One thing that I really enjoyed about the readings for this class was the Big Fish readings by J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis on the importance of myths/fairytales. As someone who loves their work, I was really interested to see their full pint of view on the kinds of sties that they wrote and why they thought of them as important. I also thought they were interesting because, either directly or indirectly, they were explaining how andy why they put Christian subtexts into their fictional, fantastic worlds and stories.
Looking at the background of Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories," I find it to be interesting how he presented this essay ten years after he wrote The Hobbit but ten years before he would publish The Lord of the Rings, in addition to the subject of the essay being that fairy stories should be taken seriously as a genre. Some literary critics believe it was this essay that created a push for him to write Lord of the Rings and explore the world he created in The Hobbit. I agree with Tolkien that fairytales should be taken seriously as a serious literary medium because they have lasting influence on the children who hear those stories.
I enjoyed Lewis' "Myth Became Fact" because of its focus on how physical words-on-paper can become unique metaphysical creations for every person who reads or hears the myth. I think this is why epic stories like Narnia or Lord of the Rings stay popular; while every person hears the same story, they get the "innumerable small truths" that are unique to them that they love about the stories. I know that for me, when I talk to my friends about stories that we all love, we love the same things in different ways or for different reasons. I think it's interesting to see how loving the same reality with different small truths is an interesting way to not only understand the myth or story better, but to understand the person better as well.
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