C.S. Lewis vs. J.R.R. Tolkien on Sub-Created Worlds
Should We Pull Historical Items From Primary Reality for Our Secondary Worlds?
I’m researching for a video I’m making on my new science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy YouTube channel called Truth Suffers. Specifically, I’m researching for a video on C.S. Lewis’s science fiction novel, Out of the Silent Planet. This morning I was reading Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy by David Downing, I was reminded of a difference of opinion between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien on the nature of the furniture in sub-created secondary worlds. Sub-creation was a theme that Tolkien expounded in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” where he argues that “…[humans] make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”[1] So, we can only ever be sub-creators in that we cannot ever create anything whole cloth like God did. But we are made in the image of God, the supreme Creator, and thus it is in our nature to create under Him, that is, to ‘sub-create’.
We can’t invent the idea of a world, God has already done that and given us real worlds to live on and to study. But we can sub-create fictional worlds in our fantasy stories. He used His Word and time and space to create the worlds where His stories take place; we use our words and pens and paper (or keys and pixels) to create the worlds where our stories take place. We can’t create the idea of an animal, God’s already done that and given us many examples, but we can slap a couple of his animals together and create a unicorn. So, we are created, at least in part, to be sub-creators and for Tolkien, that’s why “Fantasy remains a human right”.[2]
But in our sub-created worlds and stories of those worlds, how much of the ‘primary’ world ought we let in? How much furniture from God’s world should we use? Is it good to use God’s flesh and blood characters—historical people—in our fictions? Tolkien says no, Lewis says gimme, gimme, gimme!
(I think I remember Tolkien explaining his views on this somewhere but I can’t remember if it’s in “On Fairy-Stories” or in a letter to a publisher where he expounds on the Silmarillion (or somewhere else!) and I don’t want to go searching for it right now so let me just quote David Downing at length and take his word for it for now)
Lewis’s stress on the connectedness of his fictional world and our won world contrasts sharply with the theory and practice of his good friend J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien believed that the highest calling of the fiction writer—especially the fantasy writer—was subcreation, the imaginative creation of secondary worlds independent of the primary world in which the author lived. As a devout Roman Catholic, Tolkien viewed subcreation as a form of worship, a way for creatures to express the divine image in them by becoming creators; in over 1,500 pages of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien studiously avoids any literary or historical allusions that would draw readers away from his fictive world and make them think of their own. Lewis subscribed in theory to Tolkien’s doctrine of subcreation, but in practice his fantasies always underscore the interpenetration of his secondary worlds and our primary world. Throughout the Ransom trilogy (as well as the Narnia chronicles), Lewis’s strategy is to make readers sense that his fantasy world is more real than they might have supposed—and that their “real world” is more filled with the fantastic than they might have supposed.[3]
So, Downing doesn’t give any citations for this contention about Tolkien but he does base his argument on a careful read of the 1,500 pages of LOTR. I think I remember Tolkien being explicit about his intentional refraining from adding primary world time-bound artefacts like people and places, into his secondary worlds but I don’t have time to test this hunch right now. If I’m wrong and Tolkien isn’t explicit, we still have Downing’s argument and it’s pretty good. Tolkien does not steal historical objects from our primary world history to use in his fairy stories—though… he did steal the Ring of Gyges from Plato’s Republic and transmogrified it into Sauron’s Ring of Power—but that’s a post for another time.
C.S. Lewis, on the other hand, hilariously grabs things from the primary world and injects them right into the central plot of his stories. There are lots of fun examples in Narnia, but two of my favorites are in Out of the Silent Planet. Lewis injects HIMSELF into the story as the author of the story in the story. I love thinking of this move as a joke on Tolkien:
“Oh? We’re created to sub-create by the all-creating Creator of creation? How about I create a world super similar to ours, with our own planet, our own solar system, Plato’s psychology, and medieval Christian theology, but best of all, in that world, I’m the author of the story. Yeah, I’m telling the story in the story! So, I’m out here in the primary world writing the story, but I’m also going to write myself into the secondary world as the author of Out of the Silent Planet there too. Oh, and you’re coming with, Tolkien. I won’t use your name, but my main character is called Elwin (friend of elves) Ransom and he’s a philologist just like you but I made him work at Cambridge instead of Oxford. Lol kEeP yOuR WoRlDs SePaRaTe. Nah, I’m going in and you’re coming with me.”
So, that’s it. Just a funny thought I had about these two friends who were so uniquely gifted and so different in their philosophy of fiction. I tend to side more with Lewis on this, but that’s probably because I like SF more than fantasy and SF usually has to grab stuff from our world in order to do its job right (which I take to be largely a prophetic job (not of prognostication but more like OT prophetic job of warning people to change their course or else)). With that said, Pierce Brown dragged in a “bye Felicia” into his third book in the Red Rising series and it almost ruined his whole world for me. So even if we’re going to follow Lewis, do so with care.
[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories” in Tree and Leaf (London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001), 56.
[2] Ibid.
[3] David Downing, Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), 47.
Great article. Two observations I'd like to share: It strikes me as interesting how Tolkien views imitating his creator as an act of worship as a Roman Catholic, while the same thing would be considered heretical in Islam. Reminds me of the debate in the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar, who patronised painting which is considered as a sin in Islam for same reasons, and his reasoning was that paintings are a testimony to God's majesty, because you can create them but not infuse the life-breath into them.
Also, about the point that there are not (a lot of) directly taken tropes from the real world, I remember someone quoting an interview of Tolkien wherein he's asked if there's Christianity in the LoTR, and he replied with, "It's everywhere in the book" or something. Cultural Critic made a great post about how Christ is depicted in parts through several characters, rather than a single Christ-like figure.
Wonderful article. Echoes a ton of the stuff I’ve been reading about for years— gotta love it when you come across other people who have read this stuff and think like this!
Actually, my real name is Ransom. I was named after Dr. Ransom from Lewis’ Trilogy. Since then my name has proven prophetic. Both CS Lewis and the Ransom Trilogy (and the good Prof. Tolkien, of course!) have become key inspirations for my own (sub)creative works, not to mention my faith and life philosophy.
Specifically bringing fantasy magic into sci-fi space has become my passion. Check out “The Starfarer Tales” on my publication if you’re interested in that sorta thing! Think… The Ransom Trilogy x Cowboy Bebop x D&D.
I discovered your Substack through your YouTube channel, and I gotta say thanks for all that you write and do. My own journaling, reading, writing, and philosophy have all been bettered for having followed your work!