SEVEN TIPS FOR THE HEIRS OF THE INKLINGS

 SEVEN TIPS FOR THE HEIRS OF THE INKLINGS

There is no shortage on tips and recommendations for writing stories in the fantasy genre. Anyone who has an interest in becoming a fantasy storyteller will already be acquainted with the tons of guides and suggestion lists for crafting good plots, characters and secondary worlds. Nevertheless, though there is a lot to be gained from these helps, there is something that is often missing from them. 

 

Most of these list of recommendations assume from the outset a very superficial outlook on the fantasy genre. They assume that fantasy is just like any other modern literary genre, except that it contains dragons, wizards and magic. This way of looking at fantasy, however, is severely flawed, as we have proven in other articles (here). It fails to address the deeper layers of meaning that are inherent in the genre and allow it to be so distinctively fascinating. Therefore, by adopting a view of fantasy that is awfully superficial, modern guides for writing fantasy have fostered the identity crisis of the genre despite all the good technical advice they may provide new storytellers with.

 

Yet as we saw in a previous article, this doesn't mean that there is no solution to the identity crisis of fantasy. If there is one way that the genre can be saved from the depths of this crisis, it is by returning to the great tradition that gave birth to it, and that tradition is found in the Inklings.

 

But alas, if anyone would desire to follow in the steps of Barfield, Williams, Lewis and Tolkien, he will be disappointed to find that there are little to no resources that may guide him through the process. That's the ill this humble article proposes to amend. In the course of this article, we will provide seven brief suggestions for those aspiring heirs to the Inlikings tradition. God-willing, by the time he has finished reading, the reader will have found a light to guide him through the dark.

 

1. Familiarize yourself with myth and fairy tales

 

If one wants to become like the Inklings, he must be acquianted with those tales that brought the Inklings together. This is why fairy tales and myths are a crucial part of forming oneself as an heir of the Inklings tradition. After all, the club initially got started as a place to read and enjoy together myths, legends and fairy tales. Had it not been for the great legends of the noble Hector, the valiant Gawain and the fierce Beowulf, the Inklings would have likely never had a reason for knowing each other. In other words, these stories formed the core of their companionship, so it would certainly be imprudent for anyone who wants to be an Inkling as well to not become familiarized with them.

 

2. Make the Transcendent a central part of your writing and your life

 

The Inklings were highly spiritual men. None of them would fit the bill for the modern or postmodern writers of today, and that is partly what makes them so great. Their insight into the transcendent side of reality is not only fascinating but also deeply enriching for their readers. They told stories full of meaning that brought back Beauty and the Divine to a world that had forgotten these realities. 

 

Hence, if one is to follow in the footsteps of the Inklings, he should adopt this transcendent and highly spiritual worldview in both his work and his personal life. Stories cannot be about mundane, superficial situations. Rather, they must be about the most transcendent things in reality, the stuff of epics. But this cannot be accomplished unless one personally understands the significance that transcendence has. For this reason, it is crucial that the storyteller himself, like the Inklings, lives out in his life the spiritual and religious reality that he depicts in his work. After all, one cannot give what he does not possess in the first place, and if one wants his work to be transcendent, it follows that his life should be transcendent as well. It is only be making spiritual and religious transcendence the center of one's work and life that one can honor the heritage of the Inklings.

 

3. Know your culture, love your culture and write about your culture

 

When the Inklings wrote their works, they did not draw their inspiration out of a sheer romantic feeling of self-expression. On the contrary, their inspiration was anything but emotive self-expression. Rather, one of their main sources of inspiration was often their deep and intense love for their culture. We see this Tolkien when he declares that he intended his Legandarium to be a sort of mythology for English culture. We see it with Barfield who could have never written a work like Poetic Diction had he not first fallen in love with the great poetic traditions of the old world. And lastly, we see it in Lewis whose love for medieval and ancient cosmology inspired him to write the Space Trilogy. Thus, it was their knowledge and love for their cultural heritage that inspired the Inklings to sub-create.

 

So if one wishes to become an Inkling, it follows one must do likewise in this sense. Culture and tradition must be a treasure for us, not old skeletons we lock up in the attic. They must be the wellspring from which our writing is nurtured. Furthermore, it's also a great opportunity to make one's writing intensely personal without falling into the trap of subjectivism. Suppose you are a Catholic of Spanish and Italian descent who wants to write in this tradition. Learning about your heritage and traditions as an Italo-Spanish Catholic will not only give you good resources to base your work on but it will also give your writing a certain flavor that is distinctly yours. Those are the advantages of following the path of the Inklings when it comes to culture.

 

4. Learn your metaphysics and theology and incorporate it into your writing

 

Anyone who has read the Inklings' work will know that their writing is deeply imbued in classical metaphysical and theological realities. One need only to look at Tolkien's The Silmarillion, Williams' occult novels and Lewis' last Narnia volume to know this. You cannot escape the supernatural and preternatural when you venture into the Inklings because, in many ways, that was and is the foundation of their work. But in addition to making metaphysics and theology a central aspect of their writing, these men also knew enough about these complex subjects to swiftly incorporate many metaphysical and theological into the plots and characters of their stories. Many examples come to mind: the most prominent would probably be Eru Illuvatar and his angelic host of Valar and Maiar and Aslan and his mystical dominion over Creation. Only men educated in the great philosophical and theological tradition of Christendom would have been able to accomplish such a feat. Thus, we get the level of depth that all of the Inklings' work has.

 

Therefore, if one wishes to emulate the Inklings in this respect, he must immerse himself in the metaphysical and theological realities of the world. First, he must educate himself on the great philosophical and theological tradition of Christendom. Secondly, he must analyze and plan how he can incorporate metaphysical and theological elements into his writing in a way that will give a deep consistency to the whole mythic story. And lastly, he must practice. He must put pen to paper and try his hand at writing stories that are profoundly metaphysical and theological. It's a technique that even the most literate of Christian theologians and philosophers would have some trouble with. Hence, by learning, thinking and practicing, the aspiring heir to the Inklings will have had enough training to imbue his tales with as much as metaphysics and theology as the great masters did.

 

5. Develop the secondary world

 

Developing secondary worlds, or worldbuilding (as it is today known), was key to the mythic stories of the Inklings. These secondary worlds had a rich development, which had a good and consistent metaphysical and theological foundation. Hence, relying on the last suggestion, the man aspiring to be like the Inklings must work on his transcendent foundations to build a secondary world that is filled with layers upon layers of development. In other words, he should not neglect the worldbuilding of the setting, as some modern fantasy writers do. On the contrary, he must work on it as much as he works on the characters and on the plot.

 

6. Practice immersion, recovery, escape and consolation

 

As Tolkien explains in his essay On Fairy Tales, fantasy that immerses the reader in an enchanted sub-created world exists for the purpose of three things: recovery, escape and consolation. Let us explain what is meant by these terms. Firstly, recovery is the principle by which we see mundane, normal things in a refreshing and enchanting light. Then, escape refers to the escape from the modern world and into a world that is more real, more magical and sacramental. And lastly, consolation is that quality of the tale that brings Hope and Joy to the reader. In other words, it is the quality proper to the eucatastrophe, that is, the good catastrophe. When all seems lost and dark and it seems that evil and sin will prevail, Hope and Joy must arrive to save the day and thus give the consolation of the happy ending. These are, according to the great Inkling tradition, some of the most fundamental aspects of good fantasy writing. (You can see a more in-depth explanation of these three aspects of fantasy here)

 

Hence, it follows that those who want to take up the mantle from the Inklings must follow Tolkien's principles and apply them to their writing. Through their immersive stories set in wonderful secondary worlds, they must achieve the three things at which fantasy is best. Accomplishing recovery, escape and consolation in the story means true success.

 

7. The story must have as its ultimate end the echoing of the True Myth

 

All of the Inklings believed in what they called the True Myth. This is the Myth that came into the Primary World and united myth with History. This is Christianity. If anything can be described as the deepest point of connection for the Inklings, it is this.

 

That was the ultimate end of all their stories (to echo the True Myth and thus bring people closer to the Saving Grace of Jesus Christ), and therefore, it should be our ultimate end as well. We do not familiarize ourselves with myths for nothing; we do not go to encounter transcendence in our lives for nothing; we do not study metaphysics and theology for nothing; we do not fall in love with our culture for nothing; in short, we do not tell stories for nothing. All this we do for ultimately one purpose: to grow closer to the God that creates us and loves us and to bring others closer to Him Who is Love Itself. That is why the Inklings wrote what they wrote in the end, and that should be the reason why we write as well. Christ is our beginning and our end, our Alpha and Omega, and more so when it comes to storytelling.

STAR WARS & MYTH

STAR WARS & MYTH

Few stories have been so successful in capturing the imaginations of their audiences as Star Wars. Even the name itself evokes a multitude of fascinating, epic images in our minds. It's a story that has been told in multiple mediums (movies, TV shows, music, video games, comics, books, etc.) and that has influenced the lives of many people in very significant ways.

 

Some may wonder how a story about space battles and adventures was able to achieve so much success. Some say it is because of its initial technological achievements in film. Others say it is due to the shrewdness of George Lucas (the author of the series) as an entrepreneur. But I propose a different answer. I think the answer lies in the story's relationship with myth. I realize some may be perplexed by such a statement. After all, what has the saga of the Skywalkers have to do with myth? The answer is that it has everything to do, and this reality becomes apparent once we examine the origins of the series.

Origins of Success:

 

The greatest inspiration for George Lucas when sub-creating this great, epic tale was the work of psychologist Joseph Campbell. What Campbell's work did was outline and catalog all the major patterns and "tropes" in mythologies and provide a "psychological" explanation as to why they were so common. He then tried to unite all of these patterns into a single scheme, which he named the archetypal "hero's journey". Thus, he concluded that this way of telling stories, this mythic hero's journey, penetrated and resonated deeply in our being, and that is why we are so enthralled by myths and the when we encounter them. Lucas was fascinated by this theory, and henceforth he sought to craft a story that would follow these patterns to a T. That story was Star Wars.

 

Hence, the relationship between myth and Star Wars. Without myth, there would be no hero's journey. And without the hero's journey, there would be no Star Wars.

 

This is why Star Wars has had so much resonance with so many people. It truly does speak in a universal language, the language of myth, that captivates the imagination of anyone who comes across it. The patterns of mythic stories, as Campbell pointed out, do indeed penetrate into the most profound depth of the human person, and Star Wars proves that. It is a story filled with the patterns of myth, and therefore, it is logical that it should have as much of an impact as the ancient mythologies had.

The Fatal Flaw:

There is, however, more to the relationship between myth and Star Wars than Campell and the hero’s journey because even though Star Wars does present a very good example of a story that follows the patterns, it nevertheless fails in one crucial point. That point is its way of portraying the Divine.

 

You see, myth is not just patterns. Myth is a way of not just telling stories but also of understanding the world. It's a worldview, as the Inklings well knew. And this mythic worldview has one fundamental aspect which can never be absent, and that is transcendence. Transcendence is something directly from the Divine, God. God Is the Source of all being. Nothing has meaning or transcendence without Him; nothing has existence without Him. The mythic worldview understands this reality, but unfortunately, it seems George Lucas did not.

 

George Lucas seems to have committed the mistake of thinking that all there was to myth was patterns. Patterns that would help him craft a story that resonated with people. And even though the issue of patterns and their resonance with people is true, it is not all there is to myth. Lucas failed to capture the Source of Myth, the ultimate Cause of why these stories are so captivating in the first place. Thus, transcendence in the world of Star Wars becomes a convoluted mess. There is no unified Source from which transcendence is derived, and so behind the trappings of the patterns which Star Wars exemplifies, all you have is metaphysical chaos.

 

This is unlike the work of other great myth makers of the 20th century such as Tolkien and Lewis. Contrary to Lucas, they did understand that you need to have a Source for objective transcendence in your sub-created secondary world. It can't all be patterns and theory; it must have metaphysical realism and consistency. That is why you see Aslan becoming a sort of Christ-like figure in the Narnia. After all, Christ is the Divine Itself, and so it follows that all transcendence (and by extension, the story of Narnia) will revolve around Him. The same is true of Tolkien, as is made apparent in the first chapter of his book The Silmarillion. There, Eru Illuvatar (who would come to symbolize God) creates the world of Arda (the name for Tolkien's sub-created world), and in this manner, it is made clear that this world has a transcendent order to it. Everything is ordered by the Divine in both series, and thus is the metaphysical unity, depth, and order, proper to all good myths, established. And it is this metaphysical structure that gives a richness and Beauty to the stories of Tolkien and Lewis.

The Descent into Chaos:

But by lacking the Divine in his work, Lucas' world of Star Wars ends up being shallow and chaotic in contrast. This is where Lucas fails. He uses the exterior patterns of myth, but he does not realize that those patterns follow a more complex metaphysical reality that must be included in the work as well. Perhaps this is why the Star Wars saga, in spite of its initial success, has become so messy in its latest installments. Unlike the first three movies, the last six films have not been universally well-received. They have sparked discomfort and even anger among many of those who loved the first movies. 

Something seems to have broken, therefore. The story of the Skywalkers, like the metaphysics of its world, became meaningless and convoluted. Ultimately, there ended up being no order, no Beauty, no transcendence by the end of the ninth movie. Was this merely an error in the screenplay or could there be a deeper reason for the ultimate failure of the Star Wars story? Could it be perhaps that this is due to Lucas' great mistake of thinking the patterns were enough to create a good myth? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. 

 

Nevertheless, given how significant the relationship between myth and Star Wars is, it seems to me that there is something to be said about how Lucas, despite having succeeded in employing the patterns of the hero's journey, ultimately failed to capture the essence of myth.

UNDERSTANDING THE INKLING TRADITION: PART 2

 UNDERSTANDING THE INKLING TRADITION: PART 2

Continued from Part 1...

Fantasy as the child of myth

Now, myth is the center of the Inkling tradition, but how does myth relate to fantasy?

As we said in the previous article, myth is the basis of fantasy for the Inklings, so it follows that everything true of myth (transcendence, the relationship with the Divine, the importance of language and culture) will be true as well for fantasy. But for the Inklings, fantasy, unlike myth, is not so much about the story as it is about the technique.

This is well-explained by Tolkien in his already mentioned essay On Fairy Stories. To tell a mythic story, one must make use of the art of Fantasy and its techniques. This technique of Fantasy consists of two steps. The first is to use the mental power of image-making (the Imagination) and thus create new images of things or new forms. But at the same time, we must also create all these new forms in a manner that is consistent and will make them credible, so credible indeed that the audience will begin to see it not as a fiction but as a reality. In other words, Fantasy consists of making the yellow sun green and then making the world of the green sun consistent enough so that the green sun will be seen as real rather than fictional. This is the basic technique at the foundation of Fantasy and the essential tool of the myth-maker.

This technique of Fantasy relates to an important point C. S. Lewis makes in his essay On Stories. In that work, Lewis argues that for a story to be good, it is not enough for it to have interesting characters and a thrilling plot; it is also necessary that it has a potent theme. By theme, he means that quality in the writing that can transport the reader into the world he is reading and make him be captivated by it. He gives the example of the folktale of Jack the Giant Slayer and the novel The Last of the Mohicans to illustrate this point. In the first case, it is not enough that Jack is a fun and relatable character, nor it is enough that the giants he fights against are a great danger and obstacle. It is also important that the giants really feel like giants and not some generic opponents. Lewis says there is a sort of "Giantship" present whenever the giants are around and that this feeling of "Giantship" is so real to the reader that it fascinates completely his imagination. Likewise, when discussing The Last of the Mohicans, a novel about the colonial struggles between the French, British, and their respective Indian allies in North America, the atmosphere and environment of the world of the North American Indians is also able to transport the reader into it and make him feel he is living in it. This is what Lewis means by theme, and it is not hard to see how it relates to myth and Fantasy.

Fantasy, therefore, as the prime technique of the myth-maker, should aid in the crafting of a world that is consistent, credible, and immersive. All of this is part of what Tolkien called the process of Sub-Creation, which is also essential to understanding the tradition of the Inklings. A Secondary World, as Tolkien calls it, that is crafted in the art of Fantasy will be a sub-created world, not only because the world is so believable that it becomes almost as real as the Primary World, but also because Tolkien and the Inklings acknowledged that nothing done by man can truly be called Creation. Only God creates. We men sub-create. As creatures made in His image and likeness, we have the power to imitate the great act of Divine Creation by sub-creating our own humble worlds and thus rendering honor and glory to Him by Whom everything exists. 

This recognition of our littleness as craftsmen and sub-creators is necessary to understand the Inkling worldview as well because too often the technique of Fantasy and the power of mythic storytelling is used, not for the Glory of He Who is Master of all technique and story, but for the vain fame of the human author. Almost all modern fantasy writers fall into this trap. They want to "make a name for themselves" forgetting they only have the power to sub-create in the first place thanks to He Whose Name is above all. Such vanity and idolatry of the world will then lead to a corruption of myth and Fantasy, emptying them of their original splendor. Why? Because as we affirmed before, myth is ultimately the story of men about the Divine, and therefore, it must always be done in reverence and service to the Divine. And by extension, Fantasy, as the technical handmaid of myth, must also be used to give honor to God. But if we corrupt our ability to sub-create with pride, soon enough the Divine will be second-place for the myth-maker (which must never happen) and the myth will begin to be about us instead of about God. Hence, we must remember that we are only humble imitators of the Master Creator to avoid falling into the pit of corruption that would ultimately kill our myths.

The effects of myth and fantasy

The last important aspect of the tradition is the effects that myth and the use of fantasy should have when done well. Here, we once more return to Tolkien's essay to summarize the three main effects of mythic stories: they are recovery, escape, and consolation. Besides being important guidelines for those interested in crafting stories in this tradition, they are also illustrative of some important principles of the Inkling worldview.

Recovery is probably the simplest of all three effects. What the Inklings propose is that, through fantasy, one should be able to recover a fresh view of things too long taken for granted. This is also expressed by a figure very influential in the worldview of the Inklings: G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton observed that fairy tales and myths can renew our fascination for the world in a way that no other piece of literature can. Thus, when we read about magic, golden apples, we can later appreciate the apples in our everyday life in a totally fresh way. Previously, we might have thought of apples as nothing more than tools for nutrition; but now that we have encountered the Beauty in the apples through the enchantment of the fairy tale and myth, we have recovered that magical experience which makes apples a totally meaningful thing. This is what Chesterton affirmed in his works and also what the Inklings believed about the power of myth. 

But why is this power of re-enchanting the world so effective in fantasy and myth? Why don't other genres have this power as well? The answer is rather philosophical but it is not impossible to understand. As philosopher Peter Kreeft notes, the magic of recovery that we notice in the Inkling tradition has its foundations in the reality of essences or forms. The philosophy student may identify this as Plato's Forms, but the reality is the same. Through fantasy, we are able to go beyond the material particulars of our experience and come into contact with more vivid symbols of the real essences of things and thus come closer to a knowledge of their form. Hence, in our example of the apple, the magic apple served as a vehicle to bring the reader into contact with that higher, more real experience of the form of the apple. Gone were matter and the fallenness of our world; now he can know in a closer what the reality of appleness is. This is the reason why only the fantasy genre can achieve recovery in this way because only fantasy has the enchantment necessary to help us encounter the reality of the forms. This too is a pillar in the worldview of the Inklings.

This brings us to the second of the effects of myth, and that is Escape. Myths offer an escape from one world into another. For the Inklings, this is not bad, as some would claim it is. On the contrary, it is virtuous and healthy. Because the world we are escaping is a prison. It is the world of modernity. For modernity, there is only physics and matter, technique, and machine. There is no consideration for virtue, meaning, or transcendence. It is all industrial, rationalistic work, the tyranny of the Iron Crown as Tolkien aptly called in his poem Mythopoeia. Only the vicious man and the demon would wish to live in such a world. As for the world that we are escaping into, that is, as the Inklings well knew, our real home. It is the world of enchantment, where all things have a purpose and a transcendent meaning. The world of grace and Salvation, of God and His angels, of man and his Savior. It is a world that has tragedy but that it ultimately ends with Triumph. This is the real world. Therefore, in the Inkling tradition, fantasy and myth become immensely important since they are the vehicles by which we can escape the prison and go back to our home.

Lastly, there is Consolation. Consolation has a lot to do with both Escape and Recovery. Thanks to the recovery of meaning and the escape from modernity, we can find true consolation in the home for which we were made. But Consolation is more than that, and it has to do with what we said before. Because although myth can and does bring us to a world of meaning and transcendence, this world (i.e. the truly real world) is not without its sorrows and catastrophes. We are still fallen and the risk of losing the gift of Grace and Salvation is still present. Hence there will be many times in myth and in reality when it seems that all is lost and that evil has won. But that is not the end. The Inkling tradition of fantasy acknowledges the reality of evil but it does not see it as all-powerful. Good shall triumph in the End, even if it seems unlikely at times. This is what Tolkien called eucatastrophe (good catastrophe in Greek), and one may find examples of eucatastrophe present in all of the Inklings' work. 

Such are the effects of fantasy and myth in the Inkling tradition.

The True Myth

Finally, it is fitting to remark on what is the most important aspect of the worldview of the Inklings, and that is the reality of the True Myth. The Inklings were Christians, and as such, they knew that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ marked a pivotal point in both the History of men and the history of myth. By coming into the world and sanctifying it in the Person of Christ, God has turned History and Myth. For no longer are Myth and History separate; they are now the same. The Divine Story and the human story have come together in the History of Salvation.

This History of Salvation, which contains all of our lives and our eternal destinies, contains in it all the great marks of a good story. It is a story about God and His relationship with men; it is a story that inserts itself into the bosom of many cultures and languages thus transforming these cultures forever; it is a story that already has us immersed in an enchanted world, our world, the real Primary World; it is a story that brings us into contact with a reality that is wondrous and helps us recover the real meaning of things; it is a story that brings us out of the modern world and into a world filled with Divine Light; and lastly, it is a story with greatest Eucatastrophe of all, the Resurrection. When all hope seemed lost and the Son of Man had been Crucified, the third He arose again and triumphed over death and sin. Hope and Joy have won. That is the Story of the Evangelium, the Good News, to which all the Inklings adhered.

This True Myth encapsulates all of the tradition and worldview of the Inklings. Fantasy and myth, therefore, are not so much about dragons and wizards but rather about bringing through our sub-creations this Light of the Gospel into the bosoms of our cultures. Because only the genre fantasy has the power to bring weave stories and secondary worlds that allow men to recover, escape, and find consolation. That is what fantasy is about for the Inklings.

UNDERSTANDING THE INKLINGS: PART 1

UNDERSTANDING THE INKLING TRADITION: PART 1

As we argued in the last article, the only way forward for the fantasy genre is the way of the Inklings. That should be clear from the previous article. But what exactly is the way of the Inklings? What is this great tradition of fantasy to which the likes of Tolkien, Lewis, Williams, and Barfield belonged?

It is this question that we shall attempt to answer in the following series of articles. Our purpose here is to describe the great fantasy tradition of the Inklings in detail and to show why and how such a tradition can be revived. After all, as we declared in the last article, it is only through the revival of this tradition that the fantasy genre will have any future.

Who were the Inklings?

The Inklings is the name given to a modest group of friends, all of whom were enthusiasts of myth, literature, religion, and fantasy. These comrades in letters would meet at pubs and read the great tales of legend that united them. Sometimes they would even share their own projects. Many of them were professors at Oxford, but not all of them were men from the halls of academia. Their views were varied and sometimes even conflicting with each other, but they all shared this great love for storytelling.

Among the most notable members were the Catholic philologist and grandfather of the fantasy genre J. R. R. Tolkien, the great novelist and Christian scholar C. S. Lewis, the writer and critic Charles Williams, and the poet and philosopher Owen Barfield. Though they were more members in the group, it is the work of these four men that was important for laying down the foundations of the Inkling tradition. Despite their differences, they all shared a common understanding of reality and of storytelling that allowed them to feel at home whenever they were gathered around a pud to read their stories together. And it is this understanding that is essential to the Inkling tradition.

The centrality of myth

The central piece of this understanding of reality and stories was myth. The importance of myth for these men cannot be understated. It was what brought them together and what kept them together. But what is myth and what are the implications of it being so central to the tradition?

Today, society tends to see myth as synonymous with a lie, but this is not what the Inklings understood by myth. On the contrary, if anything, myth is among the truest things there is. Myth is a form of storytelling that is able to communicate some of the deepest truths there are. It transmits spiritual and foundational truths about ultimate reality, that is, about the Divine. That is God (and in the case of the pagans the gods) is so recurrent in mythology, for God, in His infinite vastness, is the deepest level of reality there is. In fact, that is what the word myth originally meant. Mythos (the original word for myth) was just a story about the gods. As such, myth is the perfect vehicle for exploring the most important issues in life and uncovering the deepest truths of reality, and that is why the Inklings treasured it and defended it so much.

The implications of this definition of myth are plentiful. Nevertheless, at the risk of being overly simplistic, we could summarize it in one word: transcendence. Being a story about the Divine, myth implies that there really is something beyond matter, space, and time. Contrary to what the modern world tells us, the natural and physical sciences cannot explain everything. There are indeed spirits and immaterial beings in the world that influence us in ways we seldom take the care to notice. Most importantly, there necessarily exists God because the Source of all things' existence, both visible and invisible. Furthermore, it is only in Him and through Him that all things acquire their meaning and, and therefore, there could be no such thing as transcendence without Him. Given this reality, men must transcend the mere physical plane of living and connect themselves to God and His spiritual Creation to have meaning in their existence. There simply is no other way. This the metaphysical basis that all the Inklings shared and which their tradition of fantasy manifests.

The origins of myth

Myth, however, is not a spontaneous thing. It did not come into existence for a random reason, and its origins are worth considering if one wants to have a good comprehension of the Inklings' worldview.

There are many theories proposed for the origins of myth, but the one we are here most interested in is the one proposed by Owen Barfield. In his work Poetic Diction, Barfield asserted that the origin of myth is language. It is in the language of a culture, argued Barfield, that myth is born. Tolkien seems to have adopted this view when he wrote in his famous essay On Fairy Stories that fairy stories (and myth by extension) originated in man's ability to mix words. By playing with words, men can make the sun cease to be yellow and make it green, for example. This playful intermixing of adjectives to describe nouns creates a new image in our minds, a new form, that is fantastic and refreshing, and it is from this game with language that the terrible monsters and glorious heroes of myth are born.

Nevertheless, here, one ought to remember another thing about language. Language is not an individual thing nor is it a universal thing. Language is a national thing, that is, an element that is particular to one specific culture, to one specific group of people. Myth, therefore, will also be intrinsically national and cultural, and this is why we often identify the various kinds of mythologies with cultural identities. There is no globalist mythology for the whole of humanity or individualistic mythology for a single person, but there is Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Norse mythology, Celtic mythology, and Egyptian mythology. Hence, if language is the basis of myth and language is national, it follows that myth will be national as well.

These are the origins of myth, and the Inklings knew that well. For the Inklings, myth was inseparable from language and culture. Moreover, since myth is the story of men about the Divine, then this mythic tale will be told in a specific language and for a specific people. Furthermore, it will be the story of how the Divine relates to one specific culture or people. In other words, myth is not just the story of God but also of how God and men (and specifically, the men of this particular culture) are related. It is a bridge between the world of the Divine and the world of fallen man, and this shows once more that myth is not supposed to be a lie or an entertaining fiction but rather a reality meant to be participated in.

Continued in Part 2...

THE INKLING TRADITION: RECOMMENDED READING LIST FOR BEGINNERS

THE INKLING TRADITION: RECOMMENDED READING LIST  FOR BEGINNERS

For those interested in learning more in-depth about the Inkling tradition of fantasy, here is a list of some resources that might be very useful.

BOOKS ON THE INKLINGS:

- The Philosophy of Tolkien by Peter Kreeft 

- The Flame Imperishable by Johnathan McIntosh

- The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip and Carol Zaleski

- The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter

- Bandersnatch by Diana Palvac Glyer

- J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth by Bradley Birzer

WORKS BY THE INKLINGS (THEORY):

- Mythopoeia (Tolkien)

- On Fairy Stories (Tolkien)

- On Stories (Lewis)

- Of Other Worlds (Lewis)

- The Discarded Image (Lewis)

- Poetic Diction (Barfield)

- Romanticism Comes of Age (Barfield)

FICTION BY THE INKLINGS:

- The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)

- The Hobbit (Tolkien)

- The Silmarillion (Tolkien)

- Leaf by Niggle (Tolkien)

- The Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis

- Space Trilogy (Lewis)

- Seven Occult novels (Williams) *

* They're War in Heaven, Many Dimensions, The Place of the Lion, The Greater Trumps, Shadows of Ecstasy, Descent into Hell, All Hallows' Eve

THE CRISIS OF THE FANTASY GENRE: TOLKIEN'S LEGACY

 

THE CRISIS OF THE FANTASY GENRE: TOLKIEN'S LEGACY

 

Introduction

 

Dragons. Wizards. Orcs. Elves. Battles and adventures. These are the trademarks of the epic fantasy genre. It's a genre that has its roots in the most ancient times of History but that has only risen to prominence in the publishing world in the last few decades. Movies, video games, TV shows, and other forms of media have exploited the stories from epic fantasy and made a great deal of profit out of it. Yet despite its seemingly commercial success, the genre seems to have hit a crisis point.

 

This is the unfortunate predicament of the fantasy genre: it is dying. Despite efforts to innovate, it has become repetitive and uninteresting. Some seek the solution to this problem in making the genre be "more up to date", but this has only resulted in the genre becoming tainted with contemporary politics. Thus, it is no longer a source of unity and entertainment but rather a cause for division and anger. Others believe that the solution lies in subverting the "tropes" of the genre and that way artificially fabricate interest in the audience. Nevertheless, this also often is problematic since it generates stories that often feel more like 20th-century modernist dramas than epic fantasy tales. That is the current state of the genre; it is a genre in crisis, a crisis of identity.

The Cause

 

Much of this identity crisis can be traced back to one cause, and that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the genre's roots. Modern fantasy writers fail to continue the qualitative success of the genre because they do not understand what made the genre so popular in the first place. Too often they mistakenly think it is just about the superficial elements (i.e. having dragons and magic as prominent parts of the plot), but there is more to fantasy than that.

 

One person who understood this was no other than the founder of the genre himself: the Catholic writer and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien. With his publishing of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien laid the foundations for what we know today as epic fantasy. Though he was certainly not alone in setting these foundations (one could point to the work of the "Pulp fiction" writers of the early 20th century), his influence and the success of his works were definitely what put epic fantasy on the map. In other words, no one would be publishing epic fantasy today if it wasn't for Tolkien.

 

But the legacy of Tolkien, like the fundamentals of the genre that he helped found, has not been well understood. Here again, writers inspired by Tolkien fail to understand the deeper layers of his work and instead just try to copy the superficial elements. Thus we get the tons of boring Tolkien imtators who seem to think that all Tolkien did to succeed was put elves and dwarves in his books. This is a problem because Tolkien's real contribution to the genre was not so much the publication of The Lord of the Rings but rather an exposition on the most important component of fantasy as a whole: myth.

 

Myth

 

Tolkien knew that myth and everything a mythic worldview implied was the soul of any good fantasy work. He even said that he wrote The Lord of the Rings partly to demonstrate this point. Without myth, you have no fantasy. Therefore, given Tolkien's immense importance to the founding of the epic fantasy genre, we can safely conclude that myth and a proper understanding of myth are the roots of the genre.

 

But what exactly is myth? Isn't myth just another word for a lie or at least an entertaining legend? No, it is not. Myth is, as Tolkien well knew, a way to know deep truths about the world that are otherwise unknowable. Hence it's the contrary of a lie or fiction. It's, as Chesterton said, the way Truth is discovered through Beauty.

 

There are three key aspects to myth, which are central to good fantasy as well. The first is that myth ventures into the world of Fairie (as Tolkien and the Inklings called it), that is, a world of mystery, enchantment, and wonder. This is not a fictional world; rather, it is a world of a much deeper reality. It is the most real world there is, infused to its core with Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. It is Creation as it is, full of objective meaning and purpose. Secondly, myth is discovered, not fabricated. Tolkien well understood that God reveals to us in our minds the stories we tell, for God speaks through the words of poets. Hence, the work of the minstrels and the myth-makers is not that of creation but instead of sub-creation (a human creation contained within Divine Creation). We are, therefore, to paraphrase Tolkien, only encharged to record this revelation, not subject it to our will. Finally, myth is cultural in the full sense of the word. Myth is the collection of stories that a people, a culture, tells. Hence, myth and country are intimately linked. You have no myth without a specific nation and language to which it refers. Even Tolkien envisioned his Legendarium as a mythology for England and later for Christendom. These are the key ingredients of myth and thereby of good fantasy.

Modernity vs. Myth

 

Despite the Truth, Goodness, and Beauty that abounds in this vision, modern fantasy writers have for the most part either ignored or rejected this understanding. This is because Tolkien's exposition of the reality of myth is fundamentally at odds with the modern lens through which most fantasy writers see the world. Modernity has no place for the wonder or enchantment of Faerie because for the modern man everything is mere matter and technology. There is no place for Creation and sub-creation because the modern man, in his folly, has resigned himself to the prison of materialism, nihilism, and chaos. And lastly, the modern man in his idolatry of "freedom," work for work's sake, and the "individual" is unable to comprehend why anyone would tell common, traditional stories that bring transcendence to the language and life of a nation's culture. Thus the chasm between the modern fantasy writer and Tolkien is made apparent.

 

This is why the epic fantasy genre is dying. By refusing to adopt the deeply enchanted and Sacramental worldview of myth and Creation that Tolkien established for his legacy and the genre as a whole, the modern fantasy writer has ripped out the soul of the genre from its body and thus committed a kind of suicide. When a genre is far from its roots (more so when a genre misunderstands and reject its roots), it is doomed to enter into crisis. 

 

The Solution

 

There is only one way out of this crisis for fantasy, and that is to take up the mantle of the great tradition carried by Tolkien and the Inklings. This tradition understands the value of myth not just for fantasy but for the Salvation of all men as well. One needs only to look at how Tolkien used myth to convert Lewis into a fervent Christian. Myth is powerful and that power must be used for the ultimate Good of men. Unlike the modern understanding of the genre, this tradition exhorts us to use fantasy and myth, to bring us all closer to the source of all wonder, Beauty, meaning, and transcendence, that Master Storyteller Who reveals to us the sub-stories we are to tell. Therefore, if one intends to take up the torch from Tolkien and the Inklings, he must understand and adopt Tolkien's approach. He must not see the world through the lens of modernity. Instead, he must know that the world is truly enchanted and Sacramental and portray it as such in his sub-creation. Only by returning to the true legacy of Tolkien, which is the sanctified myth, (and not some shallow superficial element) will the fantasy genre be saved. God helps us all in that task.