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George MacDonald: The Forgotten Father of Modern Fantasy Literature

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George MacDonald had a colossal impact on some of the most brilliant early-20th-century writers, including C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien. He was a Scottish minister, poet, and fairytale writer, but today, much of his work has been abandoned. It’s time to shake the dust from MacDonald’s magical and redemptive works, many of which could act as literary lanterns to navigate a world that appears to be getting more cynical and fatalistic by the day.

MacDonald is generally considered the father of modern fantasy writing. Any writer who managed to have such a profound creative impact on the likes of Lewis and Tolkien seems well-deserving of that title. But it was not just the general influence of these two fantasy luminaries that secured MacDonald’s place as a literary pillar. It was also said that he acted as Lewis Carroll’s mentor while Carroll was writing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The tale goes that Carroll was motivated to submit his story for publication after MacDonald’s several children expressed excitement and wonder upon reading it.

There are many admirable elements of MacDonald’s fiction writing, especially his fairytales, but perhaps the pinnacle of his powers is his ability to combine flights of fancy with the themes of God and redemption. MacDonald’s conception of God grounds itself strongly on 1 John 4:8, where it states that “God is love.” And this love is not conditional. It does not depend upon the right actions of an individual. Rather, MacDonald believed that God’s love is so profound and penetrating that it will ultimately melt the stone of even the most callous and unbelieving hearts.

This part of MacDonald’s theology echoes Gregory of Nyssa, who, commenting on 1 Corinthians, said:

What is then the scope of St. Paul’s argument in this place? That the nature of evil shall one day be wholly exterminated, and divine, immortal goodness embrace within itself all intelligent natures; so that of all who were made by God, not one shall be exiled from his kingdom; when all the mixtures of evil that like a corrupt matter is mingled in things, shall be dissolved, and consumed in the furnace of purifying fire, and everything that had its origin from God shall be restored to its pristine state of purity.

MacDonald’s theological and literary thought springs from his denial of his Calvinist upbringing, which he characterized as “horrible religious education of which I for one was a victim.” He said that during his early education, “God was not light, [and] bands of fearful falsehood were drawn across the glory of His radiance. It was a lie against God.” MacDonald aimed to reveal, through the fairytale, the true nature of God as both light and love, which—to MacDonald—were not so clear in his upbringing.

With this in view, MacDonald wrote his fairytales. In his short essay, “The Fantastic Imagination,” MacDonald explained that these fairytales do not deal with fairies, or, at least, they don’t not have to. They can feature all sorts of different creatures, peoples, and places. He continued by suggesting that a fairytale cannot easily be defined. Rather, the fairytale is a genre that one comes to know and understand by experiencing its charm. The foundation on which a fairytale is created stems from the human heart’s desire and wish to create something more fantastic and beautiful than, say, a realist novel.

But there is one element of the real world that must not be tampered with in the fairytale, according to MacDonald, and that is law. MacDonald wrote:

The natural world has its laws, and no man must interfere with them in the way of presentment any more than in the way of use; but they themselves may suggest laws of other kinds, and man may, if he pleases, invent a little world of his own, with its own laws; for there is that in him which delights in calling up new forms—which is the nearest, perhaps, he can come to creation.

In other words, fairytales must act, internally, according to the laws that they have set. This increases the grandeur and realism of the fairytale world, allowing the reader to more effectively enter mythical “reality.”

The Scottish writer’s philosophy on the nature of God and the fairytale later manifested in the works of Lewis and Tolkien, who both entwined their flights of fancy with theology to create some of the greatest fantasy works in history. While MacDonald was not successful in passing on his conception of a universally reconciled creation to Lewis and Tolkien, he certainly left his mark on the world of fantasy writing.

Many people tend to believe that fairytales and other fantasy stories are merely for children, but that is not so. In fact, MacDonald once said, “I write, not for children, but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.” Indeed, his writing offers a unique blend of fantastic worlds and spiritual vitality. And we desperately need both in these darkened times.

Image credit: Pexels (mountains); public domain (Chesterton); public domain (Lewis)