*tolkien. Andrew Lang lectures at St. Andrews, 1938.
In previous entries, I briefly mentioned primary and secondary worlds. In this entry, I will quote from Tolkien’s lecture “On Fairy Stories,” in which he develops these concepts. I will interpret them and attempt to establish their relationship to worldbuilding and architecture.
faerie begins
Allow me to begin with a quote:
“When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter’s power… new form is made; Faerie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator.”
From this quote, we can infer that Tolkien believed the moment a man is able to abstract the materials of the real world and rearrange them, he gains the power to build an unreal world. This unreal/fictional world is dependent on the materials of the real world, which is why he argues that the real world must come first. In other words, the real world can also be called the primary world, and the unreal/fictional world the secondary world. However, Tolkien might object to my simplification here and say: the secondary world is not actually “unreal”, it is a world with its own reality.
Well, if Faerie (Secondary World) begins when a man becomes a sub-creator, when does the visitor to such a land become the dweller?
Tolkien answers this question with a new concept: secondary belief. If a fictional world is successful, the moment the visitor enters, that visitor builds secondary beliefs within it. How lasting those secondary beliefs are depends on the success and internal consistency of the fictional world. The moment a secondary world achieves this, the visitor becomes a dweller.
the green sun
“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, a kind of elvish craft.”
This gives rise to another question in my mind:
If a visitor can become a dweller in a well-designed secondary world, can a dweller become a visitor in his own home?
This question forces us to draw a relationship between the spaces we inhabit and secondary worlds. Within this relationship, the definition of the architect shifts: space-makers become sub-creators. But this sub-creation is slightly different from Tolkien’s secondary worlds, because spaces cannot be completed without their users, their dwellers. I would say a space succeeds when it manages to become a secondary world and turn its dweller into a visitor. And I believe the path to this success lies in the sub-creator’s ability to produce spaces that shift with their users and with time.
a bag of holding 