J. R. R. Tolkien

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See first quotes from J. R. R. Tolkien

14 Quotations from J. R. R. Tolkien

hobbitlike adj.	1954 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter 25 Apr. in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981) 180 Since Sam was close friends of the family of Cotton (another village-name), I was led astray into the Hobbit-like joke of spelling Gamwichy Gamgee, though I do not think that in actual Hobbit-dialect the joke really arose.
hobbitry n.	1944 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter 6 May in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) 78 Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep up your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them.
hobbitry n.	1954 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter 9 Sept. in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) 184 There is too much ‘hobbitry’ in Vol. I taken by itself; and several critics have obviously not got far beyond Chapter I.
primary world n.	1947 J. R. R. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 60 It seems fairly clear that Lang was using belief in its ordinary sense: belief that a thing exists or can happen in the real (primary) world.
primary world n.	1947 J. R. R. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 67 I propose, therefore, to arrogate to myself the powers of Humpty-Dumpty, and to use Fantasy for this purpose: in a sense, that is, which combines with its older and higher use as an equivalent of Imagination the derived notions of 'unreality' (that is, of unlikeness to the Primary World), of freedom from the domination of observed 'fact', in short of the fantastic.
secondary world n.	1947 J. R. R. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 60 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.
secondary world n.	1947 J. R. R. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 68 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, an elvish craft.
sub-creation n.	1951 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) 145 It is, I suppose, fundamentally concerned with the problem of the relation of Art (and Sub-creation) and Primary Reality.
sub-creation n.	1956 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter 14 Jan. in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) 231 I am old enough (alas!) to take a dispassionate and scientific, properly so-called, interest in these matters, and cite myself simply because I am interested in mythological ‘invention’, and the mystery of literary creation (or sub-creation as I have elsewhere called it) and I am the most readily available corpus vile for experiment or observation.
sub-creation n.	1947 J. R. R. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 67 Art, the operative link between Imagination and the final result, Sub-creation.
sub-creation n.	1947 J. R. R. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 51 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.
sub-creator n.	1951 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) 145 It may become possessive, clinging to the things made as ‘its own’, the sub-creator wishes to be the Lord and God of his private creation.
sub-creator n.	1951 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) 194 The right to ‘freedom’ of the sub-creator is no guarantee among fallen men that it will not be used as wickedly as is Free Will.
sub-creator n.	1947 J. R. R. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to C. Williams 51 The story-maker proves a successful ‘sub-creator’. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter.