Jeffrey Overstreet is one of my favorite film critics. Whether he is writing for JeffreyOverstreet.com or drafting his fantasy series Auralia’s Colors, he remains uncompromising. Every year, he draws fire for critiquing “Best Picture” nominees that happen to be wildly popular. His response to the “popularity equals quality” argument is a simple, rhetorical analogy: McDonald’s sells billions of burgers every day, but does that make them the best restaurant in the world?
Numbers are not a true litmus test for goodness. While art must connect with people, box office totals are not the standard for greatness. My other favorite critic, Steven D. Greydanus of Decent Films Guide, takes this a step further by evaluating movies as vehicles for both artistic and moral understanding.
Like these critics, I want to define “good” fantasy in terms of its essence, not its popularity. To do that, we must look for two major road signs: Symbolism and Transcendence.
1. Symbolism: The Language of the Wise Imagination
George MacDonald used the phrase “wise imagination” to describe an imagination that abides by a higher calling. He believed that symbols refute the reductive nature of rationalism by forcing us to look beyond the material world.
For MacDonald, symbols are not mere metaphors; they are conduits of spiritual truth. They allow us to approach the Divine through intuitive experience rather than “mere rationalism.” As he wrote in A Dish of Orts:
“The imagination is the light which redeems from the darkness for the eyes of understanding.”
Because fantasy deals in the fantastic, it requires symbolism. It asks the reader to accept truths that cannot be explained by a spreadsheet or a microscope. When we look for truth outside of purely rationalistic thought, we open ourselves to the second road sign.
2. Transcendence: Escaping Narcissistic Reading
I often tell my students that we must avoid becoming “narcissistic readers.” We should not judge a book’s truth based solely on our own narrow experiences. To do so is to be like the Fox in Aesop’s Fable; when he cannot reach the grapes, he simply proclaims them “sour.” If we reject a story’s truth simply because we don’t yet understand it, we are left with a very small view of the world.
MacDonald, influenced by Romantic thinkers like Wordsworth and Coleridge, saw Nature itself as a transcendent symbol pointing to the Divine. He believed the human imagination uses “forms already prepared for it” to put thought into form. Transcendence in fantasy is the admission that there is knowledge and experience existing far outside our own rational grasp.
Conclusion: Better Readers, Better People
The “goodness” of a story is found in its ability to make us not just better thinkers, but better people. In a world skeptical of moral absolutes, we must approach stories with joyful anticipation and critical minds.
Like Jeffrey Overstreet, we shouldn’t be afraid to demand more from our stories than just “popularity.” We should look for the symbols that point upward and the transcendence that pulls us out of ourselves. That is the hallmark of the Wise Imagination.
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