Source: Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, p. 89
Context: But why,' (some ask), 'why, if you have a serious comment to make on the real life of men, must you do it by talking about a phantasmagoric never-never land of your own?' Because, I take it, one of the main things the author wants to say is that the real life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality. One can see the principle at work in his characterization. Much that in a realistic work would be done by 'character delineation' is here done simply by making the character an elf, a dwarf, or a hobbit. The imagined beings have their insides on the outside; they are visible souls. And Man as a whole, Man pitted against the universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?
“But we have seen it in the air,
A fairy like a William Pear”
Poem O Here it is
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Mervyn Peake 91
English writer, artist, poet and illustrator 1911–1968Related quotes
Source: The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
remark in a conversation with the writer Moore, ca. 1875; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 117
1855 - 1875
“A Verse Chronicle”, pp. 157–158
Poetry and the Age (1953)
“I could peel you like a pear and god himself would see the justice in it.”
As quoted in The 100 Greatest Heroes (2003) p. 60 by Harry Paul Jeffers
2000s
Scottish Folklore and Opera (1992).