Aparacosm is a detailedimaginary 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. It may continue over many months or even years, lasting into adulthood.[1]
The concept was first described by Robert Silvey, with later research by British psychiatrist Stephen A. MacKeith and Britishpsychologist David Cohen. The term "paracosm" was coined by Ben Vincent, a participant in Silvey's 1976 study and a self-professed paracosmist.[2][3][4]
Psychiatrists Delmont Morrison and Shirley Morrison mention paracosms and "paracosmic fantasy" in their bookMemories 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.[5] They citeJ. M. Barrie,Isak Dinesen andEmily 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 onimaginary friends.[6] InAdam 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.[7] 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.[8]
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 manyMacArthur 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.[9] Paracosm play is recognized as one of the indicators of a high level of creativity, which educators now realize is as important as intelligence.[10]
In an article in theInternational 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."[11] There is a chapter on paracosm play in the 2013 textbookChildren, Childhood and Cultural Heritage, written by Christine Alexander. She sees it, along with independent writing, as attempts by children to createagency for themselves.[4]
Paracosms are one of the subjects of interest to the emerging field of literaryjuvenilia, 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 theBrontë family,Thomas De Quincey's Gombroon andHartley 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 tochildren 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 authorBarbara Newhall Follett.[12][13] InVirtual Play and the Victorian Novel, Timothy Gao focuses on "paracosmic play or worldplay" on the part of De Quincey, Coleridge, Charlotte Brontë,Anna Jameson,Thomas Malkin andAnthony Trollope.[14]
Theworld of Pandora in the science fiction epicAvatar was first dreamed of byJames 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, Angria, and Gaaldine, the fantasy kingdoms created and written about in childhood by Emily, Anne, and CharlotteBrontë, and their brother Branwell, and maintained well into adulthood. These kingdoms are specifically referred to as paracosms in several academic works.[1][15][16][17][18][19]
Pamela Russell, Head of Education and Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programs for theMead Art Museum atAmherst College, specifically uses the word "paracosm" in describing the imaginary world created byGoshen, New Hampshire teens Walter, Arthur and Elmer Nelson in the 1890s and chronicled in a collection of miniature books.[20][21]
K. C. Remington has written over twenty books in theWebbster and Button Children's Stories series, set in a paracosm called the Big Green Woods.[22]
Ed Greenwood (born 1959) began writing stories about theForgotten Realms as a child, starting around 1967; they were his "dream space for swords and sorcery stories".[24]
As children, novelistC. S. Lewis and his brotherWarren together created a paracosm calledBoxen 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 ofNarnia, the setting ofThe Chronicles of Narnia.[29]
The documentary filmMarwencol centres on animaginary town created by artist Mark Hogancamp as a kind of therapy for trauma and brain injury brought about by a violent assault.
ArtistRenaldo 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?]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?][30]
^Morrison, Delmont C., ed. (1998). "The Paracosm: a special form of fantasy".Organizing Early Experience: Imagination and cognition in Childhood. New York: Baywood.
^Cohen, David; MacKeith, Stephen (1992).The Development of Imagination: The Private Worlds of Childhood. Concepts in Developmental Psychology. Routledge.
^abAlexander, Christine (2013). "Playing the author: children's creative writing, paracosms and the construction of family magazines". In Darian-Smith, Kate; Pascoe, Carla (eds.).Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage.Routledge.
^Morrison, Delmont C.; Morrison, Shirley L. (2005).Memories of Loss and Dreams of Perfection: Unsuccessful Childhood Grieving and Adult Creativity. Baywood.ISBN0-89503-309-7.
^Gopnik, Adam (2003). "Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli: A Theory of Busyness, and Its Hero". In The American Society of Magazine Editors (ed.).The Best American Magazine Writing 2003. Harper Perennial. p. 251.{{cite book}}:|editor= has generic name (help) Originally appeared inThe 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.ISBN1-4000-7575-0.
^Root-Bernstein, Michele (2014).Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences.Rowman & Littlefield.ISBN978-1-4758-0979-4.
^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.
^Root-Bernstein, Michele (2009). "Imaginary Worldplay as an Indicator of Creative Giftedness". In Larissa Shavinina, ed.International Handbook on Giftedness. Springer.
^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.
^David Owen and Lesley Peterson, eds. (2016).Home and Away: The Place of the Child Writer. Cambridge Scholars.
