are interested. A perfectly legitimate procedure in itself—but ignorance or forgetfulness of the nature of a story (as a thing told in its entirety) has often led such inquirers into strange judgments. To investigators of this sort recurring similarities (such as this matter of the heart) seem specially important. So much so that students of folk-lore are apt to get off their own proper track, or to express themselves in a misleading "shorthand": misleading in particular, if it gets out of their monographs into books about literature. They are inclined to say that any two stories that are built round the same folk-lore motive, or are made up of a generally similar combination of such motives, are "the same stories." We read that Beowulf "is only a version of Dat Erdmänneken"; that "The Black Bull of Norroway is Beauty and the Beast," or "is the same story as Eros and Psyche"; that the Norse Mastermaid (or the Gaelic Battle of the Birds and its many congeners and variants) is "the same story as the Greek tale of Jason and Medea."


Statements of that kind may express (in undue abbreviation) some element of truth; but they are not true in a fairy-story sense, they are not true in art or literature. It is precisely the colouring, the atmosphere, the unclassifiable individual details of a story, and above all the general purport that informs with life the undissected bones of the plot, that really count.
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But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup.
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Something really "higher" is occasionally glimpsed in mythology: Divinity, the right to power (as distinct from its possession), the due worship; in fact "religion." Andrew Lang said, and is by some still commended for saying, that mythology and religion (in the strict sense of that word) are two distinct things that have become inextricably entangled, though mythology is in itself almost devoid of religious significance.


Yet these things have in fact become entangled—or maybe they were sundered long ago and have since groped slowly, through a labyrinth of error, through confusion, back towards refusion. Even fairy-stories as a whole have three faces: the Mystical towards the Supernatural; the Magical towards Nature; and the Mirror of scorn and pity towards Man. The essential face of Faerie is the middle one, the Magical. But the degree in which the others appear (if at all) is variable, and may be decided by the individual story-teller. The Magical, the fairy-story, may be used as a Mirour de l'Omme (UBB note : "mirror of mankind"); and it may (but not so easily) be made a vehicle of Mystery. This at least is what George Mac-Donald attempted, achieving stories of power and beauty when he succeeded, as in The Golden Key (which he called a fairy-tale); and even when he partly failed, as in Lilith (which he called a romance).
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But what of the banana skin?
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Fantasy


The human mind is capable of forming mental images of things not actually present. The faculty of conceiving the images is (or was) naturally called Imagination. But in recent times, in technical not normal language, Imagination has often been held to be something higher than the mere image-making, ascribed to the operations of Fancy (a reduced and depreciatory form of the older word Fantasy); an attempt is thus made to restrict, I should say misapply, Imagination to "the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of reality."


Ridiculous though it may be for one so ill-instructed to have an opinion on this critical matter, I venture to think the verbal distinction philologically inappropriate, and the analysis inaccurate. The mental power of image-making is one thing, or aspect; and it should appropriately be called Imagination. The perception of the image, the grasp of its implications, and the control, which are necessary to a successful expression, may vary in vividness and strength: but this is a difference of degree in Imagination, not a difference in kind. The achievement of the expression, which gives (or seems to give) "the inner consistency of reality," is indeed another thing, or aspect, needing another name: Art, the operative link between Imagination and the final result, Sub-creation. For my present purpose I require a word which shall embrace both the Sub-creative Art in itself and a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image: a quality essential to fairy-story. I propose, therefore, to arrogate to myself the powers of Humpty-Dumpty, and to use Fantasy for this purpose: in a sense, that is, which combines with its older and higher use as an equivalent of Imagination the derived notions of "unreality" (that is, of unlikeness to the Primary World), of freedom from the domination of observed "fact," in short of the fantastic.
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These 3 passages appear particularily relevant :
Incompatibility of science and fairies
I was introduced to zoology and palaeontology ("for children'') quite as early as to Faerie. I saw pictures of living beasts and of true (so I was told) prehistoric animals. I liked the "prehistoric" animals best: they had at least lived long ago, and hypothesis (based on somewhat slender evidence) cannot avoid a gleam of fantasy. But I did not like being told that these creatures were "dragons." I can still re-feel the irritation that I felt in childhood at assertions of instructive relatives (or their gift-books) such as these: "snowflakes are fairy jewels," or "are more beautiful than fairy jewels"; "the marvels of the ocean depths are more wonderful than fairyland." Children expect the differences they feel but cannot analyse to be explained by their elders, or at least recognized, not to be ignored or denied. I was keenly alive to the beauty of "Real things," but it seemed to me quibbling to confuse this with the wonder of "Other things." I was eager to study Nature, actually more eager than I was to read most fairy stories; but I did not want to be quibbled into Science and cheated out of Faerie by people who seemed to assume that by some kind of original sin I should prefer fairy-tales, but according to some kind of new religion I ought to be induced to like science. Nature is no doubt a life-study, or a study for eternity (for those so gifted); but there is a part of man which is not "Nature," and which therefore is not obliged to study it, and is, in fact, wholly unsatisfied by it.
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Full "Escapism" rant

Recovery, Escape, Consolation


As for old age, whether personal or belonging to the times in which we live, it may be true, as is often supposed, that this imposes disabilities. But it is in the main an idea produced by the mere study of fairy-stories. The analytic study of fairy-stories is as bad a preparation for the enjoying or the writing of them as would be the historical study of the drama of all lands and times for the enjoyment or writing of stage-plays. The study may indeed become depressing. It is easy for the student to feel that with all his labour he is collecting only a few leaves, many of them now torn or decayed, from the countless foliage of the Tree of Tales, with which the Forest of Days is carpeted. It seems vain to add to the litter. Who can design a new leaf? The patterns from bud to unfolding, and the colours from spring to autumn were all discovered by men long ago. But that is not true. The seed of the tree can be replanted in almost any soil, even in one so smoke-ridden (as Lang said) as that of England. Spring is, of course, not really less beautiful because we have seen or heard of other like events: like events, never from world's beginning to world's end the same event. 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.


We do not, or need not, despair of drawing because all lines must be either curved or straight, nor of painting because there are only three "primary" colours. We may indeed be older now, in so far as we are heirs in enjoyment or in practice of many generations of ancestors in the arts. In this inheritance of wealth there may be a danger of boredom or of anxiety to be original, and that may lead to a distaste for fine drawing, delicate pattern, and "pretty" colours, or else to mere manipulation and over-elaboration of old material, clever and heartless. But the true road of escape from such weariness is not to be found in the wilfully awkward, clumsy, or misshapen, not in making all things dark or unremittingly violent; nor in the mixing of colours on through subtlety to drabness, and the fantastical complication of shapes to the point of silliness and on towards delirium. Before we reach such states we need recovery. 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. I do not say "seeing things as they are" and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say "seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them"—as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—from possessiveness. Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention, perceiving their likeness and unlikeness: that they are faces, and yet unique faces. This triteness is really the penalty of "appropriation": the things that are trite, or (in a bad sense) familiar, are the things that we have appropriated, legally or mentally. We say we know them. They have become like the things which once attracted us by their glitter, or their colour, or their shape, and we laid hands on them, and then locked them in our hoard, acquired them, and acquiring ceased to look at them.


Of course, fairy-stories are not the only means of recovery, or prophylactic against loss. Humility is enough. And there is (especially for the humble) Mooreeffoc, or Chestertonian Fantasy. Mooreeffoc is a fantastic word, but it could be seen written up in every town in this land. It is Coffee-room, viewed from the inside through a glass door, as it was seen by Dickens on a dark London day; and it was used by Chesterton to denote the queerness of things that have become trite, when they are seen suddenly from a new angle. That kind of "fantasy" most people would allow to be wholesome enough; and it can never lack for material. But it has, I think, only a limited power; for the reason that recovery of freshness of vision is its only virtue. The word Mooreeffoc may cause you suddenly to realize that England is an utterly alien land, lost either in some remote past age glimpsed by history, or in some strange dim future to be reached only by a time-machine; to see the amazing oddity and interest of its inhabitants and their customs and feeding-habits; but it cannot do more than that: act as a time-telescope focused on one spot. Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else (make something new), may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds. The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you.


The "fantastic" elements in verse and prose of other kinds, even when only decorative or occasional, help in this release. But not so thoroughly as a fairy-story, a thing built on or about Fantasy, of which Fantasy is the core. Fantasy is made out of the Primary World, but a good craftsman loves his material, and has a knowledge and feeling for clay, stone and wood which only the art of making can give. By the forging of Gram cold iron was revealed; by the making of Pegasus horses were ennobled; in the Trees of the Sun and Moon root and stock, flower and fruit are manifested in glory.


And actually fairy-stories deal largely, or (the better ones) mainly, with simple or fundamental things, untouched by Fantasy, but these simplicities are made all the more luminous by their setting. For the story-maker who allows himself to be "free with" Nature can be her lover not her slave. It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of the things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.


I will now conclude by considering Escape and Consolation, which are naturally closely connected. Though fairy-stories are of course by no means the only medium of Escape, they are today one of the most obvious and (to some) outrageous forms of "escapist" literature; and it is thus reasonable to attach to a consideration of them some considerations of this term "escape" in criticism generally.


I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which "Escape" is now so often used: a tone for which the uses of the word outside literary criticism give no warrant at all. In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic. In real life it is difficult to blame it, unless it fails; in criticism it would seem to be the worse the better it succeeds. Evidently we are faced by a misuse of words, and also by a confusion of thought. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. Just so a Party-spokesman might have labelled departure from the misery of the Führer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery. In the same way these critics, to make confusion worse, and so to bring into contempt their opponents, stick their label of scorn not only on to Desertion, but on to real Escape, and what are often its companions, Disgust, Anger, Condemnation, and Revolt. Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the "quisling" to the resistance of the patriot. To such thinking you have only to say "the land you loved is doomed" to excuse any treachery, indeed to glorify it.


For a trifling instance: not to mention (indeed not to parade) electric street-lamps of mass produced pattern in your tale is Escape (in that sense). But it may, almost certainly does, proceed from a considered disgust for so typical a product of the Robot Age, that combines elaboration and ingenuity of means with ugliness, and (often) with inferiority of result. These lamps may be excluded from the tale simply because they are bad lamps; and it is possible that one of the lessons to be learnt from the story is the realization of this fact. But out comes the big stick: "Electric lamps have come to stay," they say. Long ago Chesterton truly remarked that, as soon as he heard that anything "had come to stay," he knew that it would be very soon replaced—indeed regarded as pitiably obsolete and shabby. "The march of Science, its tempo quickened by the needs of war, goes inexorably on... making some things obsolete, and foreshadowing new developments in the utilization of electricity": an advertisement. This says the same thing only more menacingly. The electric street-lamp may indeed be ignored, simply because it is so insignificant and transient. Fairy-stories, at any rate, have many more permanent and fundamental things to talk about. Lightning, for example. The escapist is not so subservient to the whims of evanescent fashion as these opponents. He does not make things (which it may be quite rational to regard as bad) his masters or his gods by worshipping them as inevitable, even "inexorable." And his opponents, so easily contemptuous, have no guarantee that he will stop there: he might rouse men to pull down the street-lamps. Escapism has another and even wickeder face: Reaction.


Not long ago—incredible though it may seem—I heard a clerk of Oxenford declare that he "welcomed" the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive mechanical traffic, because it brought his university into "contact with real life." He may have meant that the way men were living and working in the twentieth century was increasing in barbarity at an alarming rate, and that the loud demonstration of this in the streets of Oxford might serve as a warning that it is not possible to preserve for long an oasis of sanity in a desert of unreason by mere fences, without actual offensive action (practical and intellectual). I fear he did not. In any case the expression "real life" in this context seems to fall short of academic standards. The notion that motor-cars are more "alive" than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are more "real" than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm-tree: poor obsolete thing, insubstantial dream of an escapist!


For my part, I cannot convince myself that the roof of Bletchley station is more "real" than the clouds. And as an artefact I find it less inspiring than the legendary dome of heaven. Thebridge to platform 4 is to me less interesting than Bifröst guarded by Heimdall with the Gjallarhorn. From the wildness of my heart I cannot exclude the question whether railway engineers ,if they had been brought up on more fantasy, might not have done better with all their abundant means than they commonly do. Fairy-stories might be, I guess, better Masters of Arts than the academic person I have referred to.


Much that he (I must suppose) and others (certainly) would call "serious" literature is no more than play under a glass roof by the side of a municipal swimming-bath. Fairy-stories may invent monsters that fly the air or dwell in the deep, but at least they do not try to escape from heaven or the sea.


And if we leave aside for a moment "fantasy," I do not think that the reader or the maker of fairy-stories need even be ashamed of the "escape" of archaism: of preferring not dragons but horses, castles, sailing-ships, bows and arrows; not only elves, but knights and kings and priests. For it is after all possible for a rational man, after reflection (quite unconnected with fairy-story or romance), to arrive at the condemnation, implicit at least in the mere silence of "escapist" literature, of progressive things like factories, or the machine-guns and bombs that appear to be their most natural and inevitable, dare we say "inexorable," products.
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Escapism rant part 2 (hit the limit)
"The rawness and ugliness of modern European life"—that real life whose contact we should welcome —"is the sign of a biological inferiority, of an insufficient or false reaction to environment." The maddest castle that ever came out of a giant's bag in a wild Gaelic story is not only much less ugly than a robot-factory, it is also (to use a very modern phrase) "in a very real sense" a great deal more real. Why should we not escape from or condemn the "grim Assyrian" absurdity of top-hats, or the Morlockian horror of factories? They are condemned even by the writers of that most escapist form of all literature, stories of Science fiction. These prophets often foretell (and many seem to yearn for) a world like one big glass-roofed railway-station. But from them it is as a rule very hard to gather what men in such a world-town will do. They may abandon the "full Victorian panoply" for loose garments (with zip-fasteners), but will use this freedom mainly, it would appear, in order to play with mechanical toys in the soon-cloying game of moving at high speed. To judge by some of these tales they will still be as lustful, vengeful, and greedy as ever; and the ideals of their idealists hardly reach farther than the splendid notion of building more towns of the same sort on other planets. It is indeed an age of "improved means to deteriorated ends." It is part of the essential malady of such days—producing the desire to escape, not indeed from life, but from our present time and self-made misery—that we are acutely conscious both of the ugliness of our works, and of their evil. So that to us evil and ugliness seem indissolubly allied. We find it difficult to conceive of evil and beauty together. The fear of the beautiful fay that ran through the elder ages almost eludes our grasp. Even more alarming: goodness is itself bereft of its proper beauty. In Faerie one can indeed conceive of an ogre who possesses a castle hideous as a nightmare (for the evil of the ogre wills it so), but one cannot conceive of a house built with a good purpose—an inn, a hostel for travellers, the hall of a virtuous and noble king—that is yet sickeningly ugly. At the present day it would be rash to hope to see one that was not—unless it was built before our time.


This, however, is the modern and special (or accidental) "escapist" aspect of fairy-stories, which they share with romances, and other stories out of or about the past. Many stories out of the past have only become "escapist" in their appeal through surviving from a time when men were as a rule delighted with the work of their hands into our time, when many men feel disgust with man-made things.


But there are also other and more profound "escapisms" that have always appeared in fairytale and legend. There are other things more grim and terrible to fly from than the noise, stench, ruthlessness, and extravagance of the internal-combustion engine. There are hunger, thirst, poverty, pain, sorrow, injustice, death. And even when men are not facing hard things such as these, there are ancient limitations from which fairy-stories offer a sort of escape, and old ambitions and desires (touching the very roots of fantasy) to which they offer a kind of satisfaction and consolation. Some are pardonable weaknesses or curiosities: such as the desire to visit, free as a fish, the deep sea; or the longing for the noiseless, gracious, economical flight of a bird, that longing which the aeroplane cheats, except in rare moments, seen high and by wind and distance noiseless, turning in the sun: that is, precisely when imagined and not used. There are profounder wishes: such as the desire to converse with other living things. On this desire, as ancient as the Fall, is largely founded the talking of beasts and creatures in fairy-tales, and especially the magical understanding of their proper speech. This is the root, and not the "confusion" attributed to the minds of men of the unrecorded past, an alleged "absence of the sense of separation of ourselves from beasts." A vivid sense of that separation is very ancient; but also a sense that it was a severance: a strange fate and a guilt lies on us. Other creatures are like other realms with which Man has broken off relations, and sees now only from the outside at a distance, being at war with them, or on the terms of an uneasy armistice. There are a few men who are privileged to travel abroad a little; others must be content with travellers' tales. Even about frogs. In speaking of that rather odd but widespread fairy-story The Frog-King Max Müller asked in his prim way: "How came such a story ever to be invented? Human beings were, we may hope, at all times sufficiently enlightened to know that a marriage between a frog and the daughter of a queen was absurd." Indeed we may hope so! For if not, there would be no point in this story at all, depending as it does essentially on the sense of the absurdity. Folk-lore origins (or guesses about them) are here quite beside the point. It is of little avail to consider totemism. For certainly, whatever customs or beliefs about frogs and wells lie behind this story, the frog shape was and is preserved in the fairy-story precisely because it was so queer and the marriage absurd, indeed abominable. Though, of course, in the versions which concern us, Gaelic, German, English, there is in fact no wedding between a princess and a frog: the frog was an enchanted prince. And the point of the story lies not in thinking frogs possible mates, but in the necessity of keeping promises (even those with intolerable consequences) that, together with observing prohibitions, runs through all Fairyland. This is one of the notes of the horns of Elfland, and not a dim note.


And lastly there is the oldest and deepest desire, the Great Escape: the Escape from Death. Fairy-stories provide many examples and modes of this—which might be called the genuine escapist, or (I would say) fugitive spirit. But so do other stories (notably those of scientific inspiration), and so do other studies. Fairy-stories are made by men not by fairies. The Human-stories of the elves are doubtless full of the Escape from Deathlessness. But our stories cannot be expected always to rise above our common level. They often do. Few lessons are taught more clearly in them than the burden of that kind of immortality, or rather endless serial living, to which the "fugitive" would fly. For the fairy-story is specially apt to teach such things, of old and still today. Death is the theme that most inspired George MacDonald.


But the "consolation" of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it. At least I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite—I will call it Eucatastrophe. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function.


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 inso far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.


It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the "turn" comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.


Even modern fairy-stories can produce this effect sometimes. It is not an easy thing to do; it depends on the whole story which is the setting of the turn, and yet it reflects a glory backwards. A tale that in any measure succeeds in this point has not wholly failed, whatever flaws it may possess, and whatever mixture or confusion of purpose. It happens even in Andrew Lang's own fairy-story, Prince Prigio, unsatisfactory in many ways as that is. When "each knight came alive and lifted his sword and shouted 'long live Prince Prigio,' " the joy has a little of that strange mythical fairy-story quality, greater than the event described. It would have none in Lang's tale, if the event described were not a piece of more serious fairy-story "fantasy" than the main bulk of the story, which is in general more frivolous, having the half-mocking smile of the courtly, sophisticated Conte. Far more powerful and poignant is the effect in a serious tale of Faërie. In such stories when the sudden "turn" comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.


"Seven long years I served for thee, The glassy hill I clamb for thee, The bluidy shirt I wrang for thee, And wilt thou not wauken and turn to me?"


He heard and turned to her.
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