(n.) A detailed, prolonged, and imaginary world created by a child that includes humans, animals, or alien creatures. Can have a definite geography, language, and history.
pronunciation | \per-o-‘koz-m\
Illustration by Jessie Wilcox Smith via Wikimedia Commons.
Examples of paracosm:
- Middle-earth, the highly detailed fantasy world created by J.R.R. Tolkien, as expressed in his novels The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Tolkien had been inventing languages since his teen years, only later imagining the people who spoke them or their environment.
- Gondal, Angria, and Gaaldine, the fantasy kingdoms created and written about in childhood by Emily, Anne, and Charlotte Brontë and their brother, Branwell, and maintained well into adulthood. These kingdoms are specifically referred to as paracosms in several academic works.
- As children, novelist C. S. Lewis and his brother, Warren, together created a paracosm called Boxen, which was in turn a combination of their respective private paracosms Animal-Land and India. Lewis later drew upon Animal-Land to create the fantasy land of Narnia, which he wrote about in The Chronicles of Narnia.
- Hogwarts, invented by J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books.
- Terabithia, the imaginary kingdom invented by author Katherine Patterson, in her beloved novel Bridge to Terabithia.
- Never Land, from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.
- Wonderland, from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Well, I could go and on, but what’s your favorite paracosm? And did you have your own that followed you into adulthood?
