View source for Paracosm

{{About|imagination|the album by Washed Out|Paracosm (album)}}
{{short description|Detailed imaginary world}}
[[File:Gondal Poems.jpg|thumb|250px|Manuscript by [[Emily Brontë]] that contains poems about [[Gondal (fictional country)|Gondal]], a paracosm]]

A '''paracosm''' is a detailed [[Fictional universe|imaginary world]] thought generally to originate in childhood. The creator of a paracosm has a complex and deeply felt relationship with this subjective universe, which may incorporate real-world or imaginary characters and conventions. Commonly having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is often developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time, months or even years, as a sophisticated reality that can last into adulthood.<ref name="petrella">{{cite web |first=Kristin |last=Petrella |url=http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1440&context=honors_capstone |title=A Crucial Juncture: The Paracosmic Approach to the Private Worlds of Lewis Carroll and the Brontës |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160915041955/http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1440&context=honors_capstone |archive-date=2016-09-15 |website=Surface, [[Syracuse University]] Honors Program, Spring |date=2009-05-01 |format=PDF}}</ref>

== Origin and usage ==
The concept was first described by Robert Silvey, with later research by British psychiatrist Stephen A. MacKeith and British [[psychologist]] David Cohen. The term "paracosm" was coined by Ben Vincent, a participant in Silvey's 1976 study and a self-professed paracosmist.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=The Paracosm: a special form of fantasy |editor-last=Morrison |editor-first=Delmont C. |title=Organizing Early Experience: Imagination and cognition in Childhood |location=New York |publisher=Baywood |date=1998}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=David |last1=Cohen |author1-link=David Cohen (writer) |first2=Stephen |last2=MacKeith |title=The Development of Imagination: The Private Worlds of Childhood |series=Concepts in Developmental Psychology |publisher=Routledge |date=1992}}</ref><ref name="alexander">{{cite book |first=Christine |last=Alexander |chapter=Playing the author: children's creative writing, paracosms and the construction of family magazines |editor1-first=Kate |editor1-last=Darian-Smith |editor2-first=Carla |editor2-last=Pascoe |title=Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2013}}</ref>

Psychiatrists Delmont Morrison and Shirley Morrison mention paracosms and "paracosmic fantasy" in their book ''Memories of Loss and Dreams of Perfection'', in the context of people who have suffered the death of a loved one or some other tragedy in childhood. For such people, paracosms function as a way of processing and understanding their early loss.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Morrison |first1=Delmont C. |last2=Morrison |first2=Shirley L. |title=Memories of Loss and Dreams of Perfection: Unsuccessful Childhood Grieving and Adult Creativity |publisher=Baywood |date=2005 |isbn=0-89503-309-7}}</ref> They cite [[J. M. Barrie]], [[Isak Dinesen]] and [[Emily Brontë]] as examples of people who created paracosms after the deaths of family members.

Marjorie Taylor is another child development psychologist who explores paracosms as part of a study on [[imaginary friend]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Marjorie |title=Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2001 |isbn=0-19-514629-8}}</ref> In [[Adam Gopnik]]'s essay "Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli", he consults his sister, a child psychologist, about his three-year-old daughter's imaginary friend. He is introduced to Taylor's ideas and told that children invent paracosms as a way of orienting themselves in reality.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gopnik |first=Adam |author-link=Adam Gopnik |chapter=Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli: A Theory of Busyness, and Its Hero |title=The Best American Magazine Writing 2003 |editor=The American Society of Magazine Editors |publisher=Harper Perennial |date=2003 |page=251}} Originally appeared in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' on September 30, 2002, and also found in Gopnik's collection of autobiographical essays, ''Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York''. Vintage Canada, 2007. {{ISBN|1-4000-7575-0}}.</ref> Similarly, creativity scholar Michele Root-Bernstein discusses her daughter's invention of an imaginary world, one that lasted for over a decade, in the 2014 book, ''Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity''.<ref>Root-Bernstein, Michele (2014). ''Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences''. [[Rowman & Littlefield]]. {{ISBN|978-1-4758-0979-4}}.</ref>

Paracosms are also mentioned in articles about types of childhood creativity and problem-solving. Some scholars believe paracosm play indicates high intelligence. A Michigan State University study undertaken by Root-Bernstein revealed that many [[MacArthur Fellows Program]] recipients had paracosms as children, thus engaging in what she calls worldplay. Sampled MacArthur Fellows were twice as likely to have engaged in childhood worldplay than MSU undergraduates. They were also significantly more likely than MSU students to recognize aspects of worldplay in their adult professional work.<ref>Root-Bernstein, M. & Root-Bernstein, R. (2006). "Imaginary Worldplay in Childhood and Maturity and Its Impact on Adult Creativity". ''Creativity Research Journal'', 18(4): 405–425.</ref> Paracosm play is recognized as one of the indicators of a high level of creativity, which educators now realize is as important as intelligence.<ref>Po Bronson and Ashley Merrin (10 July 2010). [http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html "The Creativity Crisis"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100821150145/http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html |date=2010-08-21 }}. ''[[Newsweek]]''. Retrieved 20 August 2010.</ref> 

In an article in the ''International Handbook on Giftedness'', Root-Bernstein writes about paracosm play in childhood as an indicator of considerable creative potential, which may "supplement objective measures of intellectual giftedness ... as well as subjective measures of superior technical talent."<ref>Root-Bernstein, Michele (2009). "Imaginary Worldplay as an Indicator of Creative Giftedness". In Larissa Shavinina, ed. ''International Handbook on Giftedness''. Springer.</ref> There is a chapter on paracosm play in the 2013 textbook ''Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage'', written by Christine Alexander. She sees it, along with independent writing, as attempts by children to create [[Agency (sociology)|agency]] for themselves.<ref name="alexander"/>

Paracosms are one of the subjects of interest to the emerging field of literary [[juvenilia]], studying the childhood writings of well-known and lesser-known authors. Joetta Harty in her essay "Imagining the Nation, Imagining an Empire: A Tour of Nineteenth-Century British Paracosms" contextualizes the paracosms of 19th-century British children, including the [[Brontë family]], [[Thomas De Quincey]]'s Gombroon and [[Hartley Coleridge]]'s Ejuxria, with then-current events. Nike Sulway in {{"'}}A Date with Barbara': Paracosms of the Self in Biographies of Barbara Newhall Follett" explores adult reaction to [[Child prodigy|children perceived as prodigies or geniuses]], focusing on how their biographies often focus on their imaginations and paracosmic creations rather than on their daily lives, citing as an example adult reactions to child author [[Barbara Newhall Follett]].<ref>Nike Sulway, {{"'}}A Date with Barbara: Paracosms of the Self in Biographies of Barbara Newhall Follett". In Dallas John Baker, Donna Lee Brien and Nike Sulway, eds., ''Recovering History through Fact and Fiction: Forgotten Lives''. Cambridge Scholars, 2017.</ref><ref>David Owen and Lesley Peterson, eds. (2016). ''Home and Away: The Place of the Child Writer''. Cambridge Scholars.</ref> In ''Virtual Play and the Victorian Novel'', Timothy Gao focuses on "paracosmic play or worldplay" on the part of De Quincey, Coleridge, Charlotte Brontë, [[Anna Jameson]], [[Benjamin Heath Malkin|Thomas Malkin]] and [[Anthony Trollope]].<ref>Timothy Gao (April 2021). [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/virtual-play-and-the-victorian-novel/9D560160DC7E1A6F06C22421810D6C39 ''Virtual Play and the Victorian Novel: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Fictional Experience'']. Cambridge University Press.</ref>

== Examples ==
[[File:Narnian.world.map.jpg|thumb|400px|An artist's map of [[Narnia]]]]
Examples of paracosms include:

* The [[Pandoran biosphere|world of Pandora]] in the science fiction epic [[Avatar (2009 film)|Avatar]] was first dreamed of by [[James Cameron]] in his early teens and added to over the course of his life. Not until the technology was possible in the late 2000s did he finally start production on it.
* [[Gondal (fictional country)|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.<ref name="petrella"/><ref>Diane Long Hoeveler, Deborah Denenholz Morse, eds., ''A Companion to the Brontës''. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.</ref><ref>Emily Brontë, ''Gondal Poems''. 1973 by Folcroft Library Editions.</ref><ref>Emily Brontë, ''Gondal's Queen, A Novel in Verse''. Edited by Fannie Ratchford. University of Texas Press, 1955.</ref><ref>Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford, ''Legends of Angria''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933.</ref><ref>Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford, ''The Brontes' Web of Childhood''. Columbia University Press, 1941.</ref>
* Pamela Russell, Head of Education and Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programs for the [[Mead Art Museum]] at [[Amherst College]], specifically uses the word "paracosm" in describing the imaginary world created by [[Goshen, New Hampshire]] teens Walter, Arthur and Elmer Nelson in the 1890s and chronicled in a collection of miniature books.<ref>Rebecca Onion. [https://www.ats.amherst.edu/childhood/ ''Archives of Childhood: The Worlds and Works of the Nelson Brothers'']. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160404084634/https://www.ats.amherst.edu/childhood/ |date=2016-04-04 }}.</ref><ref>[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2015/05/nelson_archive_at_amherst_a_one_of_a_kind_trove_reveals_what_rural_19th.html "Boyhood"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160715234711/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2015/05/nelson_archive_at_amherst_a_one_of_a_kind_trove_reveals_what_rural_19th.html |date=2016-07-15 }}. ''Slate'', 28 May 2015.</ref>
* K.C. Remington has written over twenty books in the ''Webbster and Button Children's Stories'' series, set in a paracosm called the Big Green Woods.<ref>[http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/KCRemington K.C. Remington] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180718174411/https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/KCRemington |date=2018-07-18 }}, profile at Smashwords e-book site, with a bibliography.</ref>
* [[Hartley Coleridge]] created and maintained the land of Ejuxria all his life.<ref>Andrew Keanie, ''Hartley Coleridge: A Reassessment of His Life and Work.'' Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.</ref>
*[[Austin Tappan Wright]]'s ''[[Islandia (novel)|Islandia]]'' began as a childhood paracosm.
*[[M. A. R. Barker]] began developing [[Tékumel]] at age ten.
*[[Ed Greenwood]] (born 1959) began writing stories about the [[Forgotten Realms]] as a child, starting around 1967; they were his "dream space for swords and sorcery stories".<ref name="30 Years">[[Steve Winter|Winter, Steve]]; [[Ed Greenwood|Greenwood, Ed]]; [[Jeff Grubb|Grubb, Jeff]]. ''[[30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons]]'', pages 74–87. ([[Wizards of the Coast]], 2004).</ref>
* Borovnia and the "Fourth World", created by [[Juliet Hulme]] and [[Pauline Parker]] in their mid-teens, as portrayed in the film ''[[Heavenly Creatures]]''.<ref>[http://www.adamabrams.com/hc/ "The Fourth World"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170701120351/http://www.adamabrams.com/hc/ |date=2017-07-01 }}.</ref>
* The modern fantasy author [[Steph Swainston]]'s world of ''the Fourlands'' originated as an early childhood paracosm.<ref>[http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/swainston_interview/ "Dangerous Offspring: An Interview with Steph Swainston"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140225185839/http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/swainston_interview/ |date=2014-02-25 }}. ''[[Clarkesworld Magazine]]''. October 2007.</ref>
* [[Henry Darger]] began writing about the Realms of the Unreal in his late teens and continued to write and illustrate it for decades.
* [[Joanne Greenberg]] created a paracosm called Iria as a young girl, and described it to [[Frieda Fromm-Reichmann]] while hospitalized at [[Chestnut Lodge]]. Fromm-Reichmann wrote about it in an article for the ''American Journal of Psychiatry'';<ref>Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda (December 1954). "Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia". ''American Journal of Psychiatry'' 111:410–418.</ref> Greenberg wrote about it as the Kingdom of Yr in her novel ''[[I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (novel)|I Never Promised You a Rose Garden]]''.<ref>Greenberg, Joanne, ''I Never Promised You a Rose Garden''. {{ISBN|0-8124-1588-4}}.</ref>
* As children, novelist [[C. S. Lewis]] and his brother [[Warren Lewis|Warren]] together created a paracosm called [[Boxen (C. S. Lewis)|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 (world)|Narnia]], the setting of ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]''.<ref>Lewis, Clive Staples (1956). ''Surprised By Joy: The Shape of My Early Life''. Harcourt Brace & Company. {{ISBN|0-15-687011-8}}.</ref>
* The documentary film ''[[Marwencol (film)|Marwencol]]'' centres on an [[Marwencol (art installation)|imaginary town]] created by artist Mark Hogancamp as a kind of therapy for trauma and brain injury brought about by a violent assault.
* Artist [[Renaldo Kuhler]] invented a fictional country called Rocaterrania as a teenager, and continued creating and illustrating it for the rest of his life.
* Additional paracosmists are listed in Michele Root-Bernstein's{{who?|date=January 2025}} ''Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences'' in 2014, and on the related website, ''Inventing Imaginary Worlds''.{{importance inline|date=January 2025}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Presley |first=Ed |title=Inventing Imaginary Worlds |url=https://inventingimaginaryworlds.com/ |website=Inventing Imaginary Worlds}}</ref>

== See also ==
* {{annotated link|Fantasy-prone personality}}
* {{annotated link|Fantasy (psychology)}}
* {{annotated link|Fantasy world}}
* {{annotated link|Fictional universe}}
* {{annotated link|Hyperphantasia}}
* {{annotated link|Imagination}}
* {{annotated link|Maladaptive daydreaming}}
* {{annotated link|Method of loci}}
* {{annotated link|Mythopoeia#Subcreation|Subcreation}}
* {{annotated link|Worldbuilding}}

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}

== External links ==
{{Wiktionary}}

*Francis Jacox, [https://books.google.com/books?id=-J0rAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA310 Ejuxria and Gombroon: Glimpses of Day-Dreamland]. 1871 essay discusses many paracosms created by people who later became writers, although he never uses the word.
*Elizabeth Knox, [http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Ba01Spo-_div1-N11E84.html Origins, Authority, and Imaginary Games] discusses the creative process as paracosms evolve into adulthood.
*Sarah Knox, [http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Ba07Spo-_N80169.html?iframe=true&width=80%&height=80% Identity, Inclination and Imaginary Games] is a response to Elizabeth's essay.

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