In six pages this paper discusses the evolution of the imaginative literary style that has become J.R.R. Tolkien's trademark. Six sources are cited in the bibliography.
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extraordinary fabrications was the inability of early writers to distinguish between truth and fantasy. As the stories were passed down through generations, they eventually became accepted as the legends
we know today. The younger years of one of mythological literatures most beloved writers - J.R.R. Tolkien - served to greatly impact this imaginative style; however, the author did
not fully grasp his unique talent until the 1930s when he worked and reworked The Hobbit and ultimately came up with new ideas of mythological literature in the essay "On
Fairy Stories." By this time Tolkien had come to realize that fantasy stories "were plainly not primarily concerned with possibility, but with desirability" (Suvin 209). "The realm of
fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an
enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness
and strangeness tie the tongue of the traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the
gate should be shut and the keys be lost" (Tolkien PG). In exacting style, Tolkien - the "Great Ancestor of Fantasy theory"
(Suvin 209) -- sought to effectively combine the values of reality and fantasy -- as well as superstition and mythology -- in such a manner as to establish them as
one. That is, after all, the ultimate notion of the authors imaginary style: to make the unreal appear as though it were completely acceptable in an otherwise rational world.