Land of Faerie: The Disappearing Myth

2023

Faërie as the "middle earth" between the realm of senses and the realm of Ideas Dr. Diego Klautau J.R.R. Tolkien's essay On Fairy-Stories is one of the main sources of the theorical perspective of the author of The Lord of the Rings. Despite being universally recognized for his fictions, the Oxford professor has works of academic investigation in Philology and Literary theory. On Fairy-Stories, published in 1947, is the result of a 1939 conference at the University of St. Andrews, revised and expanded to its completed form in 1943 (FLIEGER; ANDERSON, 2014, p. 23). Among the countless possibilities of analyzing the text, as I have already mentioned elsewhere (KLAUTAU, 2021, p. 105-182), I have chosen for our "Unexpected Literary Journey" a framework which is crucial for understanding the relationship between Literature and Philosophy according to Tolkien himself: presenting the concept of Faërie, the Perilous Realm. Let us see the philological identification which is presented as the origin of this term. Fairy, as a noun more or less equivalent to elf, is a relatively modern word, hardly used until the Tudor period. The first quotation in the Oxford Dictionary (the only one before A.D. 1450) is significant. It is taken from the poet Gower: as he were a faierie. But this Gower did not say. He wrote as he were of faierie, 'as if he were come from Faërie'. Gower was describing a young gallant who seeks to bewitch the hearts of the maidens in church. (TOLKIEN, 2014, p. 30) The first important aspect is that the word "fairy" is considered equivalent to "elf," as quoted in the 14 th century. Then, it is important to notice that it does not refer to a person, but to a place. This is Tolkien's starting point for investigating this Realm, whose definition, deliberately imprecise, is a place metaphor. According to Aristotle's Poetics, "metaphor is applying to something a noun that properly applies to something else" (ARISTOTLE, 1457b), and Tolkien identifies Faërie with the name "Realm," that is, a place, as a physical space delimited by borders or a geographical point. However, this transfer of the noun "place" to refer to this reality is not proper or literal, for it is the very author of The Hobbit that affirms that this reality cannot be defined, so that his aim would only

Introduce the medieval phenomenon of what “Fairy” is/was; shared phenomenon shaped ideas and practices of medieval peoples. Show of the literature that was studied, reviewed, and manipulated to support the thesis subject. Explain methodological approach of the research design. Discuss the points of the thesis; being origins, the phenomenon, and realms. Explain what limitation were encountered in construing a research design with its basis in speculative and scholarly works concerning the period. A conclusion based on findings in known or collected literature, material discovery, methodological approach, and personal normative opinion based on educated and passionate research for a subject that is very close to the treatise author.

PhD Thesis, 2020

This thesis charts the shift in the scholarly treatment of fairies within the work of the Folklore Society (FLS) and its members, from its foundation in 1878 until World War Two. During this period the fairies' cultural position shifted from being a subject of intense interest in Victorian adult art and literature to becoming a whimsical being which dominated children's fairy-tale illustrations. During this era the FLS itself also experienced a waning cultural influence. A prominent Society before 1900, the FLS increasingly dwindled as folklore failed to gain a foothold in universities, key founding members died and the Society faced financial pressures. Concurrently folklore scholars became disinterested in children's book fairies. Both the FLS and fairies experienced a correlating, and somewhat mutually causal, decline in cultural prestige by the early twentieth century. The FLS's fairy scholarship provides the perfect space for exploring the changing cultural position of fairies and folkloristics in Britain during this era.

Folk-lore, 2019

Journal of Tolkien Research, 2024

This article delves into J. R. R. Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories" with the aim of outlining a giving hermeneutics for the metaphor of "Faërie," the Elfland, in dialogue with the philosophical tradition of Ancient Greece – specially with Plato's "Republic" and Aristotle's "De Anima" and "Poetics", and also the medieval reference of Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica”. The historical context of early 20th-century England and J. R. R. Tolkien's biography assure that he belonged to a Catholic religious and philosophical tradition that claimed the so-called realistic philosophy as the foundation for understanding the world. From this theoretical-methodological approach, one finds a dual significance for Faërie: firstly, in a more Platonic inspiration, as the intermediary reality between the sensible dimension perceived by human senses and the intelligible dimension consisting of the ideas that inform material things. In a second interpretation, with a more Aristotelian and Thomistic hue, the metaphor of the Elfland can also be understood as the matrix of combinatory possibilities through the language of forms originating from the perception of reality by the human mind, Faërie being constituted by imagination or fantasy, the capacity of humans to form images from memory, which serves as the basis for the abstraction of universal forms.

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Tolkien Studies, 2020

A reading of Tolkien's essay 'On Fairy-stories'

1997

Examines a number of modern fantasy novels and other works which portray fairies, particularly in opposition to Victorian and Edwardian portrayals of fairies. Distinguishes between “neo-Victorian” and “ecological”

Air n-Aithesc, 2015

An article looking at the aos sidhe or Good Neighbors in the context of Irish mythology and folklore with some Scottish cultural comparison.