The works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis stand out amongst the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century.  Both Tolkien and Lewis advocated and utilized the notion of sub-creation as the best method of transmitting stories, especially fairy-stories.  In his essay, “On Fairy-stories,” Tolkien first proposed the notion of sub-creation.  Part of what he proposed was that for a fairy-story, or “fantasy,” to be truly successful, it must be presented as if it were true.  When a story is presented as real to the reader, it becomes, through the skill of the author, a Secondary World, that the reader temporarily inhabits.  Both Tolkien and Lewis made use of the concept of sub-creation in their various works, both major and minor.

 

            When a story is presented as true to the reader, for a brief time, it becomes true.  Tolkien disliked the phrase “willing suspension of disbelief” (Tolkien “On Fairy-stories” 37); he thought that the phrase did not fully describe what happens when a story is well presented as true.  Instead, he preferred the idea that a writer induces the phenomenon of belief when he “proves a successful ‘sub-creator.’  He makes a Secondary world which [one’s] mind can enter.  Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: according to the laws of that world.  [One] therefore believe[s] it, while [one is], as it were, inside” (Tolkien 37).  Tolkien is describing the total absorption of the reader’s mind that should take place.  When a story is presented as true and the writer does a good job of it, the story is true.

 

            The Secondary World is brought into being when the writer proves a successful sub-creator.  He invokes “his creative imagination to fashion a Secondary World which he intends for the reader to enter into mentally and treat it as if it were real” (Hall).  The Secondary World is dependant solely on the writer’s ability to fashion his story.  The writer thus creates it.  Tolkien describes the creation of Secondary Worlds:

The incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale are in our world coeval. The human mind, endowed with the powers
 of generalization and abstraction, sees not only green-grass, discriminating it from other things . . . but sees 
that it is green as well as being grass . . . When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from 
blood, we have already an enchanter's power-upon one plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world
 external to our minds awakes. It does not follow that we shall use that power well on any plane. We may
 put a deadly green upon a man's face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to 
shine; or we may make woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot 
fire into the belly of the cold worm. But in such "fantasy," as it is called, new form is made; Faerie begins;
 Man becomes a sub-creator. 

                                                                                                                         (Tolkien 21-22)

Tolkien argues that the Secondary World is dependant on the language that defines it.  Man is a sub-creator, for he defines the parameters of his Secondary World - in effect, creating it.  The story must, however, be self-consistent – it must obey the laws of the world.  The Secondary World is brought into being by the sub-creator.

                                                                                                                                                                                              The story, as it is passed along from the writer to the reader, and then to another reader, is created over and over in each reader.  Susan Cooper elaborates on story-telling and sub-creation:

 [It] of course is what happens to any character or place or image that a writer puts into a story: born in one imagination, he, she, or it is then born again, over and over, in the separate imaginations of every reader of that story, until the last copy of the book falls apart or the last reader forgets.  No wonder Tolkien called story-telling "sub-creation."

                                                                                                                         (Cooper 58)

Every time a different person reads a story, the Secondary World is created again. 

                                                                                                                                                                                              Tolkien advocated sub-creation mainly for the telling of fairy-stories.  He believed that it is “essential to a genuine fairy-story . . . that it should be presented as true (Tolkien 14).  Given the supernatural nature of most fairy-stories, they especially must be treated as if they are real.  However, as Lin Carter observes, sub-creation is by no means limited to the fairy-story:

All artists are involved in the making of Secondary Worlds.  The worlds must be self-consistent and in agreement with their own natural laws, even though these laws may frequently be at enormous variance with those of our own world, in which we live our daily lives.  Subcreation – the building of sound and solid Secondary Worlds – as Tolkien sees it, is the goal of all art.

                                                                                                                        (Carter 90)

This statement is very valid.  Surrealist and cubist paintings are accepted on the basis that they are pictures of Secondary Worlds (even though this may be considered unconsciously).  Drama and movies also fashion secondary worlds.  Though the audience knows the situations are false or unrealistic, they are accepted as real for the duration of the viewing.  All art, consciously or not, reflects the principle of sub-creation. 

                                                                                                                                                                                              The notion of sub-creation also is fitting with Tolkien’s, and Lewis’, Christian faith.  Lewis, in his essay, “Christianity and Literature,” presents the idea that literature, and art, is of a derivative nature, rather than of a purely creative one (Lewis 9).  God endows the creative spark that defines a successful sub-creator; a sub-creator is sub for the simple reason that God creates, and the writer imitates.  The writer then creates a Secondary World, which is derived from the author’s observations of his own World. 

                                                                                                                                                                                              Tolkien and Lewis both took pains to present their fictional works as true.  Lin Carter evaluates Tolkien’s success at fashioning Middle-earth, his Secondary World:

How well, then, does his own trilogy match his stated requirements for a successful fantasy?  For one thing, keeping in mind his thesis that a fantasy “must be presented as true,” we can see how he has lived up to this criterion.  The Lord of the Rings is presented as a true history, and the author has buttressed his contention by surrounding the tale with an elaborate machinery of appendices, containing factual data on his world not given in the narrative . . . This, of course, is completely in line with his belief that the subcreator of a Secondary World must make his fabricated cosmos complete, realistic, and self-consistent in every detail.  He neither writes for children nor counts on the “willing suspension of disbelief” to make his narrative and its world credible.  The one element most readers of Tolkien find most fascinating is the air of conviction and authority that runs through every page: to the reader, Middle-earth is a real and whole and genuine place.

                                                                                                                         (Carter 92-93)

Aside from the elaborate history and geography of Middle-earth, the text of the story itself presents the story as true.  The Prologue of The Lord of the Rings opens with “This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history.  Further information will also be found in the selection from the Red Book of Westmarch that has already been published, under the title of The Hobbit” (Tolkien The Lord of the Rings 1).  Even Tolkien’s lesser works are fashioned under this precept.  In the Forward to “Farmer Giles of Ham,” Tolkien complains that the author of the story shows little geographical knowledge of the lands beyond the borders of the Little Kingdom, and that he shows only slightly more knowledge of the Little Kingdom itself (Tolkien “Farmer Giles of Ham” 7).  Lewis strove to achieve the same effect in his fictional writings.  In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he states, “By the way, I have never heard how [the Lone Islands] became attached to the crown of Narnia; if I ever do, and if the story is at all interesting, I may put it into some other book” (Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 32).  And again, in The Screwtape Letters, “I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which I now offer to the public fell into my hands” (Lewis The Screwtape Letters 17).  The small details such as these are designed to suggest to the reader that the author of the story is merely retelling it, rather than creating it.  The effect that this creates is that when the reader reads the story, he temporarily believes it to be true. 

                                                                                                                                                                                              Sub-creation and the Secondary World is an idea advocated by both Tolkien and Lewis.  The Sub-creator fashions a Secondary World, which is taken as true by the reader.  The words by which the writer defines his Secondary World create his World.  The story is created again and again in the mind of each reader.  All art utilizes the principle of sub-creation.  Both Tolkien and Lewis consciously utilized the principle in their fictional works.  When a well-crafted Secondary World temporarily becomes the primary world of the reader the writer has done his job and become a sub-creator.

 

 

 

 

WORKS CITED

Lin Carter.  Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings.  Ballantine Books, Inc., New York: 1974

 

Cooper, Susan.  “Fantasy in the Real World.”  Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children.  Margaret K. McElderry Books, New York: 1996, 57-71.

 

Hall, Donovan.  “The Semeiotic of Sub-creation: The Reality of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.” June 1996.  29 April 2001.  < http://mitglied.tripod.de/lotr/Subc.htm >

 

Lewis, C. S.  “Christianity and Literature.”  The Seeing Eye.  Ed. Walter Hooper.  Ballantine Books, Canada: 1992, 1-14.

 

Lewis, C. S.  The Screwtape Letters.  Lord and King Associates, Inc., West Chicago: 1976.

 

Tolkien, J. R. R.  “Farmer Giles of Ham.”  The Tolkien Reader.  Ballantine Books, Inc., New York: 1966.

 

Tolkien, J. R. R.  “On Fairy-Stories.”  The Tolkien Reader.  Ballantine Books, Inc., New York: 1966.