sub-creation n.
J. R. R. Tolkien’s word for: the action or process of creating a fully realized and internally consistent imaginary or secondary world n.
SF Criticism
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1947
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J. R. R. Tolkien
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.
On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 51 -
1947
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J. R. R. Tolkien
Art, the operative link between Imagination and the final result, Sub-creation.
On Fairy-Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 67 -
1951
J. R. R. Tolkien
It is, I suppose, fundamentally concerned with the problem of the relation of Art (and Sub-creation) and Primary Reality.
Letter in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) 145 -
1956
J. R. R. Tolkien
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.
Letter 14 Jan. in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) 231 -
1974
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Jane Mobley
bibliography
To venture into this world the reader does not give up his experience of the Primary World entirely, for his own imagination participates in the sub-creation utilizing sensual experience and associations to make incarnate the words which create the Other World.
Toward a Definition of Fantasy Fiction in Extrapolation (vol. 15, no. 2) May 123 -
1990 Mythlore 63 8/1
This seems an appropriate moment to acknowledge my debt to…my son Ian for teaching me the difference between procreation and sub-creation.
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2005
Thus, in Tolkien’s view, there is a hierarchy of Creation. At the top is God, as Creator; then comes Creation,…finally there is subcreation, whereby man partakes of the image of the Creator through the gift of creativity.
Literary Giants, Literary Catholics iv. xxxii. 253 -
2015
Dimensions open up, speculation is invited, and what Tolkien called ‘sub-creation’ occurs: People begin to tell their own stories about him [sc. Sherlock Holmes].
in N.Y. Times 1 Nov. 10
Earliest cite
J.R.R. Tolkien, 'On Fairy-Stories'
Last modified 2021-02-09 04:41:46
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