Creation
Creation is a theme that has enormous significance in this essay, as well as in Tolkien's view of literature as a whole. He believes that, as God brought us and the universe into existence through an act of creation, Creation is one of his essential characteristics. By engaging in acts of creation, humans participate in God's divine nature; since we, however, cannot create things ourselves, merely arranging and reorganizing things that have already been created, our creations reflect our status as created beings by becoming "sub-creations." Accordingly, Tolkien lauds creative acts as some of the most worthwhile humans can perform, especially fantasy, which he regards as the highest and purest form of Art.
Imagination
Imagination is one of the most essential and critical elements of a fairy-story. Being set in Faërie, a land of beauty and danger, Imagination is necessary both for the writer and for the reader when participating in this sort of fairy-story. Tolkien defines Imagination as being the intellectual faculty that allows a human to create mental images. Only when Art serves as the medium can Imagination find its final, solid form as Sub-creation, all of which contribute to the overall form Tolkien calls "Fantasy."
Fantasy
Tolkien appropriates the term "Fantasy" to refer to both "the Sub-creative Art in itself" and "a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image" (139), when describing the nature of Fantasy in relation to the creation of fairy-stories. In Tolkien's view, Fantasy is the highest and purest form of art, as it involves the creation of a completely separate Secondary World, an act of creation that parallels God's creation of the Primary World. This Secondary World must have a logic of inner consistency, and it must include some elements of Faërie; such a creation falls into the difficult-to-achieve category of "Fantasy" and thus qualifies as a beautiful act of creation and worship. This essay is primarily about fairy-stories, but Fantasy is a necessary element of these, so much of the essay is devoted to an exploration of Fantasy.
