Faërie (term)

Aside from being a name for Eldamar in Tolkien's mythology, faërie or faery is an archaic and scholarly term originating in 1590 A.D."Fairie" entry at Wiktionary that can refer to "fairy-land", figuratively or in general, to fairies themselves from folklore, or to a concept of fantastical storytelling.
== Relevance ==
=== As a location ===
Main article: Eldamar
In the folklore of the hobbits of Middle-earth, "Faerie" was the land of the Elves across the Sea. This reference can be seen in "Flies and Spiders", the eighth chapter of The Hobbit, and also in "Errantry"The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, 3. "Errantry", a poem written by Bilbo Baggins.
In the real-world Middle English tale Sir Orfeo, "Faerie" was the name of the fairy king's realm.
=== As a concept ===
When discussing fairy-tales, J.R.R. Tolkien explained his own use of the word:
This usage of "Faerie" as a proper noun appears forty times in "On Fairy-Stories".
In literature of Tolkien scholarship, this connotation of "faerie" is often examined and employed. In 1997, Verlyn Flieger wrote the scholarly book A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien's Road to Faërie. Like Tolkien's essay, it deals with the term's contexts and meaning. Later, Flieger also authored Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien. In 2017, Jonathan S. McIntosh wrote The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faërie, which studies the relations between Tolkien's philosophical views and his literary achievement.
Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey explains Tolkien's seminal explorations of Faërie in his introduction to Tales from the Perilous Realm, the collection of Tolkien's classic short stories.
Throughout Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth, John Garth uses the term Faërie frequently, mostly in broad conclusions drawn about the relation between Tolkien's experiences and his legendarium.
When discussing Elves and their likeness to angels, Peter Kreeft in The Philosophy of Tolkien cites Tolkien's statements that "Faërian Drama...", which the Elves frequently presented to Men, "produces Fantasy with a realism and immediacy beyond the compass of any human mechanism", and that fantasy "aspires" to the Elvish craft of enchantment. Kreeft contends that The Lord of the Rings is classifiable as a Faërian Drama.
== References ==
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Category:Concepts & principles
Category:Disambiguation
Category:Real world terms