STUDENT ESSAY
swords against an enemy that is not of our imagination . We must be strong . For we are called to be more than conquerors . This is the vision of a child when he imagines a dragon or an enemy twice as large as himself . His sword may be plastic and His dragon in his mind , but his vision is courage —“ be strong .” His fight may be a lie in that it is not “ real ,” but truth runs through the unreality : we are called to be conquerors . In this way , as Chesterton said , “ Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist . Children already know that dragons exist . Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed .” 4
Imagination , therefore , is not just an idea in the mind . It is an ideal . It is the pursuit of something beyond ourselves . We are called to have ideals ( the child should imagine a house from a table ), but here we must make a distinction . For , although we are called to have ideals , we aren ’ t called to live in our ideals . Ideals are meant to be lived out , not lived in . Just as a child is not meant to live in a “ table-house ” forever , but is supposed to grow up and get a real house , so it is with our imagination . For , imagination is a vision , and that vision , if it is good , should become reality . 5 This is why
Imagination , therefore , is not just an idea in the mind . It is an ideal . It is the pursuit of something beyond ourselves .
it is said that we must nurture a child ’ s imagination , just as we would nurture and encourage their curiosity , their visions , their hopes , their dreams . As was said in lecture , “ after all , it was the tyrant Napoleon who hauntingly declared , ‘ Imagination rules the world ’ . . . Where there is no real moral imagination , itself a form of vision , the people will become captives of corrupt and corrupting forms of imagination , for while imagination as such may be an innate human capacity , it needs proper nurture and cultivation .” 6
The story of Don Quixote is an example of someone living in their ideal — their “ made up ” world . And again , as it was touched on before , madness is a theme . Everyone thinks Don Quixote is mad . But is he ? Is he messed up in his view of the world ? Or does his vision of the world declare some truth or ideal that should be strived and fought for ? Don Quixote lives in his imagination ; his world is one in which windmills are giants and prostitutes are high born and noble ladies . So he fights the windmills and honours the prostitutes . But there is truth to his madness , and profundity to the nonsense : for giants are to be fought and prostitutes are made to be noble . At the same time , there seems to be a problem with Don Quixote . His problem , though , is not that he imagines himself to be a Knight , nor is it that he desires to be a knight . To be a knight is a noble thing ( as , I believe , Cervantes wants to put forward in his story ). Don Quixote is revealing something that the modern world has forgotten or missed : that we are all knights of the highest king , the King of Kings , called to chivalry and nobility . This is our ideal , our aim , our goal . This is what we are called to . It is what we are . The chivalric code is anything but ridiculous . However , Don Quixote makes it so because he doesn ’ t understand that one can have an ideal , but unless you make the ideal reality it is but an idea in the mind , unborn and unrealized . But , some might say , Don Quixote is a knight . After all , he acquires the
4 G . K . Chesterton . Tremendous Trifles . ( London : Methuen , 1909 ), 102 .
5 It is important to note that there are ways in which one can make one ’ s ideal or vision reality that is not seeing the world correctly , or rightly .
6 Vigen Guroian , Rallying the Really Human Things : The Moral Imagination in Politics , Literature , and Everyday Life ( Wilmington , Del .: ISI Books , © 2005 ), 49-50 .
16 THE COMMONS