XPost: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com   
      
   On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:12:28 +0200, Troels Forchhammer   
    wrote:   
      
   >All this, of course, was (for me) not about whether the _Alice_   
   >stories (or the Oz stories) should be considered fairy stories or not   
   >-- that is a discussion that I'd leave to 'the literati' who're more   
   >concerned with genres than I am -- but rather the point here is   
   >whether Tolkien considered them fairy-stories. Not because it is   
   >particularly interesting as such how Tolkien viewed Carroll's   
   >stories, but because the OFS essay is often seen as Tolkien's   
   >manifesto and the guiding principles behind LotR and other of   
   >Tolkien's later work (I guess my original point was just my guess   
   >that Tolkien would sympathize with the OP's sense of disappointment   
   >over the changing of a story that had been presented as 'true' to a   
   >dream-story).   
   >   
   >Personally I tend to lump various kinds of sub-creative literature   
   >together because I believe that the sub-creation, whether the   
   >Galactic Empire, Middle-earth, Pern, or Urth, serves very much the   
   >same function in such literature -- that of a model 'reality' that   
   >isn't burdened with quite the same complexity as the primary reality,   
   >so that interesting phenomema can be more easily isolated and   
   >explored (in much the same way as I'd do when I was teaching physics   
   >-- I'd create a model where I'd ignore all sorts of irrelevant   
   >complexities such as friction, elasticity of strings etc. when   
   >presenting a phenomenon to my students). So I would probably lump   
   >together both what Tolkien would accept as fairy-stories as well as   
   >much that he wouldn't.   
      
   I think I must re-read C.S. Lewis's essay on the topic.   
      
   One question that occurs to me is that we now speak of "fantasy" as a literary   
   genre, which includes some of Lewis's and Tolkien's writings. Is it the same   
   as what they meany by "fairy-stories", or is it wider?   
      
   Are the "Alice" stories within the fantasy genre, though not fairy stories?   
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes   
   Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/litmain.htm   
        http://www.goodreads.com/hayesstw   
        http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius   
      
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