FROM SECONDARY WORLD TO POSSIBLE WORLD: WORLD-BUILDING AND READER PERCEPTION IN FANTASY LITERATURE
Keywords:
fantasy literature, Secondary World, Possible World, Tolkien, Marie-Laure Ryan, world-building, reader perception, cognitive poetics.Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between two important theoretical concepts in the study of fantasy literature: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Secondary World and Marie-Laure Ryan’s Possible World. Fantasy literature is based not only on magical elements, but also on the construction of coherent fictional realities that function according to their own internal laws. Tolkien’s concept of the Secondary World explains how the author creates an internally consistent fantasy world and encourages the reader’s secondary belief. Ryan’s possible worlds theory, on the other hand, explains how fictional texts construct alternative realities and how readers mentally reconstruct these realities during the process of reading. The paper compares these two concepts and argues that they represent two connected but different aspects of fantasy literature: authorial world-building and readerly reconstruction. The analysis shows that the Secondary World focuses mainly on the creative structure of the fantasy world, while the Possible World focuses on the semantic and cognitive perception of fictional reality. Therefore, studying these concepts together provides a deeper understanding of how fantasy literature creates, organizes, and communicates imagined worlds.
References
1. Tolkien, J. R. R. (1947). On Fairy-Stories. In C. S. Lewis (Ed.), Essays Presented to Charles Williams (pp. 38–89). Oxford University Press.
2. Ryan, M.-L. (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory. Indiana University Press.
3. Stockwell, P. (2002). Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. Routledge.
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5. Ryan, M.-L. (2012). Possible worlds. In P. Hühn et al. (Eds.), The Living Handbook of Narratology. University of Hamburg. Attebery, B. (1992). Strategies of Fantasy. Indiana University Press.
6. Useful for explaining fantasy as a literary mode and for connecting Tolkien’s ideas with modern fantasy studies. Attebery’s book discusses fantasy through authors such as Tolkien, Le Guin, and others.
7. Hume, K. (1984). Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature. Methuen.
8. Useful for explaining fantasy not only as a genre, but as a literary impulse that works together with mimesis.
9. Ronen, R. (1994). Possible Worlds in Literary Theory. Cambridge University Press.
Very useful for your Ryan section because it explains possible worlds, fictionality, and the ontology of fictional worlds.
10. Suvin, D. (1979). Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. Yale University Press.
11. Useful if you want to briefly connect fantasy and science fiction through the idea of alternative worlds and “cognitive estrangement.”
12. Mendlesohn, F. (2008). Rhetorics of Fantasy. Wesleyan University Press.
13. Useful for classifying fantasy narratives and explaining how readers enter fantasy worlds. This is especially helpful if you later expand the tezis into a full article.
14. Wolf, M. J. P. (2012). Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation. Routledge.
