One of the underrated writings of J.R.R. Tolkien is his critical essay “On Fairy-Stories” where he discusses why fairy stories have tremendous worth for adults.  One of the thematically important aspects of this discussion is his writing on subcreation, which is the creation that people do in imitation of God.  For Tolkien, human beings could not be creators because we were already created beings, but we could be sub-creators, creating things in our image just as we were created in the image of God.  And it is precisely that sub-creation that is worthwhile to discuss, because Tolkien writes “On Fairy Stories” with several rhetorical points that are well worth paying attention to.

According to Tolkien, “An essential power of Faërie is thus the power of making immediately effective by the will the visions of ‘fantasy.’  Not all are beautiful or even wholesome, not at any rate the fantasies of fallen Man.  And he has stained the elves who have this power (in verity or fable) with his own stain.  This aspect of ‘mythology’ – sub-creation , rather than either representation or symbolic interpretation of the beauties and terrors of the world – is, I think, too little considered [1].”  The creations of mankind, be they technological or literary, are stained with our own fallen and corrupt nature, and so we create out of what we are, and the beings and technologies we create are fallen because we are fallen.  There are many implications of this, including our fear that we will eventually be oppressed by sentient computers who do unto us as we have done unto so many others as a species, for example.

Unsurprisingly, the moral aspects of creativity are interesting to Tolkien in other ways as well, as when he says that “even where a prohibition in a fairy-story is guessed to be derived from some taboo once practiced long ago, it has probably been preserved in the later stages of the tale’s history because of the great mythical significance of prohibition.  A sense of that significance may have lain behind some of the taboos themselves.  Thou shalt not – or else thou shalt depart beggared into endless regret.  The gentlest ‘nursery tales’ know it.  Even Peter Rabbit was forbidden a garden, lost his blue coat, and took sick.  The Locked Door stands as an eternal Temptation [2].”  Indeed, when we look at Tolkien’s discussion of the moral element of our literature, we cannot help but be reminded of both the ancient stories about the Garden of Eden and the temptation and fall of mankind for taking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that was forbidden as well as the way in which in our own lives and in our own world what is forbidden holds a special attraction for us, whether what is forbidden is of a sexual nature or a matter of ethics in science and technology.

Tolkien has a great deal to say about the process of sub-creation.  For example, he notes that “children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker’s art is good enough to produce it.  That state of mind has been called ‘willing suspension of disbelief.’  But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens.  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 [3].”  This was advice that Tolkien not only preached, but also practiced as a successful subcreator of a compelling secondary world in the Hobbit and Legend of the Ring and the larger tales from the world of Middle Earth.   Continuing on this theme, Tolkien discusses the difficulties of creating good fantasy, noting that “to make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft.  Few attempt such difficult tasks.  But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art:  indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode [4].”

And having praised the skill that can make a compelling secondary world like that which Tolkien created in Middle Earth, he returns again to moral questions, noting that “fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess.  It can be ill done.  It can be put to evil uses.  It may even delude the minds out of which it came.  But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true?  Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshiped them, even worshiped those most deformed by their authors’ own evil.  But they have made false gods out of other materials:  their notions, their banners, their monies; even their sciences and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice.  Abusus non tollit usum.  Fantasy remains a human right:  we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because ware made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker [5].”  And it is that aspect of being makers and made that interests Tolkien the most, the reminder that anything that mankind creates can get out of hand and can be immensely fallen, but that it represents our character for good or for ill, and because we are created in the image of a Creator, we have a God-given right to create after our image, as we do.  And in closing his discussion of fairy stories, Tolkien reminds us that “all tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, fully redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know [6].”

And when we look at creativity it is worthwhile to remember a few matters.  For one, we have a right to create because we were created in the image of a creator, in Tolkien’s eyes.  That gives humanity the legitimacy in being creative, something which we greatly value.  For another, we create out of what we are.  Our character is revealed by what we create, and that makes it particularly important that we create wisely, because we will be judged by the morality of our creations and by the way that others use them.  And even when it comes to matters of literature, which is what the author if focusing on here, even if he does include a wider view of creativity, what we create is something that other people are involved in.  If we have created well, our creations will be enjoyed and appreciated by other people, who can understand us by seeing themselves in the worlds we create, whether we create those worlds with our words or with our technology.  Let us therefore take heed to our creations and the sorts of worlds that others can find themselves in.

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, Poems And Stories (New York:  Harper Collins, 1992) 133.

[2] ibid, 142.

[3] ibid, 146.

[4] ibid, 157.

[5] ibid, 163.

[6] ibid, 180.