In J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-stories,” he lays out the concepts of primary and secondary worlds, and how storytellers are effectively “sub-creators,” taking elements from the primary world and using those to construct new, secondary worlds in which readers, while they are reading, can have a belief similar to that which they have in the primary (or “real”) world.
Following along from Tolkien’s ideas, I believe that one of the fundamental functions of literature, especially fantasy literature, is to give us a sense of wonder not only in the secondary worlds created by authors but also in the primary world in which we live.
